All I Want Series Boxset, Books 1-3: All I Want for Christmas, All I Want for Valentine's, All I Want for Spring (12 page)

“I can’t,” I whispered. I didn’t mean it, but it couldn’t be any other way. “Not like this.”

She crinkled her eyes, pain radiating from her. “I thought—”

I shook my head. “—Not like this,” I repeated. “I can’t do this with you now. You’re not available.”

She pulled her hand away and sat back on the sofa, breathing out in one long stream that I thought might never end.

We sat in silence for a few more seconds before Nicola sat forward and took a slug of her beer.

“This didn’t go as I planned,” she said, still breathing rapidly. She put down her beer.

“No?”

She shook her head and twisted to look at me. “No. My intention was to come over here and smooth things over. Not take it up a notch.” She exhaled again before rubbing her hands together. “Like I said, nostalgia.”

She turned and took another swig of her beer before jumping up, smoothing herself down and tucking herself in. “I better be going if I want to stay engaged,” she said. She gave me a thin-lipped smile, but her gaze didn’t falter.

“And is that what you want?” I had to know. I had no idea if Nicola Sheen was what I wanted, but I had to know whether or not she wanted me.

Nicola blinked and bit her lip, before nodding slowly.

“Absolutely,” she said, looking away. “I’m marrying Melanie. I just — I wanted to apologise and then… this.” Her gaze bounced around the room before settling back on me. “I’m sorry for yesterday, for today, for back then — for it all.” She picked up her rucksack. “See you, Victoria.”

But she didn’t move.

I stood up. “Yeah, see you.”

We stared.

And stared.

Nicola went to say something, then shook her head.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. But her eyes told a different story as they dropped to my lips.

But this time, she did turn around and walk away.

Where Nicola Sheen was concerned, normal service had been resumed.

***

I was stood at the kitchen counter trying to put my thoughts in order when I heard Holly’s key in the door.

Shit. Nicola had only just left, and my emotions were strewn across the floor. I was too disoriented by everything that had happened, and I wasn’t sure I could explain it to Holly even if I tried.

Holly was frowning when she came into the lounge. She took one look at me and began shaking her head. “I was hoping that just bumping into Nicola on the stairs was a coincidence. Perhaps she knows someone else in the block, perhaps her sister lives here? But I know that look. You did it, didn’t you? You just fulfilled your teenage fantasy and had sex with your childhood sweetheart.”

I said nothing — it was all I could do to hang on to the kitchen counter and not collapse in a heap.

“Why do this? Why complicate your life?” Holly plucked a beer from the fridge and sat on the sofa. “Are you coming to sit down or are you going to just stand there?” She sounded hurt, wounded.

“Not if you’re just going to lecture me. It’s really not what I need right now.”

A gamut of emotions passed across Holly’s face before she settled on something between concerned friend and pissed off. “I’ll try not to. I’ll try to keep an open mind.” She paused, then held up three fingers in a Girl Guide salute. “I promise.”

Promise is what had got me into this mess in the first place.

I walked over and slumped on to the sofa, falling into Holly who had no choice but to acquiesce. She might still be boiling mad at me, but when push came to shove, I was still her best friend.

“So what happened?” Holly began stroking my hair. “And just so you know, this is not in the roadmap for getting a girlfriend by Christmas. The caveat I wasn’t aware I needed to point out was that the girl in question had to be single, and not engaged to be married.” I heard her take a swig of her beer and I burrowed my head deeper into her shoulder.

“I know,” I mumbled. “But we didn’t have sex. We nearly did, but we didn’t.”

Holly’s body went taut. “You didn’t?” She was holding her breath.

I pushed myself into a sitting position and ground the heels of both my hands into my eyes. When I refocused, my vision still wasn’t totally clear.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

Her hand rubbed my back as she exhaled. “Well that’s good. That’s really good. But what was she doing here?”

I turned to Holly and explained what happened the day before in the bridal shop.

She was silent the whole way through, her face turning a shade of grey when I relayed the kissing part.

“It was kinda left up in the air so she texted and asked to come over.” I shrugged. “It seemed the right thing to do, to draw a line under it.”

