Page 33 of Just for December

‘Go on,’ Duke challenges her. ‘If this was ten years ago and you were still dating …’

‘I’m not forty-two, you asshat.’

‘You keep calling me that!’

‘You keep being one!’

Staring.

‘What is acceptable date chat for you, Ms Bird?’ he asks then.

She makes a gagging sound. ‘Oh God.’ She laughs. ‘I don’t know! I told you, I’m so bad with people, and … I don’t know. I am aware I can be prickly. It’s just who I am.’

‘I am enthralled by you.’ He says it like the queen, rolling his r’s. It takes the edge off the truth in it.

‘You and Magda, then. That’s it. The two people in the world who think I’m interesting.’

‘Surely not.’

‘And my mother,’ she adds. ‘When she remembers.’

‘Do you wanna talk about that?’

Without missing a beat she replies, ‘Nope.’

They chuckle, and she picks up the empty beer bottle and picks at the label.

‘I’ve just read a novel that features parental dementia,’Duke says. ‘I can lend it to you? It’s in my stuff at the hotel.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’d like that. And thank you for being kind to me,’ she adds, when Duke decides to let the silence play out. It’s nice, sitting here with her, shooting the breeze, nobody with any proper idea where they are. He feels safe, and comfortable. He tries to think of anybody else he could pass twelve to eighteen hours stranded with, and he can’t.

18

Evie

This is incredible of him,Evie thinks to herself as she steals a glance at Duke’s angular face. She loves that he has kitted out this space this way, taking the time and effort to be sweet. No man has ever been this thoughtful. Her friends, yes. Magda is basically her surrogate partner when it comes to birthdays and holidays and small everyday celebrations. Magda is the person Evie texts when her flight lands, or she has work news, or she wants to complain about a bad day. And Magda does the same for her, too. They’ve taken trips together, dressed up for BFF date nights together, nursed the other when they’ve been sick – but in terms of amangoing the extra mile? Nope. Never. That’s why she makes it all up and writes it down in her books. That’s what she meant when she told Duke her stories are as much fantasy as lightsabres and other-worldly dimensions. This kind of stuff just doesn’t happen, and definitely not to her.

He’s partway through telling a story about Jennifer Lawrence falling into his pool fully clothed when he threw a housewarming at his LA house as she considers him. She had him wrong. She can own that much. She thought he was an ego, an actor who thinks the world revolves around him. But he isn’t. He’s like the moon, reflecting the rays of the sun. He doesn’t put himself at the centre of the solar system, which demonstrates character. Maturity.

She arches her back a bit, like she’s uncomfortable after sitting for so long. She isn’t, but she has a plan. She cricks her neck, and then shuffles in her seat, surreptitiously picking it up and moving it a few inches in Duke’s direction as she does so, just to see how it feels. It makes him pause in his story like he’s not sure if he’s getting this right. He must have women throw themselves at him all the time, right? He knows how this goes, she thinks. Not that she’s making a move, per se, it’s just … the nearness of him. And yet he seems nervous, swallowing hard when Evie flicks her hair over her shoulder slowly and bites on her bottom lip again. What is she doing? Dare she?

‘Sorry,’ she says, her voice soft and her eye contact strong. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

Duke juts his chin out a little, and she gets that flash of a little boy again. And then almost immediately, he’s back to his nervous, awkward self.

‘Yes, you did,’ he tells her, his voice wavering.

‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I did.’

And then they’re greeted by the glare of a flashlight, the Spanish inquisition come to life. It’s a security guard.

‘No candle,’ he says in a gruff, accented voice. ‘Fire hazard,’ he adds.

Duke leans over and blows it out, standing up and saying, ‘Sorry about that. I didn’t think. Quite right.’

Their moment is lost.

When the lights go back on, they’re dozing next to one another on the floor, back in the main lobby area with everyone else.

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