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Padmé wasn’t sure what she was waiting around for. The cold of the night air to turn her into an icicle, the warmth of the fireplace to thaw her once more, or to just fall into a snow bank and be found the next day. She wasn’t sure what she was doing at all with her fingers wrapped around the champagne flute in her grasp while her eyes shot daggers at the man across the room. No. She wasn’t sure at all since this was… totally not like her.
And it wasn’t even like it was just any man. It was stupid Anakin. Stupid Anakin in all his perfect, beautiful dress attire she didn’t even know he owned. The cocky bastard had to know what he was doing each time he glanced up and made direct eye contact, his tongue moving quickly across his lip while he stared at her, before he’d be invested in some other conversation again.
This is idiotic.
Padmé wasn’t a desperate woman. She didn’t beg for attention. She’d rather go back to her plans about jumping into a snow bank, or waiting for the wind to turn her to a snowman. And yet…
She kept staring at that damn green sprig, wrapped in a little red ribbon with a small bell, hanging in the archway to the kitchen.
The bane of her existence, standing beneath another bane of her existence, while she watched at least 3 other women catch Anakin at just the right time. None of them made her blood boil quite like Miraj, however, when she all but pounced on the man in front of everyone.
That caused Padmé to excuse herself before the rosé empowered her to say something regrettable. Something uncouth. And unlike her. Something that would give Anakin that much more of a leg-up on her and the feelings she positively did not have for him.
She peered into the champagne flute like it had magically refilled itself, but knowing she’d been rightfully cut off after playing a dangerous drinking game with Ahsoka over every time a woman came to touch Anakin’s arm. Two sips if they wrapped an arm or their hand specifically around his bicep. Three if they physically threw themselves at him, or otherwise put most of their weight on his chest, leaning in and giving him the opportunity to look down their dress if he so chose.
Ugh.
Why the hell was Padmé even here? She was having a horrible time. Decidedly wanted to go home and call this whole holiday spirit crap off. She tugged at the bottom of the little black dress it was way too cold to be wearing, then pulling it up to cover her own cleavage—like someone that had more self preservation and better things to do than entertain the likes of Anakin Skywalker.
Sabé came over and leaned into her shoulder. Her best friend smelled so strongly of tequila and lime she wondered who was responsible for cutting her off before remembering that responsibility was hers. Prior, of course, to her ridiculous infatuation with the permanent thorn in her side who just would not stop smiling at her across the room.
“Why don’t you talk to him?” Sabé said, all of her words slurred into one long mumbled sound. “All you do is eyefuck each other. It’s gross. Get a room.”
“We do not. Or… I can’t speak for him or his boyish tendencies. But I’m not staring at him and definitely not fucking him in any way, shape, or form.”
Dormé slid around the bar table they were standing at, perching herself onto a stool. “Our mistake. Drooling over the thought of him then? Glancing at the mistletoe every twelve seconds, and probably fantasying in every other second…”
“You two—” She pointed at the both of them. “Are disgusting.”
Sabé nudged her in her back, ducking off again and it wasn’t clear to her why until she took an opportunity to look up. Tall, tan, handsome…
“Hello, Skywalker.”
“Hey, Naberrie?” He shot back, a look of confusion coloring his face.
“Can I help you with something?”
He leaned onto the table top, setting his whiskey glass between his hands and tapping his fingertips against the glass. His bottom lip jutted out as he shrugged. “Just… The lay of the land.”
The lay of the land… Sounds like a euphemism for himself if she’d ever heard one. But that seemed arrogant even for Anakin.
“You know. The scenery. The set up. The… details.”
“Details of what?” She dared to ask.
He glanced at her and then snorted, picking his glass up and swishing the dark liquid around before drawing some into his mouth and swallowing slowly. His eyes seemed to be trained to focus on her and she wasn’t sure if it was the champagne settling in her system or his gaze… Or if someone turned up the thermostat because it was definitely warmer now than ten seconds ago.
“See, there’s this girl.”
Oh, just the story Padmé wanted to hear. “Uh-huh. I bet there is. What about this girl?” She glanced around the room at the hundred or more women that filled the space at their company Christmas party.
“Well, not a girl, exactly.” He ran a finger around the rim of his glass thoughtfully. “She’s a woman.”
“Happy upgrade for her, I’d assume?”
“Is it?” He tilted his head to the side.
“Do you like being called boy? Or is it degrading? Because from where I stand… There are few things I’d loathed to be called more than ‘girl.’”
“Touché, touché. Easy there. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Perhaps she was being a little overly sensitive. The fresh wound of disrespect from some lecture her boss had given her. Except his line ended with dear and she wanted to end him on the spot just for it.
