Page 51 of Twilight at Croftwood Library
‘It’s Friday. I’m working on Saturday.’
‘Great, Jack’s in on Friday, so it’s a date. Well, not a date, you know what I mean,’ he said blushing slightly.
‘Okay, if you insist. Bring Amy if you want,’ suggested Lois, hoping that deliberately acknowledging Amy would define it as a harmless outing and if Amy questioned them going out, he could tell her that Lois had suggested she come too. Oh, god. She was overthinking this.
‘She won’t want to come. She’s not keen on traipsing through a muddy field to find the perfect tree.’ Oliver handed her the latte. ‘I’ll bring the toastie over in a minute.’
Lois sat in her usual seat. She was already looking forward to going to pick out a tree with Oliver. It used to be her favourite thing to do as a child. She used to go with her dad and brother to choose a tree and if they didn’t find the perfect one in the first place they tried, they would go somewhere else. Once, it took until the fourth place to find their tree and Lois thought that was probably the last time her brother had gone with them after losing his patience with the whole thing. After that, it was her and her dad, both happy to search endlessly for Christmas perfection.
But she would try and rein in her need for the perfect tree and choose one that was a perfectly acceptable tree. Otherwise, Oliver might not realise what he’d let himself in for.
He delivered her toastie to the table and sat down opposite her. ‘Amy said she spoke to you the other day. I just wanted to say thanks. She hasn’t got anyone to talk to around here and she said you were nice to her.’
‘I told her she should talk to you, that’s all.’
‘We did talk. I think she’s had so much therapy, it comes easier to her whereas for me…it feels weird to talk about how I feel to her. It feels like a criticism or something.’
‘Is she okay now? Are you?’ she asked softly.
‘Things are a bit better. I’m still not sure we’re on the right track but I’m giving it a go.’
At the risk of being disloyal to Amy, Lois said, ‘I think she senses you’re holding back.’
‘I am. I don’t know how I’ll know when it’s okay…I don’t know.’
‘You’ll figure it out,’ she said, ‘but you probably need to keep talking to each other.’
‘Yeah, well. If it was like talking to you, I think it’d be okay.’
One of the regulars to the coffee house, Toby, came in and greeted them, gesturing for Oliver to stay where he was. ‘No rush, Oliver,’ he said with a smile. He headed straight for a table in the window, giving Lois a valuable minute away from Oliver’s attention to tell herself not to read anything into his last comment.
But the Christmas tree outing seemed like even less of a good idea now.
When Patsy arrived to help with the lunch shift, Oliver asked her if she’d be able to work on Friday lunchtime to help Jack. It was always busy on a Friday.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why? You went to the wholesaler yesterday. You never ask me to work extra shifts unless it’s something really important.’
‘I know you’re working on Friday night at the cinema, but I need to help Lois get a Christmas tree.’ He deliberately avoided Patsy’s eye line and busied himself with grating some cheese.
‘You need to help her?’ She shoved his arm, making him drop a chunk of cheese on the floor.
‘Patsy!’
‘Ollie!’
He picked up the cheese and threw it in the bin. ‘Look, she loves Christmas and she’s got this crappy tree in her attic and no car to go and buy an actual tree. It’s not right.’
‘Maybe it’s her tradition. Not everyone has a real tree, including yours truly.’
‘I know you don’t normally bother but I bet Matt does.’
Patsy rolled her eyes. ‘It’s for the kids. If it was down to me…’
‘Yeah, right. That house is begging for the biggest tree you can buy.’
She grinned at him. ‘It will look amazing. Imagine the fire roaring and the stocking hung along the massive mantelpiece. We’ll be living in a Christmas film.’
Patsy had a tiny attic flat which she kept despite spending almost all of her time at her boyfriend Matt’s. Unsurprisingly, as an architect he had an amazing house that would be more at home in a snowy American ski resort.
