But in the early afternoon, as Nate’s phone was passed around and she could hear Jules’s voice, Lucy realised with a jolt that she’d practically slept-walked through the day—Christmas Day—the white Christmas she’d been excited about for months. She’d also spent the morning steering clear of Will, not wanting to encourage him, or pursue whatever was budding between them—lovely, lovely Will, who’d done nothing wrong.
So, even though Lucy knew it would upset Jules that she didn’t want to talk to her, she didn’t care. What had started out as concern that something between her and Will could affect her friendship with Jules, had morphed into something else since their Christmas morning video call.
Lucy was furious with her BFF.
At times, she’d wondered if this day would ever come. Twenty-two years of friendship and the three of them had never really quarrelled—she didn’t count the sisterly bickering that Jules and Chloe seemed to relish. What surprised Lucy most, however, was that it was Jules who had tipped the scales. Surely, if anyone was going to enrage her at some point, it would be Chloe, but Chloe had been the empathetic one.
As Will got up from the sofa and left the room to talk to Jules, Steph caught Lucy’s eye. Lucy looked away quickly, suddenly riveted by the pilling of her jumper.
“Lucy, come with me,” said Steph from behind her. It was practically a whisper—not a command as such, but a warm summoning. Lucy stood and followed Steph into a little room off the foyer, a study. Lucy had known it was there but had never been inside. Steph closed the door behind them, then sat on the office chair next to the desk, swinging it around to face the centre of the room, and Lucy curled up in the comfy armchair opposite.
“This is my little sanctuary when I need to get away from … well, from all that.” She waved her hand in the direction of the front room.
“It’s nice. Quiet.”
Steph smiled. “Nate got his kitchen. I got this. Anyway, that’s not why I asked you to come in. Although, I should say, that you’re welcome to escape here any time you like—to read, or … whatever.” Lucy looked out the narrow floor-to-ceiling window and marvelled at how the sunlight made the snow clinging to the trees twinkle like fairy lights. She breathed out a long, slow breath.
“Is everything okay?” Steph asked. Lucy’s eyes met Steph’s, then immediately filled with tears. She brushed the tears away briskly, annoyed at their appearance. “You must be missing home. Did you get to talk to your folks this morning?” Lucy nodded. “It can be tricky, huh, the adventure of a Christmas on the other side of the world, but missing home too?”
Steph snatched a handful of tissues from the box on the desk and handed them to Lucy. “There’s something else though, isn’t there?”
It was just the prompt to break the floodgates and it all tumbled out, Lucy managing to shove aside the thought that this was Will’s mother. When she’d caught Steph up on everything that had happened, including how hurt she’d been to discover that Jules didn’t think she was good enough for Will, Lucy expelled a huge breath and sat back against the chair, her fingers playing with the soggy tissues. “Sorry to put such a dampener on Christmas Day.”
“Oh, honey, don’t you worry about that.” She gave Lucy a kind smile as Lucy dragged the wad of wet tissues under her nose. “Here,” Steph handed her a fresh batch.
“Thanks.”
“So, let’s break this down.” Those words and the way she said them were so like Jules—the engineer’s mind at work, sifting through the problem, making order from chaos. While Chloe was the planner amongst them, when things invariably went wrong on their travels, it was typically Jules who found the solution, and she’d be just as calm and systematic as Steph was now.
“You and Will have something between you …” Lucy felt the heat rise in her cheeks. It was easy enough to forget who she was talking to mid-rant, but now she was calmer, it was just embarrassing.
“Please don’t be embarrassed.” Oh, lord, that only made it worse. “I see it—even in just a couple of days. He’s quite taken with you, Lucy, and Jackie was right—” She must have seen the horror in Lucy’s eyes and laughed. “No, no, not about the ‘grandbabies’ thing, sorry. About Will not bringing a girl home for Christmas for a long time. Actually, he hasn’t brought a girl home, period. Not in years.
“Look, I won’t go into details—he can tell you himself if he wants—but Will was in a serious relationship all through college and for several years after that. I’m pretty sure he thought he was going to marry her, but it ended badly—very badly.”
Lucy was overcome with compassion for Will, sorry that he’d had to endure such a devastating breakup. “Do you think that’s why Jules is cross with me, because she thinks I’ll hurt Will?”
“It could be, honey, but what you said about Jules not thinking you’re good enough for Will … I’m certain that’s not true. Jules loves you, Lucy, even if she did a poor job of showing it today.”
“I suppose,” Lucy replied, not wholly believing it.
“Hey, do you remember Peter, the guy Jules was dating around ten years ago?” Lucy nodded. Jules and Peter had been together for a couple of years when she caught him cheating with a co-worker. “So, you remember how it ended, then?” Another nod from Lucy. “Well, that was around the time I met Joe … and when it became obvious that Joe and I were serious, well, I think for both my children—even though they were young adults—that was when they had
