All I Want Series Boxset, Books 1-3: All I Want for Christmas, All I Want for Valentine's, All I Want for Spring (42 page)

Rosanna cleared her throat and got their attention back.

Tori gripped her handles tight and concentrated hard on staying still as Rosanna spoke. Don’t lean forward, don’t lean back, stay centred.

“The next part, we’re going on a historic tour. I’ll be pointing out key attractions, giving you a little history and we’ll have a ride along the river, too. All sound okay?” Rosanna cocked her head as she spoke, addressing Tori more than Holly. “First, shall we carry on to the Colosseum?”

Holly flashed Tori a grin. “The Colosseum — all roads lead back to the Colosseum.”

“Seems that way, doesn’t it?” Tori said. 

Rosanna turned and set off again.

Tori concentrated hard on not falling off her Segway and not running anybody over, and it seemed to work. 

***

Rosanna was right, after all. By the end of the tour, Tori was buzzing down the river and back up into the centre of the city like she’d been riding a Segway her whole life. Even she had to admit her amazement. 

They pulled up by the castle where they’d started and Tori jumped off, unbuckling her helmet. She ruffled her hair in the scorching sunshine, while Rosanna took the Segway from her grasp, before doing the same to Holly.

Holly wobbled towards her like an old drunk. “It’s like getting off a ship, isn’t it?”

Rosanna shot Holly a smile over her shoulder. “Si — five minutes and you’ll be used to dry land again. But it can take some time.” Rosanna walked back over, where Tori was shaking her body out, the relief at having survived the ordeal seeping out of every pore.

“That was… interesting,” she said to Rosanna.

“Did you enjoy?”

Tori rolled the question around her brain. “I enjoyed the last 15 minutes.”

Rosanna laughed. “You should book in again this afternoon — now you’ve got the hang of it, you’d love it.”

Tori held up both hands. “Unfortunately we have a plane to catch.” That, and she’d rather stick pins in her eyes.

Tori turned to Holly, collapsing into her open arms. “Can we go and get a stiff drink now?”

Holly put an arm round her shoulder and led her away.

“We certainly can — I think you’ve earned it.” Holly kissed Tori on the cheek and they walked, pausing at some traffic lights on the main road. “You’re still shaking,” Holly said as they waited for the cars to stop.

Tori leaned into her. “That’s because I’m traumatised,” she said. “I need the rest of the day to be calm,
an oasis of calm
. You think we can do that?”

“It can be arranged.” Holly dropped her arm from Tori’s shoulders and jigged about at the lights.

Tori rolled her eyes — Holly hated waiting at traffic lights, and she had a bad habit of nearly getting killed. It was habit Tori had tried and failed to break over their years of friendship, but now she was her girlfriend, Tori was doubly determined.

Tori tugged on her hand, but Holly ignored her, instead straining her long, graceful neck one way, then the other.

Tori sighed and kicked a stone near her foot: it was going to be hard work to teach Holly traffic patience.

Then, before Tori knew what was happening, Holly was squeezing her hand and pulling her into the road.

She glanced up at the signal: the lights were still green and the crossing lights still red.

Tori tried to pull Holly back, gripping her hand.

In response, Holly dropped it and strode into the road.

“Holly!” Tori shouted. What the hell was she doing? Tori was still getting her bearings after the Segway tour, couldn’t she get a moment’s peace?

Holly turned her head at the sound of her name.

Just as a car burst round the corner, its engine blaring, with Holly in the middle of the road.

Seeing Holly, the car slammed on its brakes, screeching to a halt in slow motion.

Holly slammed on her feet, startled, almost waiting for the car to hit her.

Tori let out a shriek of horror.
This couldn’t be happening.
She screwed up her eyes and waited for the impact, the sound of metal on Holly. Every muscle in her body tensed as she wait for the horror to unfold. Tears bubbled to her eyes.

Today was too much.

Rome was too much.

Only, the crunch never came.

Instead, when Tori opened her eyes, someone was screaming in Italian, and Holly was in one piece, standing on the other side of the car, making apologetic gestures to the man hanging out his car window.

