The loner 07 the bount.., p.1
The Christmas Express, page 1
Dedication
Dedicated to
Hannah and Bec
My Dream Team
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue: Bryn
Chapter 1: Cali
Chapter 2: Ember
Chapter 3: Cali
Chapter 4: Ember
Chapter 5: Cali
Chapter 6: Ember
Chapter 7: Cali
Chapter 8: Ember
Chapter 9: Cali
Chapter 10: Luke
Chapter 11: Ember
Chapter 12: Cali
Chapter 13: Ember
Chapter 14: Cali
Chapter 15: Joe
Chapter 16: Ember
Chapter 17: Joe
Chapter 18: Cali
Chapter 19: Ember
Chapter 20: Joss
Chapter 21: Cali
Chapter 22: Ember
Chapter 23: Sara
Chapter 24: Cali
Chapter 25: Ember
Chapter 26: Luke
Chapter 27: Cali
Chapter 28: Ember
Chapter 29: Cali
Chapter 30: Ember
Chapter 31: Joss
Chapter 32: Cali
Chapter 33: Ember
Chapter 34: Cali
Chapter 35: Ember
Chapter 36: Luke
Chapter 37: Cali
Chapter 38: Sara
Chapter 39: Ember
Chapter 40: Cali
Chapter 41: Ember
Chapter 42: Bryn
Chapter 43: Cali
Chapter 44: Ember
Chapter 45: Cali
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Isla Gordon
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Bryn
Let me pose a question to you: if you had a scab, would you pick it? What if the scab had been there for five years and was extremely crusty? What if the scab was in the shape of five people you once called your friends, and picking at the scab could open the wound and make it all horrible and painful again? But also, what if picking it made your skin finally able to breathe?
Sorry. This is not the best opening to a tale about a snowy winter. I should have started by telling you that I’m inside a vast wooden cabin, like something out of Architectural Digest or maybe a Canadian Christmas movie. The only sound is coming from the crackling fireplace to my left, filled with naturally scented woods that fill the home with the most festive, fir-tree smell you could imagine. I should have described how I’m sat at a desk in front of a window overlooking a glittering white winter wonderland, unusually snow-coated for November on Vancouver Island, with views of lakes and mountains and trees.
Christmastime is coming. I can feel it in the mountain air, in the frost on the window panes, in the high spirits, in the slowing down of bear sightings as they begin hibernation.
Any minute now, the cabin will come alive again with the sound of my fiancée and her family returning home. It’ll be all stomping feet and shaking of hair and their nonstop chatter as they fill me in on their morning of wedding prep. It’s Ruby’s parents’, sister’s and cousins’ last trip over here from their various homes across Canada before our big day just before New Year’s Eve, and I’ve left them to it while I stay at home and . . . pick my scabs.
To clarify: I do not literally have a five-year-old scab in the shape of a group of people on my body. It’s a metaphorical scab. What I do have is five wedding invitations. Addressed. Stamped. All ready to be airmailed back to the UK. I’ve cut it fine, but that’s kind of the point . . . with everything arranged I’ve made it as hard as possible for them to say no.
I gnaw on the end of my fountain pen, turning their names over in my memories. This is a stupid idea. I don’t even know if they live at these addresses any more, or work at the companies I’m posting them to in lieu of a current place of abode. I expect Cali is still in the house, the Miss Havisham that she is, but I’m pretty sure the rest of them left soon after I did.
Will they say yes? Will they come?
And will they be furious all over again when they find out what I’m planning?
There’s a wallop against the window and Moglington, my cat, has leapt upon the sill, spraying snow over her grey paws.
‘Come in, madame,’ I say, opening the door. She’s from Quebec so I like to speak to her in French. As I open the window, the frozen air pools in along with the sound of snow tyres pulling into the driveway.
