Just for december, p.12
Just for December, page 12
‘No,’ Duke says, carefully moderating his voice to compensate for snapping earlier. ‘Me neither.’
The driver excuses himself and tells Duke he’ll text when he knows anything, leaving just the two of them. They stand side by side surveying the service station, and when Duke has cast his eye over the place once, twice, twenty times, he goes to say, ‘Shall we find something to warm us up?’ but right as he does Evie announces: ‘I’m going to explore. Catch you later.’
She’s gone before he can stop her. Damn. He’s screwed this up; he shouldn’t have been so short. He was getting it from all ends, though: production, Brad, his team – even Daphne had made a throwaway comment about him being away with the fairies. Who doesn’t look at their phone for five hours after they’ve disappeared from set? was the general gist. How does he explain that whilst hanging out with Evie he forgot that the rest of the world existed, let alone his phone? And that deep down, he’s not sorry about it?
He hadn’t wanted their night to end. Something was different with her – she opened up to him. He hasn’t known her long, but he knows enough to understand that that occurrence is a rare one. Serendipitous, that was the word. That he was there, and she was there, and they both felt like being together was better than being alone. So they’d walked and talked and laughed and she’d made him think, too. Everything he takes for granted, she challenges and questions. It makes him aware that if he’s been unhappy, he’s got more control over it than he’s given himself credit for. She’s been more effective in holding him accountable to himself in a night than Phoebe, his therapist, has been in six years. The way Evie sees the world makes his own vision clearer.
He unzips his coat, but keeps it on for now. Maybe there’s a heater he can leave it on, or at the very least a coat hook. His feet are like ice, so he heads to the store where he’s delighted to find a modest selection of winter essentials: socks, gloves, wellies, little gel packs that you crack to warm up. He buys a veritable smorgasbord, just in case this thing goes on for longer than he’d like. He heads to the biggest window at the far end to take a look at what’s going on. It’s still going strong. Bugger.
Three laps of the space and a toilet trip later, his feet have warmed through in his new climbing socks and horribly plastic-looking rain boots, and he spots her in the café, sat with a man. It can’t be her, he decides, at first glance, because she’s not alone – but it is. Her coat is over the back of her chair, her hair tucked into her polo neck, her hands wrapped around a big blue mug, as if she’s the actor, not him. Nobody actually holds a cup that way. What’s wrong with the handle? She keeps touching her cheek and laughing. No, not laughing. Tittering. The guy is maybe early forties, all salt and pepper hair and strong jaw. Duke notices the jawline of every single man he sees, because he’s had to work hard for his. He chews rubbery weights to help with the definition. He already hates this guy for being so sharp.
Should he go over? Interrupt? He can’t decide. Evie isn’t his property. She can talk to whoever she likes. Flirt with whoever she likes. And yet there’s a feeling in Duke’s lower belly, his gut, he supposes, that doesn’t like what he’s seeing and wants it to stop. She looks up before he can decide what to do. They lock eyes. If panic response is fight or flight, Duke doesn’t know where he’d fall since he finds himself frozen stuck to the spot. She lifts a hand. He doesn’t know if that is acknowledgement or a welcome over. She goes back to chatting with her man. Duke can’t stand it, he decides. Even if he just goes over to know what they’re talking about, what’s making her look up from under her eyelashes that way, that’s enough.
‘You look like you’re settled in for the duration,’ Duke says coolly as he reaches their table. With his coat still on, ridiculous petrol station boots and laden down with bags of his discounted stock, he looks ridiculous. This meathead Evie is sat with is all thin layers and fleecy fabrics and effortlessly Bear Grylls.
‘Duke,’ Evie says. Is she happy to see him? ‘This is Markus. Markus thinks we’re going to be here for a few more hours yet.’
‘I work at the national news station.’ Markus smiles. ‘So I have a meteorologist on speed dial.’ He has an accent, but perfect English.
‘Shame you didn’t call him before you set off this morning.’ Duke smiles back, but the humour he thought he’d injected into the joke doesn’t translate.
