‘I really think if you got to know Kyle you might even like him,’ she ventured.
‘Who knows, maybe I will.’
‘You’re getting on well with Amelia.’
‘We’ve been forced together thanks to you two.’
‘It doesn’t exactly look like you’re hating it from where I’m standing.’
‘I thought I was supposed to lecture you on your love life, not the other way around.’
‘I want you to be happy.’
He looked at the girl beside him who’d blossomed into a proper young lady and he felt a pang of loss at how quickly time marched on, how many moments he longed to savour all over again. They talked about everything they’d managed to see in New York so far, how it had lived up to expectation and beyond. And when they passed an ornament shop in Soho Scarlett dragged him inside and they ended up buying something else for their tree. She came out with two golden angels, one playing a violin, the other playing a harp, plus a centrepiece of a Santa kneeling down with a sack full of presents.
‘If your luggage is over the limit at the airport I’ll make you throw that in the bin,’ he told her when she swung the bag back and forth, happy to have found something new.
‘Don’t be such a spoilsport. You’ll love the memory on our first Christmas back in England.’
‘I’m missing our Christmas movies this year.’
‘Me too. But I’m loving being in the city where so many movies are set. Sometimes I have to pinch myself,’ she grinned, and stopped out front of a clothes store not far from the inn. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, admiring the sparkly dress in the window.
‘Go try it on.’
‘Really?’
‘Why not?’
Twenty minutes later and they left the store with what he now knew was something called an A-line princess scoop-neck dress. Scarlett had looked stunning in it and never mind the price tag, when her eyes shone as much as the sequins on the bodice he’d got carried away and insisted on buying it for her as an extra Christmas gift.
‘I’m going to wear it to the Christmas Eve party at the inn,’ she said after they left the store. ‘Did you pack anything smart?’
‘I packed my best shirt, don’t worry. Just like you packed a black dress, from what I remember.’
‘A new dress called out to me, what can I say?’
‘I hope Kyle appreciates it.’ He knew Kyle and Amelia had been invited because Darcy had made a point of telling him and already he wondered what Amelia would be wearing, how she’d style her hair, whether she’d look his way. Whether she’d bring Paul.
The last thought stopped his daydreaming.
‘Amelia will appreciate you in your smarter clothes,’ smiled Scarlett. ‘Girls at my school talk about how hot my dad is.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah and it’s gross.’
‘Thanks!’
‘Kyle told me Amelia’s ex-boyfriend is in town. He doesn’t sound like the type of guy who deserves her.’
‘No? Why, what have you heard?’
‘Not much. Kyle doesn’t like him, says she can do better. And if there’s a possibility she might bring someone, you need a date. Why don’t I ask Darcy if she knows anyone?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Maybe he’d just lie low, do the rounds and say hello and then escape until everyone buggered off home.
They stopped to take in another impressive window display, the magic of Christmas brought to them there on the street corner. The air around them hinted that the snow symbols on the weather forecast for next week might not be a figment of an enthusiastic weather station’s imagination, and eventually they turned into the road that housed the Inglenook Inn, away from the busyness of the main streets, the chaos of December, Christmas Eve looming in front of them tomorrow.
