Right Number, Wrong Girl

“This is true,” he said slowly. “Are there really lists?”

I turned my head and looked at him. “You really don’t shop much, do you?”

He pressed his lips together. “Would it sound bad if I said I either get my sister, Rupert, or one of the staff to do it for me?”

“Your sister? No. The other two? That makes you sound like the upper-class git you are.”

The corners of his mouth pulled up into a smile. “I don’t know why I enjoy it when you rib on the aristocracy, but here we are.”

“Not the aristocracy. Just you.” I flashed him a quick grin and clicked on the first link. “Here. Is there anything here that could work?”

He leaned right over and looked at the screen, so I scrolled slowly down the list. “Nope. She has all this already.”

“All right.” I hit the back button and went to the next article.

“Oh, that’s too much reading,” Hugo said.

Bloody hell.

I repeated that four times before he finally shook his head and sighed in defeat.

“I’m just going to have to accept that there’s nothing to get her.”

“There has to be something,” I replied.

“I suppose the best gift would be cancelling the party.”

“Oh, hell no. I have not put myself through the hell of pretending to be someone else and organising it just for you to cancel it to make yourself look good.” I shook my head. “Absolutely fucking not.”

He laughed, dropping his head back. “All right, all right.”

“Do you have to get her an actual present to open? Is there anything she likes to do that you can arrange for her?”

“She likes to talk a lot of shit,” he replied slowly. “Not sure I need to book a specific day out for that, though.”

“No. I don’t think you do.”

“She likes those painting classes where you can drink wine.”

Of course she did.

That was exactly the kind of thing Evelyn would enjoy.

“Why don’t you book one of those, then?” I asked, shifting to look at him a little more.

“Because then she’d expect me to go with her.” Hugo looked at me pointedly. “And I do not paint.”

“You don’t? That’s a shame. You struck me as a brooding artist.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

“Do you honestly think anything about you says artist?”

“Hey. I could be an artist.”

I rolled my eyes with a little extra oomph so he knew how ridiculous I thought that was. “If you’re an artist, you have to create art.”

“I could make mosaics. You don’t know.”