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I try not to appear too eager. ‘What would you like to do?’
‘I’ll leave that up to you,’ he says. ‘You pick this one, and I’ll choose next time.’
‘You might not like what I choose,’ I warn him.
‘I just want to spend some time with you, Annie. I don’t mind what we do.’
‘But what if I decide we’re going to have a picnic with turkey sandwiches made by your aunt?’
He pulls a face. ‘I’d still give it a try.’
There’s a sudden shriek from the hallway. ‘It’s almost midnight, everyone! Come and fill your glasses.’
‘I had no idea it was that late,’ I say.
‘Shall I get you another orange juice to drink a Christmas toast?’ he asks.
We go back to the front room and survey the table.
‘There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot left,’ says Alex.
He picks up the carton of orange juice and shakes it. ‘Oddly enough, this is still nearly full.’ He pours us both a glass.
‘Don’t you want something stronger?’ I ask.
‘Not at all. What better than a nice, cold glass of orange juice to drink a Christmas toast?’
‘It won’t be cold,’ I say. ‘It was warm when I drank it before, and this room is stifling.’
He hands me the glass. ‘Have you forgotten we were going to take them outside to chill them?’
We go into the kitchen and slip out of the back door without anyone noticing us. I give an involuntary shiver.
‘Would you like my sweater?’ he asks.
‘Bad idea,’ I say. ‘You’d die of hypothermia in about three minutes flat.’
I look down the garden. ‘It’s cloudy, so I can’t see too well, but this garden looks pretty small. When you promised me the tour, you made it sound as though it was several acres.’
‘It used to be,’ he says without missing a beat, ‘but they sold it for development. If we come here again next Christmas, there’ll be nothing but high rises and a huge supermarket.’
‘My mum would have something to say about that,’ I say. ‘She’s on the parish council, and she’d have a fit if anyone suggested it.’
‘Perhaps it was some other garden I was thinking of,’ he says, unperturbed.
‘Versailles, perhaps?’
He frowns. ‘Let’s not talk about France until we have to.’
I put down my glass next to his. ‘We’d better not leave these too long or they’ll be frozen solid.’
He looks at his watch. ‘Only one minute to go. I promised myself when I met you in September that I wouldn’t leave it until Christmas Day to kiss you, so we don’t have much time.’
He turns to face me. ‘If that’s ok?’
My brain seems to have frozen. I can’t think of any words to say. Instead, I smile up at him, and he puts his arms around me.
‘It was a near thing,’ he says, ‘but we still have about twenty seconds.’
