Santa Maybe by Mary Jayne Baker

Author:Mary Jayne Baker [Baker, Mary Jayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800241657
Publisher: Head of Zeus

22

Nick stood at the door of Elodie’s cottage, in his best shirt and clutching a bottle of wine, trying to summon the nerve to knock.

It was actually weird how nervous he felt. They’d hung out loads over Christmas and he’d never felt awkward. They’d just been friends spending time together, and he’d had the perfect excuse when he’d insisted she needed a full education in the art of festive merrymaking in order to abandon the Grinchy Elodie of old. As long as they’d been watching Christmas films or chatting about the grotto in the pub, everything had felt straightforward. Then there’d been his big realisation on Christmas Day, that his feelings for her were more than just a crush. And now…

It didn’t help that they were no longer working together. Going for a drink after work had felt natural then: not too date-like. Then January happened. The decorations had gone down; the red suit was put away for another year. Once the warm haze of Christmas had disappeared, Nick had found himself plunged back into the daily non-Santa reality of his life. He was forced to face up to the real facts of Nick Winter’s existence: that he was a nearly thirty-five-year-old man who’d failed in his chosen career, was surviving on out-of-date supermarket stock, hadn’t had a proper relationship in two years and lived in his mum’s spare room. And on top of all that he was in love with his best friend, who’d made it abundantly clear that she considered him about as sexually desirable as a Care Bear. If ever a new year had grabbed him by the testicles and stamped the word ‘LOSER’ on his face in big red letters, it was this one.

But as his mum often told him, you never got anywhere feeling sorry for yourself. Nick had thought it over last night, and given himself a stern talking-to about his defeatist attitude.

He didn’t want to lose Elodie. If she really couldn’t see him as anything but a friend, then so be it – he’d rather have her in his life as that than nothing at all, even if it caused him pain. Then again, though, why was he letting himself give up on romance this early in the game? They’d only been friends four months, and for much of that she hadn’t even realised he was capable of being attracted to women. And wasn’t that encouraging in itself: that they were friends? From an inauspicious start, an easy friendship had sprung up between two people who might from the outside seem like complete opposites. Elodie had said she was close to very few people in her life, and that he, Nick, was one of those few people. She’d come to care about him despite the fact he was broke, his career was screwed and he still lived with his mum. If that stuff didn’t matter to Elodie when it came to their friendship, maybe she wouldn’t write him off as boyfriend material either.

At the very least, he needed to make it clear he was interested in a relationship.

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