Moglington hops down and wanders over to the fireplace, where she stretches out on the rug in front of it and shows it her belly, letting the warmth melt the snowflakes on her fur. Beyond the window, out of the car step Ruby, her sister and her mum, their identical dark hair in matching wedding rehearsal updos twinkled with snowflake-like crystals.
She’s beautiful, my fiancée. I can’t wait to marry her. I’ve only ever got close to this feeling with one other person; must have been half a decade ago now.
Right, come on, time to stop overthinking this. It’s too late to back out of this plan now. Everything’s paid for, everything’s been put into place, my hopes are well and truly pinned on the outcome of these RSVPs.
I stack my envelopes, memories swirling like snow in a blizzard. So much changed back then, but it all led me here, to this moment.
But will it lead them here too?
Chapter 1
Cali
We know when someone likes us. Don’t we? We know. We recognise the signs because we know we do them ourselves. The attempts to hold eye contact, the unsubtle compliments, the little excuses to come back over to see you for the fifteenth time that day. We always know, and so, if we don’t feel the same, we’ll often break eye contact first, bat away the compliments, ignore the fireflies you’re sending into our orbit because we don’t want to make things awkward. Perhaps we want to keep you as a friend.
Ah, but the blindness comes when we’re the ones that like you. Then you’re no longer a backlit book we can read, you’re a mystery novel behind the dusty glass of a locked cabinet. And so, we search for signs, we scour social media for fragments of videos unpicking the way you look at us or talk to us and see if that means you’re into us. We daydream, we imagine the future in a million different scenarios.
With Luke, I tried to read him for years and only cracked his coded pages when it was moments from being over between us. Now, I haven’t thought about Luke in half a decade.
Except for the other week, when I saw a guy wearing a navy cable-knit jumper like the one he always used to wear.
Oh, and last month when I was on a date and the man mentioned he had a friend called Luke and I spent the rest of the meal bringing the conversation back to his friends, just in case his Luke was my Luke. He wasn’t.
But before that, it had been years—
No, wait, sorry. I also had that fortnight last April where I looked after my neighbour’s cat in the flat that he used to live in and ended up sat on the studio floor every day with a box of tissues, scrolling my phone for all of the photos of him and me when we used to be just friends, just those great buddies, Cali and Luke, before anything even happened. Back when the six of us lived in this townhouse, and we were as close as could be.
Now, I’m standing in the front doorway, frozen in time. I was collecting my post from the side table, about to head upstairs to my own flat and cook myself a warming bowl of pasta on this icy November evening, but one envelope begged to be opened on the spot. Something about the handwriting, familiar in a way that sent a frosty lungful of air to swoop out of my mouth. I tore into it, and now, in my gloved hand is a wedding invitation – Bryn’s wedding invitation, of all things – and my first thought is, will he be there?
‘Do you think Bryn invited all of us? Or just me?’ I ask up to the top of the ladder, where a maintenance man is fixing something above the door frame.
He doesn’t look down at me but answers, ‘I don’t know, love.’
‘It’s just . . .’ I turn the invitation over in my hand, the silver foil lettering glinting under the hallway spotlights. Jeeeeeeeeesus, so she hasn’t forgotten me? ‘She and I haven’t spoken in five years. So, this is out of the blue, you know?’
‘Mmm-hmm.’
‘She used to live here, in the apartment that Sadie now lives in. You know Sadie?’
‘Nope.’ He wiggles the door back and forth on its hinges and I shuffle over an inch, my eyes glued on the invite.
‘She’s really nice. Keeps to herself, though. When Bryn lived here, she was always the one to organise whole-house parties and drag in a massive Christmas tree for this hallway which would stay up all winter. I don’t even know her bride. Ruby.’ I tested the name in my mouth. ‘Bryn and Ruby. Do you think I should go?’
The maintenance man puts his screwdriver down on the top step and I can feel his sigh aimed at me from all the way down here. ‘Might as well. Are you coming in or going out?’
