The Party Starts at Midnight

‘He isn’t. What he offered to send me was actually a bottle of malt.’

‘Ah,’ she said slowly, as it all became clear. ‘And therein lies the misunderstanding.’

‘Quite.’

‘Embarrassing.’

‘Not my finest moment,’ he said dryly.

‘I can imagine.’ She nodded, then as the going had been pretty good so far decided to push a little further. ‘So why do you need cheering up?’

‘It’s been a long week,’ he said without even a flicker of hesitation.

‘We all have those,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t always lead to a misunderstanding like that.’

‘No.’

‘So?’ she said, wondering firstly when she’d last had a conversation that was quite such hard work, and secondly why she wasn’t just giving up on it.

‘I’m not a huge fan of Christmas.’

Abby stared at him. Crikey, who didn’t like Christmas? ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘Why not? I love it.’ Not least because it was excellent for her bank balance.

‘I find it...’ He paused, as if searching for the right description. ‘Uncomfortable.’

‘Uncomfortable?’ That was an odd word to use.

‘Everything closes down, you can’t get anything done, it goes on for far too long and the quest for Christmas spirit is relentless. It’s over the top, tacky, not to mention a load of commercial crap.’

‘Oh,’ said Abby, faintly taken aback by the extent of his list of Christmas grievances—most of which were her reasons for liking it—although it certainly explained the way he’d seemed so distant during the party. ‘Well, that would do it.’

He nodded briefly. ‘Good. So there you go. Not a fan of Christmas.’

‘Evidently not.’

‘I’m not a huge fan of dancing either, but you are. You do it well, by the way. Very well.’

Leo hadn’t moved but something about his mood had changed. Darkened a bit. Made her shiver, although definitely not with cold. ‘I’m surprised you noticed,’ she said, her voice a note lower than normal. ‘You seemed rather engrossed in conversation.’

‘Oh, I noticed,’ he said softly. ‘And you noticed I noticed.’

Damn, had he seen her stumble? Had he worked out why? How deeply humiliating if he had.

Deciding that was a direction in which she really didn’t want the conversation to go, Abby made a point of peering round him. ‘What happened to the brunette?’ she asked, aiming for mere curiosity, not jealousy, and just about managing it.

‘I have no idea. What happened to Jake?’

‘I don’t know.’

Silence fell again, tense and crackling, and as she looked at everything but him her mind raced with questions such as why had Leo suddenly brought that particular moment up? Why? And what was she supposed to do with it?

Nothing, was the answer to that, she thought, and when she couldn’t stand the awful silence any longer she glanced at her watch and grimaced because, oh, great, she had to be up in five hours.

‘Well,’ she said, shooting him a quick glance and an overly bright smile. ‘You might not be a fan of Christmas but I’m not a fan of two a.m., so I should be heading home.’

Frowning slightly, Leo pushed himself off the door frame. ‘Of course,’ he said, running his hands through his hair, dishevelling it a bit more. ‘Can I call you a taxi?’

‘I have my car just outside.’