The Mistletoe Pact by Jo Lovett
Now – February 2022
Dan
Dan sucked in a big gulp of cold February evening air as he left the hospital by its wide revolving doors. That was a welcome head-clearer. He’d spent the last couple of hours with the parents of a girl with suspected leukaemia and it was hard not to take some of their devastation home with him. They’d caught it early and the prognosis was fairly good, but it was still not news that you ever wanted to have to share with anyone.
He could do with a drink. He pulled out his phone to call his friend Zubin, one of the other emergency doctors at the hospital, who he’d trained with. Thursday evening: he’d hopefully be free.
He had a couple of email notifications and a message from his ex, Hannah. Odd. He was vaguely surprised that he still had her number in his phone; they’d literally only dated for a few weeks, in the autumn, and then they’d split up by what had felt like very mutual agreement and hadn’t been in touch since. Hannah had actually been the one to say that she wasn’t sure things were going anywhere, but Dan had just been relieved, really.
Maybe she’d messaged him by mistake.
Dan, hi, it’s Hannah. I have something important to tell you. Could you call me?
She must know more than one Dan, and have texted the wrong one. She clearly didn’t have anything important to tell him.
Hi Hannah. Just to let you know that I think you sent your message to the wrong Dan
She pinged straight back before he’d even managed to find Zubin in his contacts to call him.
Not the wrong Dan. I have something to tell you, Dan Marshall. Is now good for you to talk? Hannah
Shit. It felt like there weren’t many things an ex who you’d only been with briefly might have to tell you. All of them related to sex and none of them were good.
He pressed the call button.
‘Hi, Dan.’
‘Hi, Hannah. Is everything alright?’
‘Yes, it is, actually, from my perspective. There’s no obvious easy way to say this, so I’m just going to launch straight in.’
‘Okay.’
‘I appreciate that you won’t necessarily be particularly happy about this, but I’d like you to know that I don’t want or need anything from you. I’m just over three months pregnant with your baby. I’m keeping it.’
‘Okay. Um.’ Shit. ‘Congratulations.’ Wow. Huge. Better than some terrible disease but really not what he wanted right now. Ever. God. A baby. She was pregnant. He was going to be a father.
‘I can understand that it’s a huge shock. I was shocked myself when I found out. And surprised that I wanted to keep it. I never saw myself as a mother, you know?’
Dan did know, because he’d never seen himself as a father.
‘So I assumed that I’d terminate it, except I just couldn’t. I want this baby. I’m thirty-eight and this might be my only chance to have a baby and so I’ve decided to go ahead with it.’ Thirty-eight. He’d thought she was younger than that. And that was very much a side-issue here.
‘Yeah, I get that.’ Dan moved out of the way of a group of teenagers walking several abreast on the pavement. ‘I mean, of course. And I’d like to be involved.’ Gut reaction. He’d never imagined that he’d be a father, but now that he was going to be, he already couldn’t imagine not being involved.
‘Well, that’s great. Thank you.’
‘Well, thank you for letting me know.’ Stupid thing to say, but life hadn’t prepared him for this moment.
‘Okay, well, I’m not sure there’s much else to say now, but I’ll be in touch. Obviously you’re welcome to call me if you’d like to talk when you’ve had a chance to digest things.’
‘Great.’ Dan moved again to avoid yet another group of people out for the evening. ‘Yes, I’ll probably be in touch again soon. I’d like to join you at your anomaly scan, if that’s alright.’
‘Of course.’
When they’d ended the call, Dan carried on staring at the pavement for a while before he decided that right now he just wanted to go home and be by himself this evening and, as Hannah had said, digest the news.
* * *
Forty-eight hours later, Dan was in his car on the way to the Cotswolds for Sasha and Angus’s engagement party and nowhere near having digested the baby news. He’d texted Hannah to congratulate her again and reiterate how keen he was to be involved in the baby’s life but beyond that he hadn’t got his head round it at all.
When he finally arrived at his mother’s house, she opened the front door wide and said, ‘Dan. I’m so pleased to see you. Darling, you look tired. Are you alright?’
Dan opened his mouth to reply, wondering if he was going to tell her right now that she was going to be a grandmother again (his older sister Lucie already had two little boys). And then she looked at her watch and said, ‘Goodness, we’re quite late.’ Yep, now wasn’t the time. In fact, what had he been thinking? Of course he shouldn’t tell anyone the weekend of Sasha’s engagement party. No-one appreciated their thunder being stolen.
‘Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll follow you?’ he said. ‘I need to get changed and I might grab a quick shower first if that’s okay.’ Sasha was torturing them all with a fancy-dress party.
Half an hour later, he stuck his Henry VIII hat on his head and pushed open the door to the pub function room where Sasha and Angus were holding the party. The room was boiling. He was going to fry in this synthetic-fur-lined cloak. Bloody fancy dress. Probably good, though, for taking his mind off everything else.
‘Dan.’ Sasha flung her arms round him. ‘Hello. You make a great Henry the Eighth.’
Dan bowed his head gravely. ‘Thank you. And you make an even better Cleopatra. Huge congratulations to both of you.’
‘Thank you so much. Good to see you.’ Angus pumped Dan’s hand up and down a few times, grinning. ‘And before you ask, the costume was Sasha’s idea.’ Angus was dressed as an Egyptian pharaoh, complete with headpiece, bare chest, snake armband and a staff. Dan had never seen him in anything other than jeans and a checked shirt before. He was so conservative in his dress taste that he practically made Dan look like a boy band member.
