You Can't Hurry Love

Chapter Twenty-Four

DECEMBER 11th

'So you're telling me he swept you onto a bus, travelled miles into the centre of the city . . . just to show you a pub that's covered in a bunch of lights?'

Rebecca was sitting opposite me in a café just down the road from our office and I hadn't been able to resist blurting all about my evening last night, enjoying the look of appreciative envy she was currently giving me.

'Yes,' I reply simply, biting down on another mouthful of sushi and trying my best to suppress a gleeful smile. 'But it wasn't just a bunch of lights. It was over twenty thousand of them. And nearly a hundred trees.'

'And this is a guy who hates Christmas himself and also happens to be drop-dead gorgeous?'

'Yes.'

'And then you just went home?' She waves her fork around airily and what was resting there falls clumsily back onto her plate.

'Well, not exactly. He bought me a drink. Said it was a shame to come all this way and not go inside to enjoy the atmosphere.'

A bubble of delight dances around my stomach as I think back to the hour we'd spent inside The Churchill Arms, the two of us sat close together on a table tucked away in the corner of the room, no one around us aware of the enormity of the situation. Not for Lincoln, who I presume was just happy to get out of the cold for the first time in hours but for me, who'd sat goggling at him like an infatuated teenager as we talked about anything and everything, although making sure to steer clear of disastrous dates and dysfunctional mothers.

'He likes you,' Rebecca says matter-of-factly and turns to David for validation. 'Doesn't he?'

'Doesn't who, what?'

David had been staring out of the window for the whole of this conversation and he looks back at us blankly. Apparently, the comings and goings of my recent brush with romance not enough to pique his interest.

'This guy Dottie has been seeing. He likes her!'

'No, he does not! And we have not been seeing each other. We've just hung out a few times.' I bat her away, thinking she was talking absolute nonsense. The last thing I needed right now was for her to get my hopes up.

'David!' Rebecca slams down her fork vociferously and the two elderly ladies on the table next to ours tut at her loudly. 'Do guys take girls to see pretty Christmas lights just because they're being nice?'

'No.'

She smiles at me smugly and crosses her arms, supposedly thinking that this was enough to settle her argument, but I shake my head in disagreement.

'No, it's not like that. Lincoln could get any girl on this planet, and I'm pretty sure he's seeing someone anyway, so you've got it wrong.'

'If he is seeing someone, why would he take you out for a drink?' David voices questioningly and I have to refrain myself from telling him to get back to staring aimlessly out of the window.

I check my watch instead and realise with disappointment that I should probably leave now if I want to catch mum before she went out for the day.

'Don't you start as well,' I sigh, wiping my mouth with a napkin and I reach into my bag to get my purse. 'I already told you, if you'd been listening. It was to say thanks for me working for him the other day.'

'But he paid you for that, so why would he need to take you out as well?'

I stare at them both determinedly. This had already crossed my mind and although I wanted to agree with them, I couldn't. Because I didn't want to add any more fuel to the fire. Rebecca had already asked me if Lincoln was going to be my plus one for the Christmas do and as wonderful as that would be to have him on my arm when I walked past Lauren, it would never happen in a million years. (Because I'd snuck a look on the rota Monday night and Lincoln had put himself down to work it. Obviously.)