Oops. I step in and let him close the door to the cold, hand him a sandpaper block that he didn’t ask for but might need, and take a seat on the floor by the radiator. ‘Did I tell you it’s in Canada? The wedding?’
‘You did.’
‘I can’t go all the way to Canada for a wedding. Over Christmas! I mean I have other plans to . . . well . . .’ Now that’s stumped me. My eyes glide to the spot where Bryn’s Christmas tree used to go every year. There hasn’t been a communal tree in this house since they all moved out. ‘Well actually, my parents are away this Christmas, visiting my brother in New Zealand. I went to see him back in the summer so I’m not going with them.’
Maintenance Man is ignoring me, but probably listening, so I carry on.
‘I guess I could go. Theoretically. Even if she’s just invited me, it could be a chance to reconnect. Maybe take a hike in the snow, thrash things out. She loved Christmas, so I bet the wedding will be in an amazing location. And then we could drink mulled wine by a fireplace and laugh about the wasted years.’
I glance up – did he just roll his eyes up there at the top of the ladder?
The wedding is actually set for a couple of days after Christmas, but if I did go – which I probably won’t – but if I did go all that way, surely spending the holidays in one of the most snow-covered places on the planet would be a must?
If Luke was there, would it be better? Or would it be worse?
‘It’s just, there’s this guy—’
Maintenance Man switches his power drill on as I begin speaking and I think it might be on purpose. But a moment later he puts it down and turns, sitting down on top of the ladder, and wipes the dust from his hands. ‘Look. Weddings bring people back together, right? Good food, bit of dancing, an excuse to go to Canada; what’s worth missing out on that for?’
A deeply ingrained flare of resentment flushes in my cheeks, like a match being lit under my skin. I press my lips together, lost for a moment in the past. I’m still angry at them. All of them. And they probably are with me. It’s been too long, and the days where we planned who’d play what role at each other’s imaginary weddings feel like a lifetime ago.
I swallow down this stubborn, scarred side of myself and change the subject. Kind of. ‘You like weddings?’
‘I do,’ he replies, then chuckles at his vow-like reply. ‘I love a wedding.’
‘Are you married?’
‘Twice. Loved every minute of both.’
‘The weddings or the marriages?’
He pauses. ‘Both.’
Hmm. I’m losing myself back into my thoughts when I hear the clonk of his ladder being folded up. ‘I’m all done here, love. You’ll let the other residents know they shouldn’t have any problem with a sticking door any more?’
‘Of course.’ I nod, standing up. I’ll type up a nice note and push it under each of their doors. ‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’
He shakes his head, gathering his things.
‘Some pasta? I’m not hitting on you or anything, I promise.’ Way to make it awkward, Cali.
Luckily, he laughs. ‘No, thanks. These evenings are getting dark early. I’m going to get home to my family.’
I wave him goodbye until he shuts the door behind him and the corridor is quiet and tidy and empty, save for the discarded wedding invitation envelope on the side table and a halo of sawdust on the carpet. Somewhere far upstairs one of my neighbours is playing a piano that I’ve never seen.
My phone buzzes in my pocket with an incoming notification as I make my way up the stairs to my flat. Once I’ve clicked my door closed behind me, I prop the invite on my small desk beside my laptop and it watches me as I make myself a tea, switch on the fairy lights that line the upper edges of my living room and change into my ‘loungewear’ (no bra, scraggly old pyjamas).
Bryn’s name, in that loopy silver font, flickers under the fairy lights as I open my laptop. My heart shocks a little, my breath catching as her name seems to jump from the envelope to the top of my emails. One new message. Unread. Bold. From Bryn. The subject line reads, Please come.
There’s a strange sensation inside me, of a hundred tiny people scrambling to build a defensive wall before my hand moves the cursor over the email. But screw them because I win, and with unblinking eyes, I open it.
Before I even read a word, my eyes settle on the ‘to’ line, which contains not just me, but four other names. Look at our names, all together in a row like their owners didn’t spectacularly fall out on that disaster of a holiday five years previously. And right beside my name . . . is Luke’s.