Dan battled laughter for a few seconds before he managed to say, ‘You look great, Angus.’
‘Thanks.’ Angus nodded and his headpiece wobbled. He set it straight. ‘God. The things you do for the woman you love.’
‘Yeah.’ Dan caught sight of Evie chatting to friends on the other side of the room and suddenly felt less mirthful. They hadn’t spoken much since Vegas and he wasn’t totally sure they were back on track friendship-wise even though they’d kind of laughed it off the next day. He wondered what she’d think about his baby news. ‘Congratulations again. I’ll let you greet the rest of your guests. Catch up with you later.’
Twenty minutes later, he was managing not to worry about the baby and was enjoying the party, if he ignored the fact that he practically had a crick in his neck from spending the entire time surreptitiously keeping an eye on where Evie was. He wasn’t even sure whether it was because he wanted to talk to her or avoid her. Also, was she with that tall, blond man? He glanced over again to where she was talking in a group in the opposite corner of the room. The blond man wasn’t there now.
She was looking sideways at him at exactly that moment. He smiled a little and looked away.
‘Stop looking at her but avoiding her,’ Sasha hissed in his ear. Dan jumped slightly. ‘It’s really obvious. There’ll be a lot more gossip if you don’t speak to her than if you do.’
‘I’m not avoiding her,’ he said. He kind of was.
‘So go and speak to her.’
Dan closed his eyes for a second. He really didn’t need this from his sister. He’d like to snap at her, but it was her engagement party, and also they were now adults, not bickering children.
‘Please?’ She gestured with her sceptre, narrowly missing his eye. ‘Not for my sake, or your sake, but for Evie’s.’ Her voice was very piercing and several people turned to look. Fantastic. ‘Once you’ve had a chat in public, that will be that. It will all have blown over.’
Dan nodded. ‘Good plan,’ he said. It probably wasn’t, but it didn’t feel like he had a lot of choice now.
He started walking across the room towards Evie, aiming for a saunter, which didn’t work well, it turned out, when you were dressed as a Tudor king.
‘Hey, Evie.’
‘Hello.’ She gave him a small smile.
‘Great costume.’ Always a failsafe conversation starter at a fancy-dress party. Evie was dressed in an incredible all-in-one flared trouser and top thing, in bright-blue satiny stuff, and high platform boots. ‘ABBA?’
Evie gave him a slightly bigger smile. ‘Yes. Liking yours, actually. I’m a little bit surprised by it if I’m honest.’
‘Yeah, my initial instinct was to wear my one and only ten-year-old dinner suit, and get myself a toy gun.’
‘James Bond?’
‘Yup. And that was the plan I was going with until I realised that Sasha would be loudly disappointed in me, and, more importantly, that she might find a costume for me herself.’
‘Definitely safer to choose your own.’
‘Indeed. Although I’d like to make it clear right now that this wouldn’t have been my number one choice. There were only three options in my size and the other two were Superman and Harry Potter.’
Evie sniggered. ‘I’d have liked to have seen you in a Superman costume.’
‘Yeah. I decided to embrace my inner wife-murderer instead.’ Oh, for God’s sake. Why had he mentioned the word wife? This was the effect Evie had on him. She made him lose his mind slightly. ‘Can I get you another drink?’ He gestured at her nearly full glass.
‘Hi.’ The blond man had reappeared and put his left arm round Evie’s waist as she was opening her mouth to reply to Dan’s question. He held his right hand out to Dan. ‘I’m Matthew.’
‘Dan,’ said Dan, shaking Matthew’s hand. He looked between the two of them. ‘So you’re…?’ How long had they been together? And did he have any right to be angry however long it was? No, he didn’t, so he should try to act like he didn’t want to punch Matthew or shout at Evie right now. What a ridiculous reaction, actually. And, now he thought about it, of course she hadn’t already been with Matthew at Christmas. He was sure she wouldn’t do that, and also Matthew would have found out about their Vegas trip on social media.
‘Yeah,’ said Matthew, apparently impervious to what Dan felt simmering between himself and Evie. ‘Been seeing each other for about three weeks now, haven’t we?’ He smiled down at Evie. ‘Although we’ve known each other for a few months. She finally consented to go out with me after she’d hit me in the eye.’
‘With a shuttlecock.’ Evie smiled at Matthew and didn’t completely meet Dan’s eye. ‘By mistake.’
‘Aw,’ said Dan. ‘That’s sweet. Well, great to meet you, Matthew.’ He was pretty sure his voice was almost shaking with insincerity. ‘Good to see you, Evie.’
Evie murmured, ‘Lovely to see you too,’ while Matthew shook Dan’s hand enthusiastically again.
Dan turned round and walked away, tempted to shake his head.
He made himself busy chatting to old friends and relatives and he had a perfectly pleasant evening. Except for the fact that he actually had a physical pain now in his neck from surreptitiously eyeing Evie and Matthew the whole time. He really hadn’t been expecting her to be with anyone tonight. No reason she shouldn’t be, of course, but it still felt off.
Matthew seemed like a nice enough guy. Much better than the man she’d been with at Lucie’s wedding a few years ago. Not a great guy, though. Not good enough for Evie. Not someone she’d necessarily have a lot of fun with.
God. The way he was thinking, it was like he was jealous.