‘Yes, I thought so too until I met Evie here.’ He’s smooth. Too smooth. Duke will not be leaving her alone with him. Nope. No way. Duke sets his bags down and turns around an empty chair from a nearby table.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he asks, but he knows they can tell it isn’t really a question. ‘Another hot chocolate for everyone?’
Evie narrows her eyes, evidently weighing him up.
‘What?’ Duke blinks, because he’s not going to bring up their fight if she isn’t.
‘Marshmallows and no whipped cream,’ she says, evading his prompt.
‘Cream and no marshmallows,’ Markus says, and instead of going to the counter – because Duke will be damned if he’s leaving them alone for one more second.
He waves at a twelve-year-old kid nearby and says, ‘Hey, do you speak English?’
‘Of course,’ the kid says, in English as good as all the other Germans Duke has met.
‘Want to make fifty euro?’ Duke says, and he knows it’s somewhat of a dick move but he gives him a hundred-euro bill and the kid goes to buy their drinks.
‘You’re unbelievable,’ mutters Evie, but her eyes are crinkled at the edges, betraying her tone. Duke knows he is hazardously close to the fine line between eccentrically charming and douchebag, but given the crinkles … he thinks he’s on the right side.
They talk amiably enough, and Duke hates that Markus isn’t overawed by the fact that they’re here, in this tiny pit stop largely in the middle of nowhere, the last place you’d expect to bump into People Magazine’s Sexiest Man 2018. He takes everything in his stride, and if it wasn’t for the way he keeps looking at Evie, Duke would almost want to be his mate. Except, Markus does keep looking at Evie that way and so Duke needs him to piss off.
‘What are you doing?’ Evie hisses at him when Markus excuses himself to answer a phone call. ‘There are no cameras here, Duke. The show can break for intermission.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Duke replies. ‘I’m talking with our new friend. There’s nothing else to do whilst we wait, is there?’
She shakes her head. ‘What about all of that massively important texting you were so busy with before? Or some more sulking? You’re very good at passing the time that way.’
God, he really does find her sexy, he thinks, quickly followed by: Oh, hell. What? Where did that come from? He looks at her properly then. Her pointed barbs sharpened and designed to kill, her flushed cheeks, the tiny bit of cocoa powder near her nose – she’s amazing.
‘Look, I am sorry about earlier. I was … distracted. Would you like me to get on my knees and apologise one thousand different ways?’ he says. ‘Because I can.’
‘Getting on your knees sounds perfect, actually,’ Evie counters, calling him on it. Duke takes a breath. Well, if that’s what the lady wants …
‘Oh, Evie!’ he cries, pushing back his chair and falling to the floor. He’s on bended knee, but when a dad two tables over nudges his partner Duke realises that it looks like a proposal, so drops the other one.
‘Evie Bird, bestselling author, lady of midnight-walking knowledge and endless hurtful-but-strangely-provocative jibes, I offer thee my most sincere apologies! Thou art a fair maiden and I but a rude, indignant ogre, and all the days and all the nights could not add up to enough time to truly give you the sorry you most truly deserve! Evie! I beg for your mercy! I beg for your grace, oh benevolent one!’
Evie looks at him and with a perfectly straight face – all the more impressive considering almost everyone in the café is looking at them – and says, ‘Forgiven. That was a very proficient apology. Well done.’ Duke had hoped to make her laugh. He’ll settle for getting to return to his seat at the table.
‘Your not-so-secret admirer hasn’t come back …’ Duke says, and Evie raises an eyebrow.
‘Is that surprising?’ she asks.
Duke purses his lips. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he retorts quickly – too quickly. ‘I thought you two were perfect for each other.’
Evie doesn’t reply, simply busies herself with putting some lip balm onto her perfectly kissable lips and popping a mint.
‘Want one?’ she says, and Duke smiles. ‘Is that a hint?’
What he meant was, was the lip balm and mint a hint that a kiss might be imminent. She knows that’s what he meant. Instead, she pushes his buttons and tells him, ‘Honestly? Yes. You’ve got breath like a sewer.’
Duke suddenly panics that that’s true, practically ripping the mints from her hand. He takes two and chews quickly, and when he looks back at her sees that she’s laughing. A lot.
