Page 85 of The Wedding Pact
August’s mum had decided to go away for Christmas this year, on a Baltic cruise with her sister, August’s aunt. They’d asked August if she wanted to join them, but she couldn’t really afford to get her own room, and wasn’t sure three of them in one cabin for nine days would be anyone’s idea of a Merry Christmas.
‘That would be nice, he’d probably appreciate it,’ Bel answered.
‘So would you come to the party? With Steve of course, and Kenny if you like?’
‘Of course, count us in.’
When August hung up the phone, it was as if the Christmas lights had been switched on insideher. Finally, she had a reason to feel festive, and a Christmas present for Flynn she thought he would really like, and maybe even need: a chance for a little bit of festive fun.
Chapter 59
Flynn
‘What are you doing next Thursday evening?’ August asked Flynn as soon as he returned from his morning run. His eyes immediately flicked towards his work laptop, worried about what emails he might have missed from just being gone an hour.
August tapped his arm. ‘Don’t say you’ll be stuck at work. What if I told you youhadto give yourself the evening off?’
‘If my hand were being forced, I can’t say I’d complain,’ he said, without commitment. He watched as she went about the motions of making him one of his banana smoothies, Ariana Grande singing Christmas music from the radio in the background. It was sweet – he hadn’t asked her to, and she wasn’t making a big deal out of it trying to earn brownie points or anything, it was just … kind. But it didn’t change anything. He still had to go, he just didn’t know when.
‘Good.’ She whirred the blender and continued bopping along to the track. She knew the melody so well that she could keep dancing, even though she couldn’t hear it over the noise. ‘Because we’re throwing a Christmas Party. No –I’mthrowing a Christmas Party. For you.’ She handed him his smoothie.
‘You are?’
‘I am. It’s all arranged, your friends from work are coming, plus my friends who are now basically your friends too. It’s not going to be a rager, just maybe fifteen people, a few drinks and nibbles.’
‘You’ve already arranged all this?’ Flynn couldn’t believe it. ‘For me?’
‘For you,’ she said, nodding. ‘And because I think you need a little Christmas spirit, otherwise I’m basically living with the Grinch.’ She winked to show she was teasing.
Nobody had ever thrown Flynn a party before. And of course, this wasn’t purely a ‘Happy Christmas to Flynn and only to Flynn’ event, but it meant a lot that she’d go to the lengths of planning it, picking the date, contacting the guests, all because she thought he needed some cheering up.
In that moment, for just a second, he forgot the pained thoughts that had been growing in him. He forgot how he kind of hated his job, how he missed Japan, how he missed Yui and felt like a fool for jumping into the thing with Poppy too quickly.
‘So are you in?’
‘Sure, I’m in,’ he answered. ‘Do you think we should forewarn the neighbours?’
‘On it!’ she sang. ‘Just before you got home I delivered a box of Christmas cookies to each of them, along with a card to say we were having a gathering and would keep the noise down, and that it would all be over by eleven.’
Flynn nodded his head approvingly.
‘So all you need to do is show up, okay? This is my Christmas present to you, and you taking a night off from the grind can be your Christmas present to me.’
True to his word, Flynn showed up. In fact, just knowing there was a string of Christmas lights at the end of the tunnel kept him going through the long days and nights of working. Just knowing he would have an evening off – a proper evening where there would be no temptation to look at his work emails – made him excited. And despite everything that was brewing under the surface, he found in himself a whisper of longing to spend some proper time with August. He couldn’t deny it.
‘Your friends from work don’t think we’re married or anything, do they?’ August said, hobbling out of her room shortly before seven on the evening of the party. She was wearing a bright red dress with a flared hem, silver glittering eyeshadow, and, at that moment, a single white stiletto. She was jamming some big white orb earrings that looked like snowballs through the holes in her ears.
Despite the distance that had grown between them since Flynn told her he needed space, she still managed to take his breath away for a moment. He pulled himself together and answered with a, ‘No, so no pretending needed tonight.’
‘No pretending,’ August smiled, catching his eye. ‘So how do I look?’
‘Great, except I think you’re missing a shoe? Unless this is a new trend I’m not aware of?’
‘I’m getting to that one,’ August breezed, and flicked on the Christmas playlist she’d created on her phone, her speakers filling the apartment with Wham!
Flynn made them both a snowball cocktail while she sang along unselfconsciously to ‘Last Christmas’.
The thing about Christmas parties, as evidenced throughout history and documented in many movies and novels, is that the rules are different, there’s magic in the air; anything can happen, and usually, it does.
