Page 100 of Someone Like You

‘Well, yeah!’

I point to the ones I’ve done. ‘Take one of these. Raff’s are too pretty to eat.’

‘For sure. Mom will probably save his till next year and decorate the tree with them,’ she quips. He chuckles at that, adding another completed Christmas tree to the drying rack.

‘Whereas we inherited the Rivera Family can’t-so-much-as-draw-a-stick-figure gene,’ she tells him.

‘I did wonder if the entire family is afflicted,’ he retorts with a smirk.

‘Hey! Rude,’ I reply.

He laughs and Issy sniggers, and I’m glad we’ve been able to cheer her up – at least for now.

‘Right,’ says Raff, going to the sink and washing his hands, ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy – I need a quick loo break.’

He jogs out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and I splatter icing on my last two cookies, then shove the rest of Rudolph in my mouth. I’m munching away – it’ssogood – when I catch Issy staring at me.

‘What?’ I say through my mouthful.

She leans in and whispers, ‘What’s going on between you and Raff?’

‘Hmm?’ I swallow, then brush crumbs from the corner of my mouth. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Imean, I saw you –hugging– and you seemed all…’ She mimics a dreamy, lovey-dovey look.

I must look like a stunned mullet. I shake my head, breaking my sudden stupor.

‘Um…’

‘Are you guys into each other?’

‘No.’

She cocks her head, looking at me disbelievingly, and panic courses through me. God, I’m really running the gamut of emotionstoday. I look towards the staircase and listen for the sound of Raff coming back – nothing – so I reach for Issy and pull her close. Knowing I have very little time to fill her in, I talk fast.

‘Yes, I’ve fallen for Raff, okay? But he doesn’t know. And he’s just started dating this woman – Julia – that he met through this matchmaker, only he doesn’t know he met her through the matchmaker, because he told Freya she could only match him if he didn’t know about it. And now he’s super into her – Julia – and I have no idea what the fuck I am doing.’

‘Seriously? There’s a matchmaker involved?’

That’sthe detail she latches onto?

‘Yeah. She and Freya are the only ones who know – about me – and Raff – my feelings, I mean. And now you.’

‘But you’re sharing abedwith him! Holy shit, Gaby. How are you even doing that?’

‘I’m a straight-up masochist.’

Her eyes open wider as she looks behind me. ‘Yeah, you can totally borrow that dress for the wedding,’ she says loudly.

It wouldalmostsound convincing if Issy and I didn’t wear completely different dress sizes but, thankfully, Raff doesn’t seem to think anything of it.

She nudges me in the ribs, then makes a big deal of oohing and ahhing over Raff’s cookies.

We decide we have enough of the preschoolers-on-the-loose cookies – and by ‘we’ I mean ‘Raff’ – so he decorates the last two batches. No doubt it’s too painful for him watching me decimate cookie after cookie.

I clean up the kitchen around him, occasionally shooing Issy away from the mounting collection of Instagram-ready cookies. Fora fleeting moment, I considered posting a few pics to my feed, passing them off as my own, but no one who knows me would believe that, not even for a second.

When the kitchen is clean and Issy and Raff are engaged in an innocuous conversation about his TV appearance, I excuse myself and go into the living room to text Freya about the promotion. She replies right away, even though it must be late in Sweden.

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