The Mistletoe Pact by Jo Lovett
Now – September 2022
Evie
Evie’s phone buzzed with a message from Dan as they pulled into Putney Bridge Tube station, two stops after Fulham Broadway where he’d got off. She took a quick peek at it.
He wanted to know if she’d like to go to the cinema next Saturday evening. He wanted to know if she wanted to go to the cinema with him. It had to be a date. A date. With Dan.
Well, yes, she wanted to go out with him. But should she go out with him? She already knew that there’d be a lot of potential for hurt in a relationship with him, and it didn’t feel like he was the one for her long-term. But she really wanted to go on a date with him. A proper date after all these years.
She was busy next Saturday, and the one after. She could cancel her plans.
And that would be stupid. You shouldn’t put your love life – love life – he’d asked her out – above your friends.
And if he was properly interested, he’d be happy to see her in three weeks’ time.
‘Evie, you’re in a world of your own,’ Rory said. ‘It’s our stop. Good job we’re here or you might have ended up spending the night on the train.’
* * *
They met three weekends later. The cinema was within walking distance from Evie’s flat, but she was running late. She’d spent too long deciding what to wear and arrived, at a bit of a run, a good ten minutes after the time they’d agreed. Dan was standing, hands in pockets, in the middle of the cinema’s wide entrance, smiling at her as she hurried through the rotating doors. There was something very nice about the fact that, unlike all the other people waiting, he didn’t have his phone in his hand.
‘Hi,’ she said, trying not to pant. She really needed to get fitter.
‘Hello.’ Dan’s face crinkled into an even bigger smile. ‘Been running?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You’re wearing yet another scarf. In yet another very nice colour.’ It was emerald-green. He gave the end of it a gentle tug and, honestly, Evie felt tingles everywhere. Unbelievable. He hadn’t even touched her, he’d just touched her scarf.
She smiled back at him, definitely foolishly, and wondered if she was losing her mind.
‘Scarves are very important,’ she said. ‘They frame a person’s face. Hide wrinkles. Elevate an outfit.’ Seriously. She might as well be talking about the weather. Ridiculous first-date nerves with someone she’d known forever.
‘And also they’re important for keeping you warm,’ Dan said.
‘I mean, that’s a very secondary consideration.’
‘So are you de-scarfing now or wearing it all evening? Bearing in mind that it’s quite warm in here even though that’s a secondary consideration?’
‘Well, fortunately, I’ve come prepared and I’m wearing a jumper that I quite like, so I’m okay to take the scarf off.’
‘Well, phew,’ Dan said. ‘I really like that jumper too.’
‘Why, thank you.’ She’d bought this cream jumper and another one – red – this morning and had spent far too long before she came out deciding which one to wear. Hang on. Had she taken the price tag out? She hoped so. ‘I might just pop to the loo before the film starts,’ she said.
The price tag was still there. She could feel it attached to the label. And it wasn’t held on by a normal, thin plastic tag; it was on a cord loop, which she couldn’t cut without scissors, which she didn’t have. Why didn’t she carry scissors? Actually, this was ridiculous. There was no need to panic. It wasn’t like Dan was going to be looking inside her top, was it? And if he did happen to come back to her flat, she could pop into the bathroom and cut the price tag out then. Just in case for some reason she ended up taking the jumper off.
And standing in the middle of some very brightly lit loos that smelled of pine bleach and something grim, she had goosebumps all over thinking about what might happen later.
She moved closer to the mirrors. Did her lipstick look okay? Maybe she should have worn a slightly different colour. And was her hair looking alright? She gave it a couple of tweaks.
Okay. She was being ridiculous. Dan probably wouldn’t notice her lipstick or her hair. He wasn’t standing out there feeling like a gibbering wreck. He was just being normal. She was going to pull the tag off the loop and leave the loop itself and Dan would never notice and if he did – which, again, he wouldn’t, because they probably weren’t going to be removing clothes; oh, God, maybe they would – he’d actually never notice or he’d think it was just part of the label of the jumper and he’d never know she’d bought the jumper today just for this evening and everything was going to be fine and she just needed to stop panicking. It was strange, though, finally being on an official date.
She took some deep breaths and left the loos.
When she got back to the cinema foyer, Dan was next to the pick ’n’ mix, holding a big stripy paper bag and an expression of extreme concentration.
‘Oh, wow, sherbet lemons,’ Evie said, pleased that her voice sounded normal and non-jittery.
‘I know,’ Dan said. ‘I couldn’t resist. I literally never eat sweets but these were calling out to me. I was just trying to work out whether to take a punt on what you’d like and go big on just a few of what are in my opinion are the best ones, or whether to get a little bit of everything.’
‘We have to go big on just a few,’ Evie said. ‘Unless you have very bad taste in sweets and we can’t agree.’
‘No,’ said Dan. ‘If we can’t agree, it’ll be because you have bad taste.’
