Page 38 of A Merry Irish Christmas
‘What question?’
‘Why are you suddenly being friendly and nice?’
‘I told you, I’m always nice.’
She raised her eyebrows at him.
‘Okay, maybe I was a bit of a grumpy asshat when you first got here?—’
‘Maybe?A bit?’
‘Fine, I was definitely a one hundred per cent grumpy asshat, all right? I admit it.’ He held his hands up. ‘You weren’t seeing me at my best. It just threw me, you turning up like that when I was expecting to be here alone. I’m sorry, okay?’
‘Okay.’ She smiled. ‘But that still doesn’t explain this sudden change of—’ She stopped, a sudden realisation hitting her like a punch. He’d been talking to her mother. Shit! What had she said? Had she told him about her break-up with Greg? Was he beingnice to her now because he pitied her? ‘What did my mother say to you?’
‘Just stuff about what’s happening at the apartment mostly, and what they’ve been doing in New York.’
‘Did she say anything about me? She did, didn’t she?’
‘Not everything is about you, you know.’
‘I know that. I also know my mother. She said something, didn’t she? About me?’
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. ‘She may have mentioned something?—’
‘What?’
‘Just that you were going through a rough time.’
Phew! At least she’d kept it vague and hadn’t gone into the humiliating specifics.
‘With your boyfriend dumping you just before Christmas and all,’ Evan elaborated.
Oh great. Thanks a lot, Mum. ‘So she made you feel sorry for me? You’re being nice to me now out of pity?’ This was mortifying. She’d almost prefer he’d go back to being hostile to her.
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘She just said she hoped we were getting along and not to take it personally if you were a bit unfriendly to me.’
‘IfIwas unfriendly toyou?’
‘She made me realise that it’s not all about me, you know?’
Yeah, she knew. That was pretty much her mother’s mantra. Many times as teenagers Mary and her siblings had wailed, ‘I can do what I like; it’s my life!’ at their mother, only to be told: ‘It’s your life, but you’re not the only one in it’. Mary smiled. ‘Did she say that you may very well be the main character of your own life?—’
‘But not to forget you’re a secondary character in other people’s,’ Evan finished. ‘And you can be a good one or a crappyone. Yeah. I guess she got me to see it from your perspective. I mean, you’d come home expecting to have a nice Christmas with your family, surrounded by people who care about you – comfort and joy and all that. And instead you got… me.’
‘The original inspiration for the Grinch.’ She laughed. ‘To be fair, I wasn’t very understanding myself. I mean, you’d come here to mope all by yourself with no one to bother you or take you out for a nice Christmas dinner or feed you Chocolate Kimberleys, or even care if you jumped off a bridge – the Yuletide dream, basically! And then I show up. Your worst nightmare, right?’
‘Okay, okay. I’ve owned that I was an ass to you, and I’ve apologised. Can we forget about my behaviour and move on?’
‘Deal.’ They smiled at each other, and something seemed to shift between them. Suddenly it felt like they were friends.
‘So, how long have you been living in New York?’ he asked her.
‘Four years.’
‘And how do you like it?’
‘I love it.’
