Page 50 of Twilight at Croftwood Library
‘How are things with you? Alex finally moved his stuff out, did he?’
‘Yes, but not before he decided he’d made a mistake by breaking up with me and asked me to move to London.’
‘He didn’t!’
‘He did and he was pretty gutted when I turned him down but a week later, he rang to tell me he had got over it and he has a new girlfriend.’
‘Christ, Lois. Are you okay with that? It’s pretty quick.’
‘It’s fine. I’d come to terms with the whole thing and not even a tiny bit of me was tempted to give it another go aside from the fact I don’t want to move to London.’
‘Steph said you’d met a guy at the book dating club.’ He looked eagerly at Lois for more information.
‘Okay, first, it’s not a date with a person it’s a date with a book.’ Although she loved the idea of meeting someone with a shared love of books. ‘And second, she’s talking about Oliver who hosts the book club meetings in his coffee house and is with someone else.’
‘He’s not. Bloody hell, Lois that’s unlucky. Steph thought that was a goer with you two.’
‘No, it never got past the first date then his ex turned up and that was that. We’re still friends though.’
‘Anyone else on the scene?’ He was giving her the third degree. She’d forgotten what it was like working here with the massive scrutiny that everyone gave every part of each other’s lives. She quite liked that about Croftwood. No-one was into interrogating her on a daily basis about her love life which suited her fine.
‘You’ll be the first to know, Andrew. Anyway, tell me how things are with you and Luke.’
The next half an hour was spent with Andrew telling her about what felt like every night out he’d had since she had started working at Croftwood Library, but it was nice to hear about someone else’s love life instead of obsessing about her own.
‘And I can’t believe Steph’s still going out with that numpty motorbike bloke.’
‘I know. It can’t be long before she sees the light now,’ agreed Lois.
‘I think you’re right. She was pretty cheesed off about that trip to Weston. She said he was off chatting to his mates too much. The beginning of the end, hopefully. Well, I’d better get back to stacking the shelves.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘It’s been good to catch up.’ He hugged her as they stood up to leave.
‘Come to me next time you have a day off. I’ll show you around Croftwood.’
‘Lois, have you ever seen me outside the city limits of Worcester?’ he grinned. ‘But I might make an exception for you.’
28
Oliver had three Christmas trees, one on either side of the coffee house door and another one inside. They had appeared since the light switch-on and were festooned with fairy lights the same as the rest of the shop.
‘Nice trees,’ Lois commented as she waited for a lunchtime toasted sandwich and latte.
‘Thanks, I wasn’t quick enough to organise them for the light switch-on but better late than never. Have you got your tree yet?’
‘I just need to get it out of the attic.’
Oliver put the milk jug down and turned to look at her. ‘You of all people don’t get a real tree?’
‘What do you mean, ‘me of all people’?’ she asked laughing.
‘You forget that I saw you having a moment by the Christmas tree last weekend. You love Christmas, you have to have a real tree.’
‘It’s tricky to carry a tree on a bike,’ she pointed out.
‘Okay, when’s your next day off?’
‘I don’t need a real tree.’ It hardly seemed worth it when she was by herself, although she did love the smell of the real ones.
‘Come on, tell me. Thursday, is it? Saturday?’
