The Mistletoe Pact by Jo Lovett
Then – Christmas 2019
Evie
Bloody London. Bloody car. Bloody British Rail. Bloody Christmas bloody presents. Bloody bloody everything.
Obviously, some might say that Evie should have checked that her car would start before she’d spent one and a half bloody hours traipsing backwards and forwards between her flat and the car parked two roads away in the bloody drizzle with bags-for-life full of presents and stuffing all those presents into the car. But it had never broken down before.
Obviously, if she hadn’t got a parking ticket last time she double-parked outside her flat she would have tried to start the car before she filled it to the brim with presents and suitcases, because she’d have tried to drive it round to the flat, and then she’d have found out sooner that the engine was just going to splutter over and over again during the dozens of times she turned the key in the ignition, sometimes coming tantalisingly close to making a proper revving sound, but never actually starting.
And, obviously, if she’d known she was going to break down on the twenty-third of December when all seats on all trains to anywhere near the Cotswolds were booked solid other than a few incredibly expensivefirst-class ones, she would either have booked a reasonably priced seat a long time ago or gone for premium car breakdown cover.
But she had not checked and she had filled the car and there was no chance of anyone coming to fix the car for days, if not weeks, and she did not have an affordable train ticket and what was she going to do? She didn’t want to spend Christmas by herself in London. She didn’t want to spend all her disposable income for the next six weeks on one return train ticket for a ninety-mile journey. If she did manage to go, she did want to take all the presents she’d bought for her mum and Autumn and everyone else. And some clothes and toiletries. So cycling wasn’t an option even if she was fit enough to cycle all that way and even owned a bloody bike.
What was she going to do?
Coach. There were coaches.
She got her phone out and googled. No. There were no seats on any coaches to anywhere vaguely near home before the twenty-seventh.
She really wanted to stamp her foot.
She did stamp it. Ow, ow, ouch. She’d stamped it far too hard. Owwwwww. Now she’d probably broken a metatarsal or something. Ow.
Right. Deep, deep breaths. First she was going to text Sasha and her mum and tell them that she would not be joining them for the Melting Bishop Christmas tree walk at 2 p.m. today, and then she was going to unpack the car and while she unpacked she was going to try to think of a solution.
A message from her mum pinged through just after she’d lugged her third lot of presents back into the flat.
Everything will be fine. Going to work something out and will come and get you by car by end of today. WE WILL RESCUE YOU. Love you. LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU LATER xxx
Evie sniffed. She really wanted to get home today and even though she was going to be twenty-eight tomorrow she was going to have to lether wonderful mum do a big round trip to London and rescue her.
Her phone rang as she was typing out a thaaaaaank youuuuuu reply. Sasha.
‘I have a solution,’ Sasha said without any hellos. ‘All sorted. Don’t move. Just be ready. Dan’s coming to pick you up because he’s driving home today almost past where you live and it makes perfect sense. I’m going to send you his number now and yours to him and you’re sorted.’
‘Oh, wow. Does he mind?’ And also, was South Wimbledon really on anyone’s way to the Cotswolds?
‘Course he doesn’t. You’ll be company for him on the journey and I’ve Google-Mapped it and I really don’t think it’s that much of a detour for him. Anyway. I’ll see you later. Got to go now. Have a good journey.’
‘Thank you so much, lovely Sasha. Can’t wait to see you.’
‘Me too and nothing to thank me for. See you later.’
It was the perfect solution. Dan was always good company.
Right. She’d unpacked slightly under half the contents of the car so far. Should she leave things half-and-half as they were, or have them all in one place to make it easier for Dan, and in that case should she put everything back in the car or bring the more-than-half of her stuff back to the flat?
She wondered if Dan had a girlfriend at the moment. Nothing to do with her, of course. Yes, she was single, and yes, she’d love to meet someone nice and not boring but at the same time very sensible and tidy, and yes, she and Dan had made that pact and it had kind of felt like they’d sealed it with that kiss, and she’d thought about it every time that she’d ever seen mistletoe since, but in reality, of course, nothing was ever going to happen between them. Which was totally fine. She lived in London, and there had to be literally about a million men in approximately her age bracket here, so there were a lotof fish in the sea.