“And how did that plan go?” Despite her tone, Holly’s face remained blank.

Guilt rose up in me, threatening to drown me. “Not so well,” I said, shaking my head.

Holly’s face softened. “Did you really think it would go any other way? You kissed her yesterday, there was unfinished business, she comes over to your flat where you have some privacy…” Holly held out her hands, palms upturned. “It’s textbook 101 seduction technique.”

“I was not seduced,” I pouted.

Holly smiled, shaking her head. “No you weren’t,” she said. “But how did you leave it?”

Now it was my turn to shrug. “We kissed, but we’re done — I know that’s as far as it can go. And that’s not just because she’s getting married, it’s also because we’re different people now.” I shook my head again. “Just sometimes I forget that, and she’s still Nicola Sheen who I loved. So please don’t be angry with me — I can’t deal with it tonight.”

Holly paused. “I’m not angry, I’m just looking out for you. I don’t trust Nicola as far as I can throw her. Never have.”

She pulled me into a hug and I let her.

Then I remembered Holly was supposed to be on a date tonight.

“Hang on — what are you doing home anyway?” I sat up again. “What happened to your date?”

Now it was Holly’s turn to sigh. “She didn’t show. No warning, nothing. So this dating game? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” She swigged her beer.

My heart broke for Holly now — she was golden, she didn’t deserve that. “I’m sorry about your date, and not just because she was called Ivy.” I reached for Holly’s hand and squeezed it.

Holly looked into my eyes and shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “She was hardly my soulmate.”

CHAPTER 14

Sunday December 11th

Sunday morning dawned and if there was ever a day I needed a distraction, it was today. As I lay on my bed and tried to clamber over the traffic clogging up my mind, I tried to identify what I was feeling. Confused, disappointed, and like I wanted to get in a time machine and erase the last few days.

I could still feel Nicola’s hand on me, nearly in me.

It would have been so easy.

However, this Nicola Sheen wasn’t the one I’d been in love with. She had a child. She was divorced. And she was engaged, yet thought it fine to come on to me three weeks before her wedding.

So yes, while yesterday had been the culmination of a dream, I had a feeling it might also serve as a reminder that you should never go back. It was a motto I lived by when it came to bad customer service in every other area of my life, so why didn’t I apply it to my love life?

Ten minutes later, Holly burst into my room just as I was opening the next Advent calendar door and popping a chocolate Christmas pudding into my mouth. There was something very decadent about eating chocolate so early in the morning.

“Get up — we’re going out,” she announced.

“We are?” I asked, through a mouthful of chocolate.

Holly swept her dark hair from her eyes and nodded. “Yep — executive decision. You’ve been stupid and I’ve been stood up within a week, which is a new record even for me. So we’re going out to do something fun to take our minds off it. Something Christmassy, guaranteed to put a smile on your face.”

She grabbed my arm and pulled me up, marching me down the hallway and into the bathroom. “Get in the shower and get clean — we’re leaving in half an hour and I’ve booked us an hour of ice-skating at Somerset House.”

I did as I was told.

Forty minutes later, we were sat on a Tube, clutching cups of hot coffee, eyes wide open. Holly’s knee was jiggling beside me — she always had a lot of nervous energy fizzing around her system and this was the usual out.

“Excited?” she asked, slapping my leg. “Ice, Christmas tunes, skating and mulled wine — this has to be right up there in your Christmas must-dos, doesn’t it?”

I smiled, despite myself. “It is. I was going to buy some ice-skating tickets for me and a date if things went well. However, I don’t seem to have been able to limp to that stage quite yet, so this is perfect. I get to do it with my best friend instead.”

Holly smiled at me and took my hand in hers. “Today we’re each other’s date, okay? And let’s face it, we’ve both already gone one better than our last — I’m single and you showed up. We’re winning at life already!”

I laughed. I had to agree.

Somerset House was an old Tudor palace on the Thames, a building that never failed to impress. During the winter its large courtyard became a Christmas grotto with its ice rink as the central play. As soon as I saw it strung with festive lights and pumping out ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ through the surrounding speakers, happy seasonal endorphins flooded my body.