Tori glanced around: it was still lunchtime in Rome, Holly was still alive, the world was still turning. Even though Holly was going to be barely alive when she’d finished shouting at her.

This afternoon had to be better, right?

CHAPTER 9

They found a free table in a nearby piazza to eat their final Roman meal and enjoy a glass of crisp Italian white, savouring the final embers of their holiday.

The sinking feeling of going home was almost upon her, but Holly was doing her best to fight it off. It was always that way on your final day. Apart from the other times with her exes where she’d been glad to escape to the safety of home. Thankfully, she wasn’t feeling like that with Tori. She wanted this holiday to stretch on forever. Apart from the nearly dying bit. Tori was still mad with her for that, but she was trying to turn the conversation around. It was working. Kinda.

“That Rosanna must have some seriously defined abs, doing that all day,” Holly said, stretching her arms over her head.

“She should include a show-and-tell as part of the tour. That’d get the lesbians in,” Tori replied.

“And the straight men. That’s a winner right there!”

Tori laughed, glancing around the square. A horse and carriage trotted by with an older couple inside, enjoying Rome from a more relaxed vantage point.

“Can we do a horse and carriage ride around our next European city, please?” Tori asked, enjoying the soothing rhythm of the horse’s hooves on the cobbled square.

“Nope,” Holly said, shaking her head. “It’s a Segway tour in every city from now on.”

“So you know you said things always go wrong when you’re away with your girlfriends? If you make me do a Segway tour every time, that’s pretty much guaranteed.”

Holly laughed. “I thought you handled it brilliantly. You didn’t give up, you didn’t throw your rattle out of your pram and you nearly ran Cara over. I’d say the Segway was a win.” Holly leaned forward and patted Tori’s knee. “Plus, I loved it.”

“I didn’t give up, did I?” Tori said, looking pretty pleased with herself. “But don’t remind me about Cara. At least we’ll never have to see her again.”

“With luck,” Holly replied. “Or maybe she’ll come for a job at my work.” Holly crossed her fingers that didn’t happen. She hated turning people away from her recruitment agency, but she made exceptions for special cases.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Tori said.

Holly smiled, watching another Segway tour go past.

Tori shuddered as she watched them go.

“And you know what? If I want to do another Segway tour in another city, you could do something else while I did it. We don’t have to love everything the other one does, do we?” Holly couldn’t expect their interests to coincide on everything: their hopes and dreams were similar enough for this to work, of that Holly was sure.

Tori’s mouth twitched. “I guess you’re right: we don’t want to turn into carbon copies of each other, do we?”

Holly shook her head. “We don’t. If you start liking football, I’ll know we’re in trouble.”

Tori threw back her head, laughing. “Shall I get you on the tennis court with me this summer?” she asked. “Now that would be a laugh.”

Holly grimaced: Tori was an awesome tennis player, whereas she could barely hit a ball. All through her childhood, she’d been told she should be good at it because she was so tall, but her co-ordination had never been good enough. Hence she’d spent her school career playing goalkeeper in netball, as well as being a classic centre-forward in football. But Holly and tennis had never got on.

“There’s no way I’d get on a tennis court with you. I’m not a masochist.” Holly had seen Tori play many times and she was
good
. She’d been known to reduce grown men to tears.

“Chicken.”

“Yup,” Holly replied.

CHAPTER 10

The plane was delayed by over an hour, so by the time they boarded, they’d eaten most of the chocolate they’d bought at the airport for Elsie. They’d tried to go back to the homeware store to get presents that afternoon, but being a Sunday, it was shut. European shopping laws always caught Holly out.

“Remind me to buy more chocolate when we get home,” Holly said, as she flashed her passport and boarding pass at the tired-looking woman at the gate. The woman looked how Holly felt.

“I will,” Tori replied.

They walked down the corridor and waited in line, nobody speaking much. It was Sunday night and everyone was tired after a long weekend.

“When I’m rich enough, I’m going to buy us a teleporter to take us home,” Holly said. “Bypass this bit.”

Tori smiled and took her hand. “Could you hurry up and get rich then?”

