Page 62 of The Wedding Forecast

I can’t stop gazing at him as we talk. My eyes feel hungry, thirsty, desperate to see him. I have to hold tightly on to my drink because otherwise I would reach out and brush his hair away from his forehead.

Hayley arrives, and we move to a different bar and get a table for dinner and drinks. We’re all in good spirits but Mac, I quickly notice, is not giving me any flirtatious signs. In fact, since Hayley arrived, he seems to be focused on her much more than on me. Am I reading it wrong? I wait for him to give me a hint, to rest his leg against mine, or bump my elbow, or sit nearer to me than Hayley, to cut his eyes over to me quickly—anything. But he doesn’t.

He is funny and charming and we are all having a lovely time. In fact, I can see Hayley warming up to him considerably—but but but. My heady excitement is slipping, because it’s becoming clear that all the things I was thinking, all this time, all the nights I thought of him, that none of that was happening in return.

Hayley goes to the toilet, and I test things, just a tiny bit. I let my shoulder brush Mac’s. He doesn’t move closer. Later, after Hayley has returned and we’re eating dessert, my knee really does accidentally bump his under the table. I think of the way he confidently pressed his knee against mine at the wedding. I can’t stop thinking of it. He doesn’t close the gap between our knees now. He’s giving me nothing. He’s friendly. I’m serving up banter, and he’s not hitting it back with intent. I’m playing this game alone. After the knee bump, I try one more time. Just in case there’s any confusion. I open one final door, put myself on the line one final time. I let my leg ever so subtly touch his again and for a moment he stays still and then he shifts away. Shifts away. Right. That’s that then. How embarrassing.

‘I think the jet lag is hitting,’ I say, when I can’t bear it any longer.

‘Yeah, I have the conference early tomorrow. Mac, thank you so much for taking us out tonight,’ Hayley says. Her previous anti-Mac stance has definitely softened. Or maybe she’s just riding the New York holiday high.

‘What are you doing for the rest of your time here?’ he says.

‘Well, we have tickets for your play,’ Hayley says. Mac is the lead in an off-Broadway show that we’re seeing on our second-last night.

‘You do?’ He looks pleased.

‘And we’re seeing some other shows, art galleries, very touristy things,’ Hayley says. ‘I have four days of the conference, and Anna is just going to wander the city.’

‘I could show you around?’ he says to me.

‘That would be great,’ I say. His offer is noncommittal, there’s no definite time, he’s very likely just being polite, so I am noncommittal back. But Hayley is nodding, excited.

‘She needs the full New York City Christmas experience,’ Hayley says.

‘I can deliver that,’ Mac says, his eyes sparkling like they did before our dance at the wedding.

‘Great,’ I say. Deep down, I don’t believe I’ll see him again on this trip, other than from a distance at the play.

He hugs us goodbye, a warm, friendly hug for Hayley, and then when he hugs me, it’s friendly too, but the minute I am leaning into his body, I am thinking of the hug in the restaurant hallway, the hug goodbye at the brunch and, I swear, he is too, because I feel him lean into me, pulling me closer, lingering, his face brushing against my hair. But then he steps back and he pats me quickly on the shoulder.

Well, that does it. Is there a more sexless, more condescending movement than a shoulder pat. The signs are in. The universe is saying, remember how I gave you Patrick, and you didn’t want him, you couldn’t even be bothered to reply to his text, well, this is what you get in return. A shoulder pat.

21

I AM DETERMINED to not let the disappointment of last night ruin the magic of the holiday. I flew twenty-something hours to be here, for god’s sake. I’m in New York. In December. And it actually snowed last night. This trip can still be everything I need it to be. Forget Mac.

I wrap myself up in my cutest beanie and scarf combination, a cream hat with a pom-pom and a green scarf with more pom-poms, feeling very Christmassy, and I have breakfast with Hayley.

A message from Mac arrives right as I’m eating my omelette. I don’t eat omelettes ever in Australia, or bacon, but American omelettes and American bacon and American black coffee (with free refills) is all different, and I am open to new experiences. Australian Anna finds bacon revolting, American Anna is ordering an extra serve for the table.

Get ready for your New York Christmas experience, Mac’s message says. With two Santa emojis.

I can’t help grinning, even though I was determined to not find anything he does cute from here on. I keep thinking of touching his leg with mine, practically panting at the dinner table, and I cringe. But he put his lips to my stomach in a garden once. He slid his hands up the sides of my thighs in a bathroom. He pressed me against a wall in a restaurant. Remember that (as if I could ever forget). I am not delusional. There was something there, once. But now my walls are up. I’ve had my moment of vulnerability. I am strictly a woman of words, not men, again.

‘When are you thinking?’ I write back. I am expecting him to say, tomorrow, Friday, later in the week.

‘I’m at your hotel now,’ he writes back straightaway.

My heart races a little.

I direct him to the diner we’re at.

‘Mac is coming,’ I say to Hayley.

She is busy sending Luke pictures of our breakfast. She’s sent him twenty photos of every single meal we’ve had so far, because she is determined to make him jealous, and Luke loves food. She is angling in on the bacon as I speak.

She looks up. ‘Oh cool. How do I make bacon look not-disgusting in a photo?’