So, I’m spending Christmas with the hot guy, she thought as she imagined him standing nude under a sprig of mistletoe. She flashed her excellent example of American orthodontia and said, “I’m Jules.”
“Matt.” He smiled back, then seemed to remember they were both standing there with heavy things. “Oh, sorry, I was going to offer to take your bag upstairs for you.”
She looked down at her luggage. “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. It weighs, like, fifty pounds.”
He grinned again. “Yeah, that’s okay. I’ll manage. So, how ’bout I head up with your bag, then come back down for you and the wine?”
There was no sense in arguing. He had offered and she had no desire to lug her luggage up all those stairs. “Sure,” she said, surrendering it.
Matt placed the box of wine on the floor, retrieved his phone from the front pocket of his jeans, swiped a couple of times, then pressed it to his ear. “Hey Ash, the lift’s out. Can you meet me at the top of the stairs? Yeah, she’s here. I’m bringing up her bag. Cool, ta.”
Then he pocketed the phone, took the handle of her luggage and disappeared through the door to the stairwell. “Be right back,” he called as the door swung shut.
As she waited, Jules settled on one thought. Christmas far from home and far from her dad, was definitely looking up.
Chapter 7
Chloe
“Stop right here, thanks.”
The taxi driver pulled to the kerb, cutting off another car. Chloe ignored the long horn that sounded and handed over her credit card. She was running uncharacteristically late and waited impatiently for the driver to tap it.
“Receipt?”
“No thanks.” She took her card and opened the car door, throwing a look over her shoulder. “Can you get my bag out of the boot?” The driver huffed out a sigh, but she ignored that too. Surely, he didn’t expect her to lift that massive thing.
It was too hot to be wearing ankle boots, jeans and a jumper, and a thin sheen of sweat prickled her brow. She’d be fine once she got in the terminal—if the driver would hurry up.
She double-checked the backseat to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind before closing the door. The driver heaved her bag onto the footpath and grunted, “There you go.”
He was rewarded with a million-watt Chloe Sims smile, which seemed to disarm him instantly. “Have a good flight,” he chirruped.
She pulled the handle up with a snap and strode towards the terminal, mentally rehearsing her get-an-upgrade strategy. One in three times it worked, mostly because of her frequent-flier status. She hoped this would be one of those times, because the thought of all those hours in economy did nothing to lift her mood. An upgrade would, though.
*
Twenty-nine hours she’d been in transit, counting the layover in Dubai, immigration at Heathrow, and the bus ride to Oxford—and she’d been unlucky with the upgrade. But the worst part of the journey was waiting at the open-air bus station in the freezing cold hoping she’d recognise Lucy’s dad from a photo on Facebook.
According to the glary orange digits of the overhead clock, the bus had only dropped her off fifteen minutes ago, but fifteen minutes standing in the cold felt like years. Where was Mr Browning?
She shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her Kathmandu puffer jacket. Her top half was warm, but the damp icy wind was biting through her jeans and her toes were so cold, they’d gone numb. She may not have packed appropriately for winter in the English countryside.
And she realised that her face hurt. Surely, that’s not normal? People can’t go about their everyday lives with their faces hurting every time they step outside.
“Chloe?” she heard behind her.
She spun on her heels, so relieved to see the friendly face of her friend’s dad that she uncharacteristically blurted, “You’re here,” before throwing herself into the poor man’s arms.
He patted her stiffly on the back and cleared his throat. “Right then, shall we go?” Chloe stepped back and nodded like a four-year-old who’d been asked if she wanted a pony ride. “Shall I get your case for you?” He indicated her bag and before waiting for an answer, took the handle and with a smile that drew his lips taut across his face, said, “This way.”
Chloe followed, more excited to get into a car than she could ever remember being.
*
“Here you are, love,” said Mrs Browning as she opened the door to a tiny upstairs bedroom. “This was our Lucy’s room before she moved away.” She needn’t have added the last part, because the room had Lucy stamped all over it.
The single bed, which was pushed against the wall, had a bright pink doona cover and about a thousand throw pillows in various shades of pink—Lucy’s signature colour until Chloe and Jules had finally talked her out of it, at age twenty. Not in time, it seemed, to talk her out of pink curtains, a fluffy pink rug, and a hot-pink light fitting.
On the wall opposite the bed was a massive array of framed photographs of Lucy, ranging from infancy to early adulthood. Chloe scanned her eyes over the many faces of Lucy, seeing the dramatic transformation she’d had in her early teens.
She also spotted several photos of her, Jules, and Lucy from some of their May Ladies holidays—Venice, New York, Vietnam, and Santorini. Mrs Browning must have put those up, because they’d all been taken after Lucy moved to London.
The tall white dressing table was covered in trinkets and catchalls, as though a teenaged Lucy was about to walk through the door and scrounge for a hair tie or some pale-pink nail polish. The room was rounded out with a bedside table, a small desk and a wooden chair—also white—and on the shelves above the desk was an impressive collection of Sweet Valley High novels. Oh, Luce, you total dag.
“I’ve cleared out the bottom two drawers of the dressing