“Sorry. Drunken tangent. What about this woman, then?”
“Pretty sure she hates me.”
Now it was Padmé’s turn to scoff. “I doubt it. I figure something in your pheromones makes it physically impossible for women to hate you.”
“Really?” His hand snaked over to rest beside hers, fingers drumming on the wood grain. “Tell me more.”
Padmé shook her head—a little too vigorously for her state of mind. “No way, Skywalker. This is your story time.”
“Well… Your expert opinion aside, I think she hates me. Despises me. Wishes I’d miss every elevator, hit every red light in the city, and my card would get declined at every store I shopped at.”
“Sounds like she has too much time on her hands to worry about you that much.”
Anakin let out a small laugh, steepling his fingers. “It’s like I’m couch surfing rent free in her head, right?”
Padmé desperately wished she had that other glass of champagne right about now, considering yet another woman who spent all their time thinking of Anakin. “You don’t want my expert opinion, but—”
“But I can always count on you to give it anyway,” he said, amusement in his voice.
“You’re insufferable,” she scoffed. Completely. Utterly. Impossible. “But back to my point… What’d you ever do to her to make her hate you?”
“And that’s just it,” Anakin said, his voice dropping an octave as he leaned closer. The smell of expensive liquor on his breath wafted her way, mixed with an even more expensive cologne that overshadowed what she assumed to be cheap perfume. “I have no clue. Some days we’re fine. Others she looks at me like I invented Mondays and all the bad shit that happens on them.”
“Maybe you’re just annoying,” Padmé said. She half-heartedly shrugged but the whole interaction made her heart thump rapidly in her chest.
“Maybe,” he conceded. His blue eyes sought hers out with a sudden intensity that made the rest of room fade into the hum of static. “Or maybe she’s just as frustrated as I am.”
She couldn’t look away. “Frustrated about what?”
“About the fact that every time I try to talk to her, she shuts me down with some brilliant, witty remark that makes me forget what I was saying. About the fact that I’ve been trying to find an excuse to get her away from her ‘bodyguards’ all night.” His eyes flick toward the bar where Sabé and Dormé have perched themselves like a couple of drunken hawks, ready to swoop in and carry her away if needed.
Padmé swallowed hard, her breath catching as Anakin stood and drained the last of his whiskey. He didn’t move. Instead, he reached out, his gloved hand—the one he always kept covered, a mystery she’d spent months wondering about—hovering just inches from her arm.
“You know what I think the real problem is?”
“Hm?”
The sound was all she managed, afraid her words would only betray her and unable to bear her voice cracking over the way this man looked at her.
“She sees me. And she knows exactly what I’m looking at.”
“What’s that?” she whispered.
“The only person who actually matters.”
Before she could process a word of that, he reached forward and took the empty champagne flute from her and placed it on the table with a decisive clink. She didn’t protest when his hand found hers, fingers slipping between her own, the touch searing the palm of her hand.
“Come on,” he said, urging her to follow as he moved to cross the room.
“Anakin, wait! What—where are we going?”
“We’re testing a theory.”
He led her straight through the center of the crowd, ignoring the stares from Miraj and the whole pod of sharks that circled him all night long. Padmé’s head was spinning, her legs moving with seemingly no thought traveling from her brain to tell them so, but she followed until they stopped. She glanced up and her breath hitched.
With everyone’s eyes still on the two of them, they stood directly under that menacing sprig of mistletoe. The little bell nearly brushed the mess of blond curls atop Anakin’s head.
“You’ve been staring at this all night,” Anakin murmured, his other hand coming up to rest on the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. The cold she had felt earlier vanished, replaced by a localized heatwave. “I assumed you were waiting for someone.”
“I wasn’t,” she lied. “It’s a ridiculous tradition.”
“Is it?” Anakin sly grin turned almost shy as he leaned down, closing in on her. “Because from a certain point of view… It seems like a loophole for some insufferable guy to finally get a chance with the woman who hates him.”
“I never said I hated you,” she murmured when she reached up and wrapped his silk tie around her fist. “I just think you’re the bane of my existence.”
He snorted. “Cause that’s so much better.”
Before she could retort—and not that she particularly wanted to anymore—his head tilted and she met him halfway in a kiss. Her hand slid to the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss. His tongue brushed against her bottom lip and she opened to him, to the taste of whiskey, to melting away all those months of building tension.
In the distance, she vaguely heard Sabé cheer and the small chime of that damn bell but Padmé wasn’t paying them any attention. For the first time all night, she didn’t care about the watchful eyes. Not her wardrobe. The cold outside. Or even the way they’d explain this on Monday.
She only cared about the heat of Anakin’s hands at her waist, holding her exactly where she’d wanted to be.