Maybe Holly was right, maybe this was the perfect thing to take my mind off my problems.

There was only five minutes till we were on the ice, so we exchanged our shoes for skates, then edged out slowly on to the freshly polished ice, currently a creamy, unblemished square all ready to be signed by us. Most people didn’t need a second invitation once the klaxon blasted, apart from the ten per cent who’d forgotten how to skate since their childhood and were now doomed to spend the next hour gingerly crawling around the rink’s edges, or flat on their bum.

Just as I thought that, I heard the first thump of the day, and turned to see a man in his 40s flailing on the ice.

“That’s gotta hurt,” Holly said.

We skated off side by side around the rink, pushing off from the left and then the right, just as my instructor had taught me all those years ago.

“How you feeling?” Holly asked as we were nearly cut up by one of the ice marshals on a mission.

“Surreal.” I grabbed Holly’s arm as I wobbled.

“Okay?”

I nodded. “Just getting my balance.” I paused. “I’m okay. I feel a bit guilty and annoyed with myself and her. However you paint this, it hardly makes her the catch of the century.”

We skated on in silence for a few more seconds. “And did I tell you the other thing?”

Holly didn’t turn to me. “There’s more?”

“She’s got a kid and she still lives with her parents.”

“Whoa!” Holly slowed her skates and coasted into the hoardings, and I followed.

“A child? How did she get a child?”

“Did you miss that class at school?”

Holly gave me a look.

“She was married before.” I said. “To a man.”

Holly spluttered. “She’s already been married? I mean, to a man is neither here nor there, but this is her second wedding?” She whistled through her teeth. “She clearly loves getting married.”

“Apparently.”

We were silent for a moment as the mass of skaters shuffled and sailed past us in clockwise order, a blur of smiles, furrowed brows and woolly hats.

Then, as Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ began to pump through the speakers, Holly took my hand and dragged me back into the throng. “We haven’t come here to stand on the sidelines and process — we’ve come to skate!”

I screamed as Holly’s yank nearly put me on the ice, but I styled it out. Within seconds, we were gliding and the steady concentration the skating required really was proving just the distraction I needed.

That is, until five minutes later when I was clattered from behind, a skater clearly losing their balance and sliding into the back of me, leaving me nowhere to go but down. My bum hit the ice with a deadening thud that reverberated up my body. Damn, the ice was cold.

I immediately went to spring back up, but my skates weren’t being so obliging and I fell again. Crack. Ouch. A hand came into view which I presumed was Holly’s, so I took it gratefully and pulled myself up to a standing position, arms outstretched to secure my balance.

“Thanks, Holly,” I said until my eyes fell on my saviour.

It was Nicola Sheen.

I turned around and saw Holly was helping Melanie to her feet, Melanie wiping down the back of her jeans which were now wet through.

“What are you doing here?” I was whispering for no good reason.

“Same as you — skating.” Nicola’s tone was deadpan, her expression vanilla. She didn’t seem freaked at all that we were meeting the day after we nearly had sex, and that pissed me off royally. Did none of this mean anything to her?

“Really? You never mentioned it last night.” If she was stalking me, I wasn’t amused.

Nicola baulked and my insides flared red.

“It never really came up, did it?” she said. Now her tone was gritty, like this was all my fault.

Thankfully, Holly butted in. “Great to see you guys, but now Melanie’s in one piece, we’re going to get in some more skating.” She offered her hand to me while fixing me with a solid stare. “Shall we?”

I glanced at Nicola, then at Melanie, before taking Holly’s hand. I was grateful to her for offering an easy escape, although still piqued at Nicola’s casual brush-off. I wasn’t sure how we were meant to act with each other now either, but hostile was not the first option that sprang to mind. 

Holly’s grip was like a vice as we skated off, faster than before. I didn’t like to point out to her that no matter how fast we went, we’d still just be going round and round in a circle.

The ice rink was suddenly a metaphor for life.

“I cannot believe they’re here too,” I said, glancing at Holly.