‘You’d still have us.’ Rory grinned appealingly.
Will smiled at him. ‘Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. But what would I— I mean, where would I—’ He spluttered. ‘Where would…’ He didn’t know how to say what he meant without sounding childish and idiotic.
‘Where would you spend Christmas?’ Rory finished Will’s sentence for him.
‘Well… yes,’ Will admitted. ‘Metaphorically speaking.’
‘Have you thought about where you’ll spend Christmas if youdon’tgo for it?’ Rory fingered his beer bottle thoughtfully, scooping up drips of condensation.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’d be with Kate and her family, right?’
‘I suppose so.’ Will shrugged. ‘Same as usual.’
‘Do you really think you could hack that, year after year?’
‘Why not?’ Will said, puzzled.
‘Spending Christmas with Kate and her family – and whatever tosser she ends up marrying? And her children who aren’tyourchildren?’
Will gulped. He hadn’t thought about it like that. He was thinking about it as if they were all going to stand still in time. But of course Kate would end up marrying someone else, having children with him. He found the thought horrifying.
‘Maybe she’ll marry that boyfriend of hers,’ Rory mused, twisting the knife. ‘What’s his name again?’
‘Brian,’ Will muttered, through clenched teeth. God, maybe shewouldmarry him – she was still engaged to him, after all. But even if it wasn’t him it would be someone else.
Rory smiled sympathetically at the horror spreading across Will’s face. Obviously the picture he had painted had had the desired effect. Pulling a scrap of paper from the pocket of his jeans, he grabbed a pen from the table and scribbled something on it. ‘Look, go for it with Kate, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll make good on that,’ he said, handing the paper to Will.
Will looked at it. In Rory’s crabbed, spidery scrawl it read:
IOU a family Christmas.
‘If that’s not an incentive to go for it, I don’t know what is,’ Rory added gruffly.
‘I could do a lot worse,’ Will said, touched.
‘You haven’t seen Owen stuff the turkey.’ Rory got up and picked up his bottle.
‘Seriously – thanks.’ Will smiled at him.
‘Don’t worry, it’ll work out. You’re one of the good guys, Will.’ He raised his bottle in salute.
Outside the door, Rory bumped into Louise. His heart lurched as he wondered how long she had been standing there. She couldn’t have heard, could she? She was looking at him questioningly, but he avoided her eyes and, with a casual ‘Hi, Louise’, brushed past her and went out onto the terrace.
Sitting on a low bench by the wall, he lit a cigarette, his movements slow and deliberate, but his fingers were shaking.
‘Rory?’ Louise had followed him. She walked slowly across the terrace and came to sit beside him on the bench. He looked straight ahead, not meeting her eyes.
‘Rory,’ she began hesitantly, ‘I heard what Will said.’
Fuck! Here it comes – the big blow-off! ‘Yeah?’ He half turned to her as he took a long drag on his cigarette.
Christ, she wasn’t going to make this easy. ‘He said – he said you were in love with me,’ she said bluntly.
‘Oh,that.’ He looked at her cagily, his shoulders hunched defensively, like a child caught out in a lie – or a terrible guilty truth. Looking away, he exhaled on a long, deep sigh.
‘Is it true?’
