Page 114 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
“Done!” said Kate. “For that menu I’d sleep with old Wally.”
Laura pulled a face.
Kate grabbed a coffee and sat in the tearooms waiting for Laura to finish work. The tearooms closed at four thirty, but they knew Laura and the staff would be around all evening, working the restaurant next door, so they let Kate sit with her coffee and her thoughts.
She could cross off date number ten, she mused. She was sure the desire not to ever see each other again was mutual. She’d been looking forward to the gingerbread house challenge too.
Her mind drifted to Matt as she watched the snow fall outside. Just a week or so before they’d been laughing and joking together at the Christmas market. She would never have believed then that she’d be planning to leave Blexford altogether by now.What a difference a few days can make, she thought.
Kate closed her eyes to stop the tears. Why did she have to love someone who didn’t love her back? Why was life such a bitch sometimes?
She heard a chair scrape and opened her eyes to find Laura sitting opposite her. Laura’s expression was concern and anxiety mixed. She chewed a fingernail and fidgeted.
“What’s up with you?” Kate asked.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” said Laura. She moved on to another fingernail.
“Are you pregnant again?” Kate asked.
“No!” exclaimed Laura. “Good God, no! This concerns you.”
“AmIpregnant?” Kate joked. Laura didn’t laugh.
“It’s about Matt,” said Laura.
“I don’t want to talk about Matt,” said Kate.
“Hear me out,” said Laura. “You need to know this, in case it changes things.”
“Unless Matt’s undergoing a personality bypass, or you’ve got a potion to fix unrequited love, I doubt there is anything you can tell me that wouldchange things.”
Laura pursed her lips as if she were wondering whether whatever she was about to divulge was a good idea, but then she seemed to find her resolve. She set her jaw, took a deep breath, and began.
“About six months after you left to go traveling,” Laura began, “Matt came to see me. He thought we were still living together. He didn’t know you were out of the country, and, well...” She shrugged. “You know what he was like back then; I hadn’t seen or heard from him to tell him. The thing is, Kate...” Laura stopped. She looked directly at Kate. “He told me he was in love with you.”
Laura watched her friend, waiting for the words to settle in the air between them.
“I’m sorry,” said Kate. “He what?”
“He told me he was in love with you,” Laura repeated. “He’d come to Liverpool in a great rush of bravado, with flowers and this idea about professing his love, and then found you’d gone.”
Laura was quiet. She looked at Kate, and Kate knew she was waiting for her to respond. But Kate didn’t know how to respond. She was stunned. How had she never known this? A different life flashed before her eyes.What-ifs clattered through her mind.
“When he heard that you were intending to stay away longer, he told me to forget it,” said Laura. “I told him to email you, tell you how he felt, apologize for being such a dick. But you know how stubborn heis. He got all angry, embarrassed probably, and he made me promise not to tell you. He said he never should have come in the first place.”
Kate’s mind reeled.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“I didn’t know what to do for the best,” said Laura. “I’d promised Matt I wouldn’t. But I told myself that if in your next email, you mentioned Matt, I’d tell you regardless. But you didn’t. Your next email was all about Aaron or whatever his name was.”
“It seems like quite a big thing to omit,” said Kate.
“You were having such a great time,” said Laura. “And Matt had been such a pain in the arse, and I know how upset you were with him and I guess I just thought, why bring him up when you’re so happy? It would’ve just meant more Matt drama. And let’s face it, he was good at bringing the drama back then.”
“He told you he was in love with me?”
“I didn’t know whether to believe him,” said Laura. “And then he switched so quickly back to his default position of miserable bugger that I thought—well, I didn’t know what to think.”
