Page 89 of A Winter Wedding Adventure
But Ginny peered at her with a dubious look. ‘I saw how you looked at him.’
Toni gasped. ‘Who? What’s this? Her ex! Sophie just said it was awkward. What else did I miss?’
‘Not her ex,’ Ginny said slowly.
Kira took a deep breath through her nose, goosebumps spreading over her skin. On her own, she could wrestle with the persistent impression of absence, reason with herself that she’d always felt alone and alienated and this was nothing different. But she couldn’t fool her friends.
Hell of a time to remember why she didn’t have friends.
‘Mattia,’ Ginny began, enunciating slowly, ‘Bentivoglio. Operatic baritone.’
That was all it took. Kira buried her face in her hands, emotions bubbling to the surface even though she didn’t want any of them. Her breath was tight and the horrible urge to cry gripped her.
‘I hate fucking weddings,’ she mumbled.
A hand touched down on her back, rubbing firm circles. ‘Poor Kira,’ she heard Toni say. ‘I’m sorry love hurts.’
The twinge of sadness in her chest wasn’t only her own, it was sympathy for Toni, who’d been deeply in love and lost him. Kira had never fully appreciated how devastating it must have been for her.
‘It wasn’t love,’ she insisted. She still had her stubbornness, even if everything hurt. ‘Not like you and Miro.’
‘Leave me out of it,’ Toni said ruefully. ‘I’m sick of being the poster girl for grief. What happened?’
‘It took me by surprise,’ Kira explained. ‘Getting on so well with him was unexpected. I never believed anything real could develop between us, so I dropped my guard and then… this happened.’
‘They were very cute together,’ Ginny commented to Toni.
‘What was the problem?’ Toni prompted.
‘Everything!’ Kira insisted, lifting a hand for emphasis. ‘Now I miss him, like when our favourite takeaway closed down and I couldn’t get Chettinad curry.’
‘That is serious,’ Toni said indulgently. ‘It was amazing curry,’ she added for Ginny’s benefit.
‘Right, but “I miss you like curry” probably isn’t something you should say to him,’ Ginny pointed out.
‘What do you mean? I’m never going to see him again. He’s finally got the courage to build his career. He’s so fucking talented, he’ll be on a big stage somewhere making everyone cry and—’ not making me cry. She should have been relieved at that.
‘Is that the only reason you left without working things out with him?’ Ginny asked.
‘There was nothing to work out,’ Kira insisted. ‘We agreed it would be casual. I heard him say it was just casual the day before the wedding. With so many compromises to make to see each other, what would be the point? I just have to get over it. Why do I need an opera singer in my life anyway?’
Ginny tapped a finger against her lip in mock contemplation. ‘I can think of a few things.’ Dropping her hands to the table, her eyes widened. ‘Wait, when we were talking about mistletoe and kissing that night, had you two already— You were getting together with—’ Running out of words, she made some vague hand gestures that would have made Kira laugh if she hadn’t been so miserable.
‘We’d kissed,’ she admitted. ‘It happened pretty fast. At the very least, I taught the boy some new tricks.’
‘Sounds like he taught you something too,’ Toni said softly.
Kira crossed her arms. ‘I was perfectly happy before I felt all this stuff, thank you very much.’
‘You’ve lasted longer than most people, but I think a time comes when we have to accept that our feelings exist or we just can’t cope. We can be hurt. Trusting is scary.’ The echo of her life with Miro was in everything Toni said, but Kira wouldn’t point it out.
‘But what do you do about this disappointment? I can see I held onto the embarrassment of what Christian did for far too long and probably turned it into something it wasn’t. I worked out I needed to let that go, but…’ She propped her forehead on her hand. ‘I’ve never felt anything like this before. I don’t know how to process it.’
Ginny squeezed her arm, the three rings on her hand winking in the dim light of the pub. ‘Did you tell him any of that?’
‘Of course not!’ she said with a dark laugh. ‘After insisting the only option was casual, I couldn’t turn around and ask him if he wanted to be my video-chat boyfriend!’ She shook her head. ‘This is stupid. I promise not to be grumpy for twelve years this time and I won’t let this stop me making friends.’
Tears pricked again and Toni stretched her arm around Kira’s shoulders. She dropped her head to her old friend’s shoulder.