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the middle of the second from back row of the auditorium, munching happily on the sherbet lemons, plus fizzy cola bottles and pineapple chunks, people-watching while they waited for the film to start. Evie honestly couldn’t remember enjoying a cinema trip this much, even as a little girl. She had a what’s-going-to-happen-this-evening fizz of anticipation inside her even bigger than the fizz from the sherbet lemons.
When the credits rolled at the end of the film and the auditorium lights came on, Evie saw that every seat was taken, which was weird, because it had felt like it was just the two of them for the duration of the film. Then she looked down and realised that she had both her hands clamped on Dan’s forearm.
‘I didn’t know you were a screamer,’ he said, grinning at her.
‘Me! What about you? You gasped so much when that man leapt out with the knife I thought you were going to choke.’
‘I mean, the whole cinema gasped at that point. Whereas the whole cinema did not scream when you did.’
‘Quiet screaming, though,’ Evie said. ‘You gasped really loudly.’
They grinned at each other.
‘Quick drink so we can recover from the screaming and gasping?’ Dan said.
‘Sounds like a plan.’ Should she invite him back to her flat? Cue extreme stomach butterflies. ‘There’s a lovely wine bar up the road if you fancy it?’
As they pushed through the crowded bar, Evie almost wriggled with pleasure, feeling Dan’s hand in the small of her back. It felt intimate, it felt like the promise of things to come later, and it just felt right.
Once they were sitting at a table in the corner, Dan with a bottle of beer and Evie with a glass of white, Evie said, ‘So it’s wonderful that you and Max sorted things out.’
‘Yeah. Thank you, so much, again. We’re in touch a lot more now. It’s nice. He and Greggy are making progress with their wedding plans. By the sounds of it, they’re going to make Sasha’s wedding look almost low-key. You know he asked me to be his best man? I have the job of organising his stag, and he said he has no guidance other than he wants it to be unpredictable and spectacular.’
‘Easy, then.’
‘I know. So far I have no ideas beyond your bog-standard Ibiza or Prague trip, both on a budget. I need something original but not too expensive.’
‘Hmm. Bingo?’
‘That is original and also cheap, but maybe a miss on the spectacular front.’
‘Hey. Have you been to Johnson’s Bingo in Cirencester? Because that is spectacular.’
At midnight, when the bar closed, Evie was so not ready to end the conversation, and it seemed like Dan wasn’t either.
‘Can I walk you home?’ Dan asked. ‘For my peace of mind.’
‘Yes, you can, and thank you,’ Evie said. She really wished the bar had stayed open for longer because now it felt like she had a decision to make and she wasn’t sure which way she wanted to go. She didn’t want the evening to end now but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to invite Dan in tonight, because it felt like they could be at the start of something big and like she needed to work out what she wanted. ‘I’m quite tired, though.’ Aargh. She could have worded that a lot better.
He smiled at her. ‘I’m tired too.’
‘This is a great location,’ Dan said as they rounded the corner of Evie’s road ten minutes later. When he’d dropped her off after the quiz, they hadn’t been chatting about things like locations. They’d been arguing and apologising and then they’d nearly kissed.
‘I know. There is a slight issue with Tube noise, and I have to keep my bedroom curtains closed at all times, because otherwise I’m literally eye-to-eye with passengers at a distance of only a few metres, but it’s so cool to be so close to the centre of Wimbledon, which I never thought I’d manage on my salary. So lucky that Josh had a spare room. Well, spare boxroom.’ She stopped outside the house. ‘So we’re here.’ Should she, shouldn’t she invite him in? ‘I’ve had a lovely evening.’
‘Me too.’ Dan was planted in front of her, his hands in his pockets again, smiling down at her.
Evie drew a deep breath and licked her lips.
And then he bent his head towards hers, very slowly, and gave her the most fleeting of kisses on the lips.
Evie’s heart was hammering against her ribs and she couldn’t have moved if you’d paid her.
Dan’s smile grew and then he leaned forwards again and Evie reached up to meet him and this time it was a proper kiss. They relaxed into each other, kissing, exploring, Evie’s arms around Dan’s neck, his around her and his hands wound gorgeously, sensuously in her hair.
‘Excuse me.’ Josh was doing an exaggerated cough right next to them. Fergus was holding his hand, trying to pull him away and shushing.
‘Whoops,’ Evie said.
‘Whoops yourself, ooh-er,’ Josh said, moving round them. He inserted his key in the door and pushed. ‘You coming in?’
Eek. Decision time right here, right now.
‘Um.’ Evie still had her arms round Dan. She let go of him and stepped backwards, and he let go of her too. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said.
‘We’ll leave you to your goodbyes,’ Josh said, with a lot of suggestive eyebrow waggling.
Evie waited until Josh had closed the door – with a bit of hilarious have-I-haven’t-I reopening and closing of it – and said, ‘So, goodnight, then.’
‘Goodnight.’ His voice was so deliciously gravelly. ‘Do you…?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Do you fancy dinner soon?’
‘I do, actually,’ Evie said.
‘Cool. Night.’
Evie let herself into the house and smiled all the way up the stairs to the flat.