Page 56 of Holiday Romance
“Who did?” she demands like she’s going to come straight over and beat them up for me.
“Argentina.” I collapse back onto the bed, my body immediately sinking into the soft mattress. “They lost it and we missed our flight to Dublin so now we’re in London and we’re staying with Andrew’s fake-rich cousin for the night.”
“Fun.How fake-rich?”
“He lives in his boss’s mansion and his name is Oliver.”
“Shut up.” She sighs. “When are you flying to Ireland?”
“We’re not,” I say, staring up at the ceiling. “We’re getting the ferry.”
“Cute.”
“Long,” I correct. “The ferry goes from Wales, which means we have to get a train there in the morning. And then Andrew has another bus from Dublin. We’re both already exhausted. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t sleep through Christmas at this stage.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s… fine.”
There’s a long pause at the other end of the line as she probably reads a million things into my hesitation. And then: “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh my God.”
“Nothing!”
“That’s your something voice,” she says. “I knew something was up. Iknewit.”
“That’s not why I was—” I sigh, rubbing my eyes. “That’s a whole different thing.”
“Oh, we are having the biggest lunch date when you get back. We’re going to order some crab salad from Morillo’s and lock ourselves in the east meeting room and you are not coming out until you tell me everything. In fact—”
“He kissed me.”
Gabriela immediately stops talking, like all the air’s been sucked from her lungs by my words. “Who did?”
“Andrew!” I roll over so I’m faceplanting into the mattress. “Twice.”
“Twice?”
“I guess technically I was the one that kissed him. There was mistletoe the first time.”
“Okay.”
“And it kind of threw me. Because I was all, oh, friendly mistletoe kiss between friends because we’re friends—”
“Sure.”
“—But then it wasnotthat. And then in Argentina, he followed me to the restroom—”
“Hewhat?”
“It’s less creepy than it sounds,” I assure her, twirling a strand of hair so tight around my finger that it hurts. “Anyway, he followed me and we kissed again.”
“In the restroom?”
“In the hallwayoutsidethe restroom. Because I told him that the first kiss messed me up and he said we should try it again, so we tried it again.”
