Page 67 of Confessions of a Christmasholic

Or to let her know.

After everything, how could she do this to her? This was as bad as a breakup, as hurtful as having your heart broken. Sutton twisted her wrist with her other hand, mentally begging Layla to walk through the lobby door, for her to have an excuse she could believe. Hell, withanyexcuse. But no, the next woman through the door was just a normal traveller, hauling her big suitcase behind her.

Layla wasn’t coming, Layla wasn’t coming…

A part of Sutton still wanted to believe there was a decent reason for Layla’s non-arrival. Maybe something happened back in Cape Town to prevent her from getting on the plane. Or maybe she was sick, had injured herself, or maybe someone else was sick and injured. She was lying to herself, and Sutton hated doing that. Layla wasn’t here because she couldn’t be arsed to be here. It was that simple…

Find your courage, pick up the phone and find out where she is, Sutton. Sutton punched in Layla’s social media handle and scrolled through her posts. In a photo, posted six hours ago, Layla stood in the centre of a group of friends, all dressed in silly Christmas hats, in their favourite restaurant.Celebrating Christmas 2023 with my besties! No place I’d rather be.

Right. Well,shit. Layla’s IG post was a gut punch, and fairly clear, but Sutton still needed to hear it from the horse’s – or the ass’s – mouth. So she dialled her number and this time, after it beeped a few times, the call rang through. And a male’s voice grunting a hello crossed the miles.

Sutton was pretty sure she recognised his voice but didn’t want to get into a conversation with Lyle, Layla’s on-off bed buddy. ‘Put Layla on.’

Lyle didn’t argue, but just passed the phone on, which involved some grunting and bedclothes rustling.

‘What?’

Sutton was sitting in a London hotel, but Layla was having afternoon sex. Of course, she was.

‘Merry Christmas Eve, babe,’ Sutton said, her words as hard as bullets.

There was a long silence on Layla’s end. ‘Sutton…shit, look, can I call you back?’ Her laugh was as fake as the hotel’s Christmas tree. ‘Lyle is about to give me my Christmas present…’

Layla looked at her phone, unable to believe what she was hearing. There was chutzpah and then there was pure, undiluted bullshit. ‘Are youkiddingme? Where thefuckare you?’

Another silence. ‘Didn’t you get my email telling you I couldn’t make it?’

Really? Did Layla expect her to swallow this load of crap? ‘You didn’t send an email, Layla.’

‘I had a problem with my visa, it didn’t come—’

‘How stupid do you think I am, Layla? I know your visa was approved, you told me it was months ago. I paid for the hotel, and for everything else, upfront. All you had to do was get on the fucking plane. But you’re not on the goddamn plane!’

‘I—’

‘And the reason you’re not on the goddamn plane is because you didn’t want to be on the goddamn plane. Because you never wanted to do this!’ Sutton shouted. Several people turned to look at her and she stared them down, daring them to mess with her. Right now, she was angry enough to take on Attila and his armies, Boudica and the merry men of Marvel. And she would kick all their arses.

‘Will you stop yelling?’ Layla whined. ‘I’ve got a headache and you’re not helping.’

Another lie. Layla frequently used a headache as an excuse to get out of an unpleasant conversation or situation. ‘Oh, sorry,’ Sutton shot back. ‘I thought yelling was the appropriate response to my best friend not being here.’

Sutton rubbed the back of her neck, her eyes on the tiles beneath her feet. There was a sweet wrapper under the coffee table, and every time the lobby door opened, or someone walked through the rotating door, it jumped from one place to another. That was like her and Layla; her direction was decided by the winds of Layla’s temper. And it stopped, here and now.

‘I don’t know what I did to make you treat me like a bag of crap, Layla—’

‘You left.’

Sutton blinked, not sure she’d heard her correctly. ‘Sorry? What was that?’

‘You left me. You went to the UK, and you went to Florence, and Barcelona and Munich.’

She did and she’d had fun but so what?

‘You weren’t supposed to do that.’

Sutton frowned. ‘Why the hell not?’

‘I didn’t go.’

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