Anyway. Focus. The suitcases and the presents. It would be easier for Dan if they were all in one place and it would be better to bring them back to the flat because she didn’t need to have her car broken into on top of everything else.
By the time she’d schlepped backwards and forwards five more times between the car and her flat with overflowing present bags and her wheely suitcases, she’d broken two of her nails and had had to strip down to a vest top and was still slightly sweating. Hauling luggage around was a very good workout; her arms and lungs were both going to be in better condition after this. Right now, though, she maybe needed just to have a very quick shower and maybe also put some more make-up on before Dan arrived.
He rang her doorbell just as she was blotting her lips on loo paper having decided that she’d gone a step too far with all the lip gloss she’d applied on top of her lipstick. She did a final blot and thank goodness glanced in the mirror again as she made her way out of the room. She had a bit of the loo paper stuck to her lower lip. Very close shave. She pulled it off and reapplied just a bit more gloss, and then some more, didn’t blot this time, and made her way to the door.
‘Hello,’ Dan said. And there was that gorgeously infectious smile. Whenever she hadn’t seen him for a while, the smile always hit her with surprising force, right to her stomach. Evie licked her lips, just to check that she definitely didn’t have any more paper stuck there. Which of course she didn’t, because she hadn’t blotted again. And… what had she been thinking? Who licked their lips when someone said hello? Really, who?
‘Hello. Hi. Lovely to see you,’ she said. Oh, God, she was over-helloing straight after lip-licking. Whydid this suddenly feel awkward? ‘Thank you so much for the lift. I hope it isn’t too much out of your way. Sorry Sasha press-ganged you into it.’
‘Hey, no need to say sorry, and it’ll be nice to have the company. Where are your bags?’
‘Right here. There are quite a few. Do you think they’ll all fit in?’
‘Wow. That is quite a few. But, yes, I think so. I mean, I might not be able to see out of the back window at all and the suspension might break and you might have to cuddle some of those presents – what is that enormous one, by the way? – but I’m sure it’ll be fine.’
‘I could leave some behind?’
‘Joking, you muppet. We’ll get them in, it’ll be fine. Not joking about the really big one, though – what is it? And the other nearly-as-big one?’
‘The biggest one is the biggest teddy you’ve ever seen, for Autumn, and the other big one is a little desk for her. In a box.’
‘How old is she now?’
‘Five. She’s very keen on writing and colouring in, hence the desk, and she still loves teddies.’
‘Cute. How’s she enjoying school?’ Dan picked up two bags in each hand while holding the wrapped teddy.
‘She’s loving it. She has so much to tell me every time we speak. Really sweet.’ Evie picked up one bag in each hand. ‘How are you doing that with the bags? Aren’t the handles hurting your hands?’
‘Nope. I’m a man of steel. Although I’d be very keen to get these into the boot quickly. I’ve double-parked right outside.’
* * *
After only two trips – Dan proved he really was made of steel when it came to carrying bags of presents, and also lucky when it came to parking wardens, because he hadn’t got a ticket – they had everything in the car and were setting off.
‘So Sasha told me you moved to London late summer?’ Dan asked as he put the car into gear. ‘That must have been a huge change?’
‘Yep. Massive. Although long overdue, really, given that I’m about to be twenty-eight. And it isn’t like I’ve moved to the other end of the country. I’ve already been home several times to see Mum and Autumn. In my car, which has never broken down before.’
‘That’s any kind of appliance or electrical item for you. They save their worst performance for when you need them the most. My boiler broke down last Christmas during that week when it was below zero the whole time and British Gas couldn’t get to me for several days, because apparently half of the rest of London also had broken boilers.’
‘That sounds chilly.’
‘Yes, unbelievable. But luckily I live in a very small flat with basically only three very small rooms and a shower room and I managed to get some very efficient fan heaters, so all was well within a few hours.’
‘Lucky. So whereabouts do you live? Sasha said Fulham?’
‘Yep. In a tiny flat above a busy restaurant, but it’s mine – other than being mortgaged to the hilt – and it’s a great location. Walking distance to work.’