Chapter 2
Ember
It’s my birthday. In this moment, I’m happy. Chilled, a little merry, a little silly. But my friend Tonia is circulating the campfire with a bottle of whisky, so we’ll see how the night unfolds.
I breathe in the smoky air and the salt of the sea. Above me, the sky is cold and clear and the stars stream across it like spilled glitter on black marble. Being November, we have the beach to ourselves, me and this funny gang of friends who enveloped me when I moved here over half a decade ago, and who rarely seem to ever be out of my sight now.
‘Whisky for the birthday beach bum!’ Tonia pads barefoot over the sand towards me, stumbling, giggling. The flames highlight the clementine streaks in her hair and twinkle the stick-on stars she’s made us all wear on our faces tonight. She flops down beside me, spraying sand onto my jeans. ‘Have we hit the wall of regret yet, or do we still have time?’
Ha! I snatch the whisky out of her paws and top up my paper cup. She knows me so well.
Tonia and I have celebrated every birthday (and holiday) together since I arrived in Cornwall, and sometimes spend months staying at each other’s home if we’re going through hard times. I was there for her when she broke up with her high school boyfriend. She was there for me when I had long Covid. I took her in when she suffered a house fire. She took me in when my parents passed away within weeks of each other. That was a particularly tough time, and she didn’t even know me very well back then.
Speaking of . . . ‘We still have time,’ I tell Tonia. ‘But let me know if you’d rather I started with the social media stalking of my ex, or the photo memories of my folks.’
Tonia chuckles softly. ‘Let’s wait until the end of the night to reinstall your social media apps, when we need a little light relief. Maybe we’ll strike it lucky and Bryn will have posted something that gives you the ick?’
‘Here’s hoping,’ I cheers her.
An hour or so later and the tide is creeping closer, the low waves audible even though Jack brought out a speaker and is playing birthday-themed music alongside the hisses and crackles of the campfire. The eight of us have huddled in closer now, the flames glowing on our faces, a billion blankets keeping out the worst of the wintery night air.
I love it out here. I don’t mind that it’s cold. That it’s dark. When I think that I used to live in a city, sat in an office all day, surrounded by tall buildings and hundreds of people and all those artificial lights even when I stepped outside, I can barely even remember that version of myself. Now, I work as a surf instructor when the ocean allows me to, and a coast path walking guide during any other weather, and I can’t ever imagine being stuck inside a room, day after day, ever again.
‘How do you feel about being the big “three-one”, Ember?’ calls Kim from across the other side of the fire.
‘I love it,’ I call back. ‘You wish you were my age.’
Kim, at aged twenty-five, raises her cup in the air. ‘Oh, to be as wise as you! Tell us, is there anything you’re hoping to do this year?’
‘More of this?’ I suggest. ‘Lots and lots more of this?’ The group awwws at me but keeps staring. I think they want a real answer. Um . . . ‘I don’t know. I’m quite content as I am.’
Tonia snorts. ‘I have a suggestion.’
‘I know what your suggestion is, it’s the same every year. But I don’t want a girlfriend.’
‘I know, you don’t want a girlfriend,’ Tonia argues. The same argument I hear from her all the time. ‘But just at least have—’
‘Some kind of love life?’ I finish for her, along with the rest of the group.
Tonia grins at her cup, scrunching her nose at me. She loves to tease me about my whopping lack of romance and I don’t care. ‘I just want you to be kissed, really well; one of those old Hollywood kisses you like to drool over in the movies you always watch.’
‘I don’t . . . I don’t always watch them.’ Yes, I do. Especially the black and white ones. I love the happy endings. And Audrey Hepburn taught me the winged eyeliner that I always wear, even now when I can rarely be bothered to put on any other make-up. ‘Hey,’ I say to the group, topping up my drink again. ‘Talking of love life, do we think we’ve reached a good time of the night to log into the socials?’