Their seats were 29B and 29C, which was around halfway down the plane. It was a full flight again, so Holly began to scan the overhead lockers, identifying possible places for her case should she need it. She wasn’t paying attention to their three-seat row until she got there. And then she stopped and her jaw nearly hit the floor in shock.

Sitting in 29A was Cara, in her Trilby, reading a copy of Cosmopolitan.

Holly stopped, dread fizzing in her gut. What was she going to do? Sit down next to Cara and ask how her weekend had been?

Tori, following Holly, banged into her as she came to a standstill. “What are you doing?” Tori said, irritation rattling in her tone. “There’s plenty of room for the case up there.”

Holly glanced at Tori and flicked her head downwards.

Tori followed her direction. Then her features froze and her breath stalled. And then Tori’s eyes darted back up to Holly.

“Shit,” Tori whispered.

“Uh-huh,” Holly replied, raising both eyebrows. That was the understatement of the year.

There was only one way to deal with this, and that was to be brazen. Holly was, frankly, too tired to think of any other option. Apart from asking their seats to be changed, and she didn’t fancy clambering over all the other passengers to get to the staff to make that happen.

So they were stuck here. Cara was already in her seat, ready to fly, bag stored. They were going to have to be adults about this. Holly took a deep breath, flung her case into the overhead locker and sat down next to Cara, catching her frozen stare as she sat down.

Well, this was one of the most awkward moments of her life so far. Right up there with the time Holly walked into the lamppost outside her office, before collapsing in a heap on the pavement.

Only, there really was no funny side to this.

None whatsoever.

“Hi again,” Holly said to Cara, trying not to make any facial expression. She had an overwhelming urge to laugh, but she held it down.

“Hi.”

Cara wasn’t laughing, that’s for sure.

Holly cleared her throat, then felt under her leg to locate her seatbelt. But as she started to pull at one side, Cara began to wriggle.

Cara was sitting on one side of Holly’s seatbelt.

Holly pointed with her finger, screwing up her face. “Sorry, could I just…” she said, pointing. Could this get any worse? Holly didn’t think so.

Cara scowled at Holly and lifted up her leg, fishing the belt out and handing it to her.

“Thanks,” Holly said, giving her a weak smile. “I’ll try not to talk to you any more than I have to for the rest of the flight, you have my word.”

“That would be appreciated,” Cara replied. Then she scrabbled in her bag, pulled out a sleep mask and pulled it down over her eyes.

Holly turned to Tori, wide-eyed. Her heartbeat was elevated and she was trying to regulate her breathing without making it sound like she was to Cara. It wasn’t easy to pull off.

“I hope she’s been to the loo,” Tori whispered, peering around Holly.

“Me too,” Holly replied. She was just glad of the agreement that they were going to ignore each other for the rest of the flight. If she’d had to do ten minutes of terrible chit-chat about how their weekends had gone, it might have tipped her over the edge.

***

They got an Uber back from the airport: Holly decided that after such a tortured flight sitting next to Cara, they deserved a treat.

Seeing as it was gone 11pm, Tori wasn’t going to argue. Running for the last train home was the last thing she wanted to do. She’d almost rather get a Segway home, and that was saying something.

It was gone 1am when they kicked off their shoes, parked their suitcases and collapsed on their bed. It’d been a long day.

“We’re home at last,” Tori said, rolling over and onto Holly, who’d just flopped down beside her.

“Feels good to be home, doesn’t it?”

Tori kissed her. “Feels perfect,” she replied. “Feels
especially
good not to be sat in the same row as Cara anymore.” Tori let out a giggle as she spoke.

Holly groaned, cringing as she spoke. “You didn’t have to sit
next
to her — but at least she slept the whole way.”

“Small mercies,” Tori replied, giggling some more. “It’s weird there’s no Valentine, though. When’s your dad bringing him back?”

“I need to text him — hopefully tomorrow, if not, Tuesday.”

“I hope he remembers who we are,” Tori replied.

Holly rubbed a hand up and down her back. “I think my dad knows who we are.”

Tori gave her a look. “I meant Valentine.”

Holly kissed her. “Course he’ll remember — we FaceTimed him, after all. He might just need a few days to get over the trauma of being manhandled by Elsie for the weekend.”