Denny at that moment would have preferred to stay in the middle of the road in a full blizzard, to avoid the group of friends with whom he found himself sharing the house for the night.

First the snowball match, then Amabelle's plot against Mirren and Felix, the blizzard that had caught them unawares in the courtyard and now, while Mirren was preparing dinner, he was busy hiding as best he could to avoid being involved in a pillow fight that was in serious danger of turning into a sea of blood.

He should have declined the invitation the moment he realized that Amabelle had organized the study session, but the Hart house had a great environment for studying, a thousand times better than his home and the always crowded library. Also, Mirren's presence was reassuring and encouraging, even if it couldn't help him much in the actual study.

He had at least tried to avoid the pillow fight, but unsuccessfully as always, and at the moment he was busy avoiding any possible shot while hidden behind the sofa.

“Guys, dinner is ready” announced a clear and comforting voice coming from the kitchen. Denny had never liked Mirren more than he did at that moment.

“Already? We were about to attack Denny en masse!” Amabelle exclaimed, a little disappointed.

Okay, Denny would have never appreciated Mirren as much as he did at that moment, because nothing could have ever matched the gratitude he was feeling for him because of his interruption.

“We can't let it cool! Maybe another time!” he exclaimed, coming out of his hiding place and running to the kitchen, still holding tightly to the pillow that had been given to him as a weapon.

“Hmpf” Amabelle threw her own on the sofa, straight on a nearly dead Felix who had been the favorite target of the two girls and a reluctant Norman.

“Perhaps it would be better to eat here in the living room” Petra observed, pointing to the fireplace and prompting Denny to stop halfway, right next to Mirren, waiting for instructions.

“Bonnie will be furious if we dirty the sofas with soup” observed Mirren thoughtfully.

“I think it was an ‘absolutely yes, please get soup on the sofas’” translated Felix, chuckling to himself.

Denny felt Mirren take the pillow from his hands, and saw it thrown with incredible precision towards Felix, who commented with a resounding “Ugh” accompanied by a “…but Tray's right. It's starting to get cold and the fireplace is here”

“Stop calling me Tray!” Petra yelled at him, throwing her pillow at him too.

“You loved it as a child” Felix's comment was almost incomprehensible since he was submerged by pillows.

Petra took the round cushions from the three sofas in the living room and started throwing them at him until he was completely buried.

“Go Tray!!” exalted Amabelle, jumping on the sofa and cheering. She was probably the only one in the world who could call her Tray without consequences.

Norman was in a corner and watched the scene holding the last pillow out of Felix's reach... or rather from above him.

Mirren sighed, adjusting his glasses.

“Okay, I'll bring the soup here” he finally gave in.

Denny, however, remained near the door, trying to escape any surprise pillows.

“A nice dinner by the light of the fireplace and some candles, like in the Middle Ages, before they invented the light bulb” Amabelle gracefully let herself fall on the sofa, then stole the pillow from Norman and squeezed it to warm up.

“I think the light bulb was invented in more recent times” observed Norman, giving her the pillow and approaching the fire.

“And I believe that the invention of the light bulb is in the exam you have to take on the 21st” Petra pointed out to her, abandoning the fight to Felix and giving him some breathing room... very little since by now he had disappeared under the pillows.

“It will be fun anyway. And let's not talk about exams. The outside world doesn't exist today!” Amabelle cut short, without losing her enthusiasm “We could reveal secrets or tell each other scary stories” she then proposed, rubbing her hands.

Denny wasn't sure which option scared him more, but maybe the former beat the latter.

“What kind of secrets?” Felix asked, sticking his head out but giving no other sign of wanting to get rid of the blanket of pillows.

“I don't know… first crushes… first kisses… secret crushes of the moment…” Amabelle began to list.

Despite the darkness, her eyes seemed to sparkle with a mischievous light, and they fixed Felix steadily.

Denny backed away, trying to be sucked into the shadows of darkness that the blackout had brought into the house. He didn't actually have any compromising answers to those questions, but the mere fact that none of them had any answer was the biggest secret of all, one he absolutely didn't want to reveal. …well, it wasn't a secret in itself. Everyone knew it already. But confirming it was not in his plans.

“Something tells me that all your questions lead to the romance sector” observed Felix, chuckling “In that case, I'll pass” he added then, burying his face again in the pillows.

“Why?! Skeletons in the closet?! By chance, the last answer concerns some of us, mmh?” Amabelle jumped up and approached him, uncovering his face again to investigate.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Ames, but to me you're like a little sister” Felix joked, freeing his arm to pat her head affectionately.

