Page 112 of Green Flag
“Did he call you ‘love nugget’?” Fia laughed, rolling her eyes. “Wow. Boy’s got it bad.”
I glowered at her. “He’s taking the piss. Did you know he was coming?” I asked, spying the seventh placemat.
“Maybe,” she said sweetly, grabbing the knives from the sideboard.
“And you didn’t say?”
She grimaced in disgust. “I kind of expected you to have more knowledge of your boyfriend’s schedule? Don’t get all pissy pants, love nugget, I’m armed to the teeth.” She lifted them high and bore her teeth to me before nearly falling about laughing. “I’m so funny.”
She might annoy the living hell out of me, and we might not technically be related, but I saw an alarming amount of myself in her.
I prayed that her confidence wasn’t a smokescreen.
There was no point in replying to his video message. I slid on my slippers and went outside to the drive, where he wasstanding and struggling to wave at me, weighed down by gift bags. In a Santa hat. “There’s one more in the car.”
“What on earth have you got with you?”
He smiled gleefully. “Pressies.”
“Pressies? For who?”
He bent and kissed me on the cheek. “Well, for starters, you. Then there’s your family too.”
Struggling to move his car key in his hand, he pressed a button to unlock his car.
“Front passenger seat. Put it on.”
I opened the door with a frustrated breath, only to find a matching Santa hat.
“Merry Christmas, Everly!”
“I am not wearing that.”
“Yes, you are. Remember, my sweet pudding pie, we are the most love-sick couple in all the land,” he said and tried to gesture with the bags around his wrists to put it on.
I shoved it over my head, grateful I hadn’t spent hours curling my hair.
“Beautiful,” he said, smiling and flashing his dimples.
“What are you doing here? I wish you had said you were coming,” I mumbled, opening the door and letting him through.
“As if I wasn’t going to see you for Christmas?” he asked and shook his head in mock disbelief.
“I’m coming to your fight!” I exclaimed, shutting the door behind us.
He turned with the brightest, chuffed smile. His voice dropped an octave, a velvety quality in his playful question. “Are you?”
Well, shit. Trying to slide against the wall beside him and his copious gift bags, I stopped and swallowed. “Of course.”
His eyes lingered for a beat too long.
“Well, your step-mum was very accommodating and told me I couldn’t spend Christmas Eve in London without trying her roast dinner, so that was what really enticed me,” he joked, eyes crinkling.
“Aren’t you meant to be on a crazy diet before a fight?” I asked, trying to take some of the bags from him and avoided his intense eye contact.
He shook his head at me.
“Normally, yeah,” he said. “For weigh-in. But it’s for charity. And I’ve, er, lost a bit of weight recently anyway.”