‘You’re a funny one, mister,’ she says to him.
He swallows the Tic Tacs.
‘Is that so?’ he says.
‘Yup.’
‘Hmm.’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ she clucks.
Then the penny drops. She’s not going to make this easy for him. It’s his turn, now, to push the needle forward on whatever this is. Last night, it was almost like she was ready to kiss him. Could it be? Is it possible that they’ve reached a place together that promises potential?
‘Evie?’ Duke prompts, needing verbal confirmation. She chews her lips and raises her eyebrows at him in response. ‘It’s my move, isn’t it?’ He grins.
She grins right back, and just like that they’re on the exact same – and unexpected – page.
‘Oh yeah,’ she tells him. ‘And you’d better make it a good one.’
‘Hey,’ Duke whispers, as close to her face as he can so as not to wake anybody else. ‘Wake up, Evie. Psst.’
She looked so peaceful it felt borderline mean to nudge her, but she laid down the gauntlet with such provocation that Duke has to act before he loses his nerve. He doesn’t know what it is about her exactly, why she can unnerve him so deeply. It might be her wildly obvious lack of regard for his work and his fame. She acknowledges it, but pushes him to show her what else there is. It terrifies him and exhilarates him. It’s an addictive rush. She’s calling him on his bull: he wants to be truly appreciated for who he is, and she’s daring him to show her who he is, without the fame, first.
He watches as Evie lifts her head from where she’d been resting it on a café table. It’s the middle of the night. They’re still in the service station awaiting word that it’s safe to go back to the car. Traffic northbound is moving, but it won’t be until sunrise that the debris from the car crash on the southbound road is lifted, and that’s after the snow has been cleared. It’s stopped, now, but there’s a lot of it out there. Inside, the only lights come from the covered fridges in the food outlets and the Christmas decorations. The music has been turned off so people can rest, as if they’re all on a flight somewhere over the Atlantic and will be awoken with lemon-scented wet towels by a smiling air hostess when it’s time to think about their destination. There’s fifty or so people stuck with them, so it’s not too crowded – luckily so, since that’s what sparked Duke’s plan. This is the most public privacy he’s had in years.
‘Hey,’ Duke says, as she eyeballs him. ‘You okay?’
‘I was,’ she mutters quietly. She wipes some drool from her mouth and sits up. She’s got creases down one side of her cheek. Duke wants to reach out a hand to them, to caress her face and cup her chin, but he doesn’t.
‘Yeah,’ he whispers back. ‘Sorry to wake you. I was just wondering if you wanted to go on a non-fake date with me.’
She quasi-smiles. ‘What?’ she asks. ‘Now?’
She says it like it’s a joke, but Duke nods. ‘Yeah. Come on.’
He holds out a hand for her and with a puzzled expression she takes it. He leads her to the other end of the services and behind the counter of one of the outlets. Fingers entwined, palms touching, he takes her around another corner and holds back a curtain. He lets go of her hand to step aside and reveals what he’s spent the past few hours working on.
‘Ta-da!’ he says.
He’s assembled a small round table and two chairs. There’s a dark red tablecloth, a small poinsettia in the middle, and tinsel wrapped around the backs of the seats. Light comes from hundreds of fairy lights, looped in varying levels of tightness around exposed beams above, so that some bits hang lower than others. On a bench fixed into the wall is beer, water, some sort of cold meats selection, bread, and cheese. Duke finds the lighter he’s been hiding in his trouser pocket to light a single red candle.
‘I didn’t want to leave an open flame unattended,’ he explains, waiting for Evie to say something.
‘What the …?’ she comes out with slowly. He thinks it’s a good what the … ‘Are you serious? Duke!’
She scooches around to take a seat, her eyes wide and jaw slack as she takes it all in. ‘This is very cute.’
Duke takes a seat as well in their grotto for two. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘I heard you. I know the showmance stuff has been …’
‘Not great,’ she supplies, holding out a glass for him to fill it.
‘Not great, yes,’ he echoes, and once she’s got her beer, he fills his own glass with a taste too. ‘But I figured here, in this very bizarre German service station, in the middle of the night, when everyone is asleep, we might just get enough undocumented alone time for us to try normal. As an apology, maybe? It’s all a lot. I know.’