Denny didn't have to be near her to know that Amabelle had put on a disgusted look on her face, and he saw her jerk back.

“Ew! No! What a horror! I wasn't talking about me!” she insisted, shivering and making Felix laugh.

“And who were you talking about, then?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

“You know very well who I was talking about” Amabelle moved her head, indicating the point where Denny was hiding.

After a moment of panic, where Denny feared he was being targeted by Amabelle, Mirren came out the door, carrying a tray of soup, plates and glasses, and not noticing him.

Denny breathed a sigh of relief at the realization that Amabelle was referring to him, but he immediately tensed again at the thought that Felix might actually be crushing on Mirren, and the idea that Amabelle might pressure him to confess his feelings didn't appeal to him at all.

Because then they would have discussed it, maybe there would have been embarrassment. Worst case scenario they would have argued and never spoken again, and Denny was filled with anxiety at the very thought of witnessing such a terrible event while they were all stuck there for an indefinable time and unable to escape.

“What are you talking about?” Mirren asked, placing the tray on the low table in front of the sofa where Felix was submerged, and starting to serve the soup.

Denny began to approach, hunger beating fear of being asked about the matter.

“Ames wants to ruin my evening by making me think of Melany” Felix commented, making a sad and exaggeratedly dramatic face.

Amabelle put on a disgusted expression again. Mirren stiffened slightly, but gave no other sign that the subject touched him.

“That's not very nice of you, Amabelle” he just commented, with the usual mom tone.

“I wasn't talking about Melany! I was just suggesting that we could talk about secrets, make confessions, perhaps reveal loves that have been hidden for years since the atmosphere is perfect, by candlelight… and a fireplace” Amabelle explained, starting off defensive but continuing with an increasingly more romantic tone.

Mirren rolled his eyes and began handing out bowls, too disinterested to comment.

“Melany would have come out anyway, since you talked about first kisses and it's no secret that Melany was the first girl I kissed” Felix pointed out.

As Denny picked up his plate, he almost dropped it, Mirren letting go a little too soon.

…he was probably too busy distributing the dinner and was doing it in a hurry to keep it from getting cold, right?

“At the ripe old age of 15, I remember” Petra teased Felix, taking her plate and starting to eat, sitting on the floor with her back resting at the foot of the sofa.

“Just because the numerous middle school girlfriends don't count. I was super popular, remember, Mirren?” Felix sought moral support from his best friend, who in response slapped the bowl in his hand with very little grace.

“Oh, it's true that you made a massacre of hearts. But I think you don't count them because they lasted a maximum of one week each” he pointed out to him, starting to eat his own plate and sitting down on the next sofa, away from the group.

Fallon crouched beside his legs.

“Well, okay, it's true. But we were still children, practically, and I was spending all my afternoons with you” Felix chuckled, completely taking off the pillows to sit down and eat, too.

Denny noticed a movement of triumph from Amabelle, but before she could press on the observation to redirect the speech where she wanted, or rather to Felix's alleged crush on Mirren, from what Denny had been able to guess, the boy decided to interrupt her.

“The soup is really good, Mirren. What's in it?” he asked, changing the subject and pulling out the first one that came to mind.

Amabelle seemed to deflate like a punctured balloon, and gave Denny a resentful look at the change of subject.

“It's an old recipe from my grandmother. Meat and potatoes mostly, and a secret ingredient I can't reveal,” Mirren replied with a smirk, turning the ring he always wore on his right hand.

“Granny Rea was fantastic” Petra commented, looking at the bowl of meat with a half smile.

“I remember her! I saw her at the barbecue the first time I was invited here!” Amabelle abandoned the idea of confessions altogether, remembering the past, and they finished their dinner without the topic turning back to romance, thank goodness.

But Denny had to admit that one thing had puzzled him.

He didn't know Felix as well as the others, so his thought was probably simple nonsense, but Felix wasn't the type to use too many words when he talked about something that had to be obvious. He never underlined unnecessary and intuitable things. And ever since Clover had pointed out to everyone what his main tics were when he lied, he tended to do it less and less.

Having said that, Denny's question arose spontaneously:

Why had he stressed that Melany was the first ‘girl’ he'd ever kissed?

Denny was probably putting too much emphasis on nothing, so he didn't comment, and just ate his soup, listened to stories from the past, and buried his face in his hands when the topic passed about his childhood as Amabelle's neighbor, and his many scenes of embarrassment.