‘So you must feel kind of like a Londoner now,’ Evie said. Dan had been to university in London and had just stayed. ‘I still feel a little bit, like, woah, about the traffic, the Tube, all the people, the noise. I mean, it’s great, because, you know, the restaurants and the shops and the theatres and the cinemas, just everything, and it’s all open all the time, and I’m having a lot of fun, and I’m lucky because I have some university friends living nearby plus the teachers at school are lovely and there’s a lot of social stuff amongst the staff, but it’s a big change. Okay, and that sounded ridiculously country bumpkin and underlined exactly why it was time for me to finally live by myself.’
Dan laughed. ‘Yeah, I can imagine. And, yeah, it’s been a long time now that I’ve been here. I can’t totally imagine living in the countryside as an adult. Shit, maybe it’s time for me to make a change.’
‘Where would you go if you were going to leave London?’
‘Literally no idea. I’m too busy to ever think.’ The car in front of them turned out. ‘Finally,’ Dan said, edging forwards, right up to the junction.
‘Yeah, I can imagine. It took me years to decide where I was going before I finally moved out of Mum’s.’
Dan put his foot down for a very cheeky right turn onto a main road.
‘Woah,’ Evie said, holding onto the side of her seat.
‘Woah?’ Dan said, eyes focused on the traffic as they waited at a roundabout. ‘That was nothing. You never get anywhere in London if you wait for big gaps in the traffic.’
He screeched out onto the roundabout between a bus and a Range Rover and Evie said, ‘Woah,’ again.
‘Really?’ Dan said.
‘Yes, really.’ Not really really. The strange thing was that he was definitely quite an aggressive driver but at the same time you felt like he was a very safe one. He had his shirt sleeve rolled up and his forearm and hand looked great on the gear stick. So great that if you thought about it, it definitely gave you stomach flutters. And, really, what? This was embarrassing, even just as a thoughtthat he definitely wasn’t going to know about. ‘So do you have a Christmas playlist for the journey?’
Dan shook his head, his eyes still focused on the road ahead. ‘Nope.’
‘Well then,’ Evie said, ‘you’re going to be so grateful to Sasha for suggesting that you give me a lift. And to me for having only the best playlist ever.’ Maybe she was being a teensy bit over-excitable just in case he’d noticed her lusting after his arm, for God’s sake.
‘Okay. Are you going to talk me through it or are you going to surprise me?’
‘I mean, I’d like to say I’m going to surprise you, but it’s a Christmas playlist. How surprising could it be?’
‘I’m pretty sure there are some weird Christmas songs around.’
‘Yeah, I don’t love the weird ones.’
‘Do you like bad ones, though?’
‘No, I don’t. All my choices are very, very good.’
‘Okay, hit me with your list.’
‘Actually, first I want to know what you think I have on it. What do you think my top three Christmas songs are? And what are your top three Christmas songs?’
‘Hmm.’ Dan whizzed through some lights very much on the turning-to-red part of amber and Evie yelped. ‘Seriously. You have to drive like this if you’re going to get anywhere. Right. Yours. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, “Last Christmas” and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you have some actual carols in there. And for mine, tricky. Hmm. Maybe “Merry Xmas Everybody”, because that always gets a party going. I do like “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. I’m struggling to think of three that I like. Maybe that old Kirsty MacColl one. Or “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday”. I don’t know really.’
‘Interesting,’ Evie said, wishing that she had something unusual and cool in there. She pressed play and ‘Driving Home for Christmas’ started.
‘Nice,’ said Dan, nodding in an appreciative way, and tapping the steering wheel in time to the music. ‘I like a song that describes exactly what you’re doing. Good choice.’
‘Thank you,’ said Evie. ‘I am indeed a song-choosing genius.’
The second song was ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’.
‘Get in,’ said Dan, grinning.
Within a few bars they were both belting the words out, going for some serious a cappella extras at the end.
The third song to come up was ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’.
Dan shook his head. ‘So predictable. But also so good.’
And then they both really went for it, Evie with some extreme soprano notes and Dan some very deep ones.
‘We’re amazing singers,’ Dan said a couple of songs later.
Evie nodded. ‘We really are.’
If she was honest, she’d have to admit that right now she was really glad that her car had broken down. This was a lot more fun than driving home by herself.