Page 42 of A Winter Wedding Adventure (Adventure Weddings #2)
Ginny tapped a finger against her lip in mock contemplation.
‘I can think of a few things.’ Dropping her hands to the table, her eyes widened.
‘Wait, when we were talking about mistletoe and kissing that night, had you two already— You were getting together with—’ Running out of words, she made some vague hand gestures that would have made Kira laugh if she hadn’t been so miserable.
‘We’d kissed,’ she admitted. ‘It happened pretty fast. At the very least, I taught the boy some new tricks.’
‘Sounds like he taught you something too,’ Toni said softly.
Kira crossed her arms. ‘I was perfectly happy before I felt all this stuff, thank you very much.’
‘You’ve lasted longer than most people, but I think a time comes when we have to accept that our feelings exist or we just can’t cope. We can be hurt. Trusting is scary.’ The echo of her life with Miro was in everything Toni said, but Kira wouldn’t point it out.
‘But what do you do about this disappointment? I can see I held onto the embarrassment of what Christian did for far too long and probably turned it into something it wasn’t.
I worked out I needed to let that go, but…
’ She propped her forehead on her hand. ‘I’ve never felt anything like this before. I don’t know how to process it.’
Ginny squeezed her arm, the three rings on her hand winking in the dim light of the pub. ‘Did you tell him any of that?’
‘Of course not!’ she said with a dark laugh.
‘After insisting the only option was casual, I couldn’t turn around and ask him if he wanted to be my video-chat boyfriend!
’ She shook her head. ‘This is stupid. I promise not to be grumpy for twelve years this time and I won’t let this stop me making friends. ’
Tears pricked again and Toni stretched her arm around Kira’s shoulders. She dropped her head to her old friend’s shoulder.
‘After the curry place closed, I eventually discovered I love jerk chicken as well,’ she said with a sigh.
‘It’s definitely too soon to be thinking about jerk chicken,’ Ginny said. ‘I’m not ready to give up on you two. He might have said that thing about it being casual, but I bet he didn’t mean it. He just didn’t want to upstage the wedding.’
‘He’s had three weeks since the wedding to tell me that without upstaging anything except my Netflix bingeing,’ Kira said peevishly.
‘Yeah, but what did you tell him when you said goodbye? Knowing you, it was probably something about leaving things as they are.’
Ginny had no right to be so insightful. ‘I said nothing,’ Kira admitted. ‘And I didn’t let him say anything either.’ She’d just initiated sex and then left – so she didn’t have to deal with how much that intimacy had meant to her.
‘Oh, Kira!’ Toni cried.
‘I was scared! He seemed so ready to let me go. He even had to check if we were going to spend the last night together, as though he wasn’t bothered!’
Ginny frowned. ‘That doesn’t sound right. I saw you dancing together at the wedding. He looked at you like he was about to combust if you didn’t touch him. Look.’
She fetched her phone out of her bag. Kira was still astonished that she’d managed to become such good friends with someone who decorated her pink phone case with rhinestones and a tassel and had one of those holders for taking selfies.
‘I had a feeling you were struggling with this,’ she began.
‘I’m not?—’
Ginny held up her hand. For a small woman who made herself look quite frivolous, she had a skill for commanding people. ‘I thought maybe you needed to see this.’
As Ginny turned the device, Kira caught sight of herself on the screen – in the soft lighting of the wood-panelled museum, wearing Sophie’s top and no make-up, her blue hair bright.
And Mattia. His head was bent, his cheek against her temple.
She didn’t remember him doing that. She’d been stuck in her own thoughts, obsessed with her own shortcomings.
His eyes were closed, the long lashes visible, and his mouth looked soft, but grim. The photo showed one of his hands, gripped tightly in the loose fabric of her top. He looked pained. He looked exactly as she’d felt.
‘Rhys sent a heap of really weird photos, with odd facial expressions and stuff, like he hadn’t looked at them at all, but there were enough great ones once we sifted through them – thank God.’
‘Aw,’ Toni said, snatching the phone for a closer look. ‘Wow. That’s something between the two of you.’
Ginny nodded. ‘It was very sweet. The whole time, he stared across the room at her like a stray puppy.’
‘He did not!’ Kira insisted, her cheeks hot. ‘Why would he?’
‘Aaaaand we come to our next problem,’ Toni said softly.
‘I’m starting to think maybe I don’t want to fall in love after all,’ Ginny said in a small voice.
‘It’s hell,’ Kira muttered.
Ginny stilled, inclining her head to study Kira. ‘But did you hear what you just said? You admitted you’re in love with Mattia.’
‘You know I didn’t mean that! I’ve known him a week !’
‘A pretty intense week.’
Kira leaned her head back on the wood panelling behind the bench of the booth. ‘It was a pretty intense week.’
‘You know what I think?’ Ginny said.
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘ I think,’ she ploughed on, ignoring Kira, ‘you’re just the type to fall head over heels straight away. You’re tough and loyal and your heart knows what it wants.’
With an unexpected lightness in her chest, Kira admitted to herself that she agreed with Ginny’s assessment, but she was no closer to a solution. ‘Yeah, well, we can’t always have what we want.’
‘That’s true,’ Ginny said thoughtfully. But she pinned Kira with a gaze a moment later and continued, ‘Especially if we refuse to go out and get it.’