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Chapter Fourteen
‘The next batch of cookieswill be cool enough to ice now.’ Elsie nodded towards the cooling rack as she cut star shaped vanilla cookies from the dough she’d made.
‘Okay, I’ll make a start on them now.’ Holly grinned as she placed the last gingerbread Santa, complete with an iced red hat, on to the tray to her left.
‘Thank you so much for this, love. I know you had a late night on the bus tour last night, so I didn’t expect you to be up and helping out at this time.’ Elsie cut another star-shaped cookie.
‘I know, but I’m happy to be.’ She yawned into her elbow. She’d hardly slept last night. She’d been too busy going over her and Joe’s first ever date in her mind. Replaying it bit by bit.
‘Okay, well, just shout if you want to have a lie down later.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Right, that’s the bakery counter filled.’ Teresa waked into the kitchen, the door swinging closed behind her.
‘Thanks, love.’ Elsie glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. ‘You’d better be getting off and taking those lovely kids of yours to school now.’
‘Oh yes. I hadn’t erased what the time was.’ Teresa pulled her apron off and grabbed her coat. ‘I’ll see you alter.’
‘See you, love.’ Elsie held up a floury hand as Teresa stepped outside.
‘Elsie?’
‘Yes, love?’ Elsie looked across the stainless-steel table towards Holly.
‘I just wanted to say thank you for what you said the other night about being friends with Ian before you got together with him and wishing you hadn’t waited so long.’
‘Oh, that’s okay, love.’ Elsie smiled.
‘Ian spoke to Joe too. The day Joe admitted how he felt about me.’
Elsie nodded. ‘I thought he might.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course. Ask away.’
‘How did you know what me and Joe felt for each other before we’d even told the other?’ Holly finished the gingerbread Santa she was decorating with a small circle of white, a pom-pom for his hat.
‘Oh, you know... I guess we probably pick up on things like that a little more after living through it ourselves.’
‘Right. Well, thank you.’
‘Things are going well between you both, then?’
Holly grinned. ‘Yes, but the strange thing is, it doesn’t feel odd at all. It feels completely natural and normal.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I imagined it to feel a little weird to begin with. You know, seeing him as a partner rather than a friend.’
‘Ah, I remember thinking that way when me and Ian first got together. I think it’s because we were so close before anyway, as friends, I mean, that when our relationship progressed, we’d already got to that point emotionally.’
‘That makes sense.’ Holly nodded. It did. She and Joe had always spent a lot of time together, and shared everything, even more so since she’d split with Mick.
A tapping noise came from the door, getting louder and surer with each moment.
