Page 49 of Snowed In
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Your boyfriend,” he says. “Is he in the guest room? I don’t want any funny business if I’m across the hall.”
“He’s not here.”
Aidan looks confused. “Mam said you were bringing someone home for Christmas.”
“He’s staying with his family,” I mutter, rearranging the blankets around me.
“In Dublin?”
My eyes snap to his, only to see he’s being serious. She didn’t tell him it’s Christian.
“No,” I say. “He’s from here.” I don’t know why I’m so wary. But I thought Mam might have spread the news around and save me from conversations such as this one.
“What?” Aidan asks. “Who?”
“Christian. Christian Fitzpatrick.”
My brother goes quiet, and I can tell he doesn’t believe me. At least not at first, but when I don’t say anything more, he seems to sober up real quick. “ChristianFitzpatrick?”
“Yeah,” I say, defensive now.
He gazes at me as though he’s struggling to process this little nugget of information. “Isn’t he in jail?” he asks eventually.
“No.”
“But he was in jail.”
“He was never in jail,” I say firmly. “He was brought home by the guardsonetime because he skipped school, and his parents freaked.” I only remember it because it was all anyone could talk about in class for a month. “And he’s not fifteen anymore,” I remind him. “He’s different.”
Aidan still looks unhappy. “How did you even meet?”
“In Dublin. He works there now.”
“And you just…caught up like old friends.”
I plant a hand into the mattress, pushing myself into a sitting position. I am done with this conversation. “You want to know if we had sex?” I ask. “You want to know if your sister madelove? If she—” I bat his arm away as he tries to cover my mouth. “What are you doing?” I ask, as he takes out his phone. The screen is cracked because, of course, it is. Some things never change. “Aidan. What are you—”
“Googling him.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to. Hey.” He holds his arm out, so I can’t reach his phone. “No touching.”
“Stop looking.”
“No.”
He gives me another push, infuriatingly stronger than me, and my anxiety notches up several levels as Aidan goes quiet, scrolling through the phone. The websites for Christian’s job come up first, and then his social media. Aidan pauses on the most recent pictures, focusing on one in particular.
It’s the picture of Christian and me at the cocktail bar the night we agreed to do this. We were at least a bottle in at that stage, as evidenced by the wide smiles on both our faces.
Another flick of Aidan’s thumb and there I am again, leaning against a brick wall outside. A string of fairy lights above casts me in a white glow, and I make a mental note to grab that one off him because I look pretty hot, not gonna lie.
Aidan keeps scrolling, moving past Christian’s Dublin era and back further to London.