‘Cheers to that, Duke Carlisle,’ Evie says, and they clink glasses.
‘Just call me Duke,’ he says. ‘Or Derrick, if you want my real name.’
‘OMG.’ Evie laughs. ‘Duke isn’t your real name? You’re called Derrick?!’
‘Derrick Jones,’ Duke admits. ‘Derrick James Jones.’
She cocks her head at him, appraising this new information. ‘How many people know that?’ she asks him.
‘Not many.’
She nods, like she understands the significance of his revelation to her.
‘For the purposes of transparency, you should know that my name really is Evie. Evelyn, actually, like my mom. No middle name, just Evie Bird.’
‘It suits you,’ Duke says. ‘Classic, with a twist.’
She pats her hair like an old-time starlet. ‘Why, thank you very much,’ she says, in a silly accent. ‘I absolutely did not choose it myself.’
They laugh.
‘Do you date much?’ Duke asks her, bracing himself for the answer. She might have said she’s single but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a friend with benefits, perhaps, or something on the back burner.
‘Who, me?’ she retorts. ‘Unabashed starry-eyed, silly, playful me?’ She raises her eyebrows like he’s just asked her if she likes to poop on the front lawn as her preference or the back. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Not anymore. What’s the thing Einstein said? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity? Well, yes, hi, hello. That was me until I was thirty-two.’
‘How old are you now?’
‘How about you don’t ask a lady her age?’
‘I wasn’t, I was asking you.’
‘Ha, ha.’
They drink.
Duke decides to keep the conversation going. ‘You know I have to ask what happened at thirty-two, don’t you?’
‘Ask all you want.’ Evie grins, finishing her beer. ‘But if you think ex-lovers is good first non-fake-date chat, I can see why you’re still single.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Somebody has to help you out, buddy.’
More staring. More smiling. More loaded, heavy air.
‘Go on,’ Duke challenges her. ‘If this was ten years ago and you were still dating …’
‘I’m not forty-two, you asshat.’
‘You keep calling me that!’
‘You keep being one!’
Staring.
‘What is acceptable date chat for you, Ms Bird?’ he asks then.
She makes a gagging sound. ‘Oh God.’ She laughs. ‘I don’t know! I told you, I’m so bad with people, and … I don’t know. I am aware I can be prickly. It’s just who I am.’
‘I am enthralled by you.’ He says it like the queen, rolling his r’s. It takes the edge off the truth in it.
‘You and Magda, then. That’s it. The two people in the world who think I’m interesting.’
‘Surely not.’
‘And my mother,’ she adds. ‘When she remembers.’
‘Do you wanna talk about that?’
Without missing a beat she replies, ‘Nope.’
They chuckle, and she picks up the empty beer bottle and picks at the label.
‘I’ve just read a novel that features parental dementia,’ Duke says. ‘I can lend it to you? It’s in my stuff at the hotel.’
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’d like that. And thank you for being kind to me,’ she adds, when Duke decides to let the silence play out. It’s nice, sitting here with her, shooting the breeze, nobody with any proper idea where they are. He feels safe, and comfortable. He tries to think of anybody else he could pass twelve to eighteen hours stranded with, and he can’t.
18
Evie
This is incredible of him, Evie thinks to herself as she steals a glance at Duke’s angular face. She loves that he has kitted out this space this way, taking the time and effort to be sweet. No man has ever been this thoughtful. Her friends, yes. Magda is basically her surrogate partner when it comes to birthdays and holidays and small everyday celebrations. Magda is the person Evie texts when her flight lands, or she has work news, or she wants to complain about a bad day. And Magda does the same for her, too. They’ve taken trips together, dressed up for BFF date nights together, nursed the other when they’ve been sick – but in terms of a man going the extra mile? Nope. Never. That’s why she makes it all up and writes it down in her books. That’s what she meant when she told Duke her stories are as much fantasy as lightsabres and other-worldly dimensions. This kind of stuff just doesn’t happen, and definitely not to her.
