“Grigg!”
“It was not a love letter,” I say, “it was a Christmas card, and yes, I had a crush on him once, but all I said in that message to you was that there was a bit of a vibe at the mo—that doesn’t mean I want him. We still hate each other.”
“You don’t need to like someone to fancy them,” Sameera says.
“Don’t you?” Grigg asks mildly.
“I don’t fancy him,” I say, but the moment I say it, I know I’m lying. I know, deep down, that I didn’t want to cover myself up when Lucas caught me half-dressed through the lost-property-room door, and that if I weren’t still attracted to him, I’d have squealed and dashed out of view as quick as a rat. “Oh, shit,” I say, re-burying my face in the pillow.
“I think this is good!” Sameera says. “You always go for such . . .”
“Wet-arse men,” Grigg finishes for her.
“Excuse me?”
“Lost causes, guys who live in dimly lit basements, men with big dreams they’re going to get started on sometime next summer.” Grigg takes a large bite of his pizza.
“Hey!” I say, though actually this is painfully pitch-perfect. I think about Tristan’s flat above his parents’ garage, and Dean’s start-up plans, and I grimace.
“Grigg’s right,” Sameera says excitedly. “Sexy Scowly has drive and ambition! That’s way more you! Didn’t you say he lost the job he came here for because the place shut down, and then he got the job at your hotel, like, days before his visa was due to expire?”
“Yeah, he did,” I say, chewing my lip.
It’s one of the very rare pieces of personal information I’ve gleaned from Lucas—it came up in a conversation about lockdown rules. Thank God those days are gone. We argued worse than ever when the government guidelines kept changing every few weeks.
“He’s driven, sure. He’s also a massive knob,” I remind them.
“Does he!” Sameera crows, bounding back into view again with a bunch of laundry bundled to her chest.
“Is a massive knob, Sam,” I say, and then laugh at the disappointment on her face. “I promise you, I’m not interested in Lucas anymore, not after what happened last Christmas.” I hold up a hand when they both open their mouths to speak. “I will acknowledge that I still find him attractive.”
“What’s wrong with a bit of flirtation, then? You don’t need to worry about leading him on or hurting his feelings, given that he hates you as much as you hate him. And if the flirting leads to angry sex, hurray!” Sameera throws a hand up, sending a pair of knickers flying with it. “If you decide you don’t want to sleep with him, then you’ve wound him up for weeks on end—also hurray!”
“Well,” I say, sipping my tea, “when you put it like that . . .”
“Hey, what address should we post your Christmas present to?” Grigg asks, turning the camera back to him again. “I keep meaning to ask—where’s Jem living right now?”
“Just post it here,” I say, shifting my pillow behind me. “I’ll take it with me when I go. I can’t believe you guys have the headspace for shopping this early, with Rupe still up half the night. You’re doing so well.”
“Cried on the sofa for a full forty minutes this morning, sweetness!” Sameera calls. I hear the slam of what I assume is the washing-machine door.
“Oh, Sam . . . Is there anything I can do?” For about the millionth time, I wish they’d not made the move to Edinburgh. If they were still down here in the New Forest, I could be the one putting on that wash, making them dinner, settling Rupe.
“Have a torrid love affair and then tell me all about it?” Sameera suggests, finally flopping down next to Grigg on the sofa. He pulls her in close and kisses her head.
“I love you,” I tell her, “but not enough for torrid. Torrid sounds messy.”
“Torrid sounds exciting,” Sameera corrects me. “You need a bit of that.”
“My life is nonstop excitement,” I say. “Right, I’ll leave you to the million things you’ve stockpiled to get done while the baby’s down. Bye, loves. I hope Rupe sleeps through.”
“Me too,” Sameera says with feeling.
I drop my phone on the duvet and settle back in with Charmed, sipping my tea and ignoring my WhatsApps. Trying not to mind that when I said my life is nonstop excitement, Grigg and Sameera both laughed.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
Usually, winter is a whirlwind at the hotel. Work christmas lunches, girly spa trips, cosy couples’ minibreaks, and lavish winter weddings. It feels horribly quiet now. On an average day here, I always play a hundred different roles (public relations manager, kids’ entertainer, window un-jammer, whatever the crisis needs), but the roles I’m playing at the moment aren’t nearly as fun as usual. Today, for instance, I am spending my Monday deep-cleaning the carpet and sorting umbrellas from the lost-property room. All the umbrellas are black. Black reminds me of funerals—I own zero black clothes, and my current umbrella is polka-dot pale blue, though I lose them so frequently it’s hard to keep track.
The Ring Thing is keeping me going at the moment. After we phoned the same people within minutes of each other on Saturday morning (awkward), Lucas and I decided we’ll each focus on a ring of our own, to minimise the risk of strangling one another in frustration. Lucas’s ring is a fancy diamond-studded band—of course he picked that one—whereas I went for the gold wedding ring, battered and well-loved. The other two—the beautiful emerald engagement ring and the stylish hammered-silver wedding band—will have to wait until I’ve beaten Lucas at this bet.
He seems to be having even worse luck than I am. Yesterday I heard someone yelling at him on the phone for “bothering them about a wedding ring five days after they’d been jilted.” Oops. I know I should want him to find his ring’s owner for the sake of the hotel, and I do, of course I do, I just . . . don’t want him to find them yet.
I smile as I walk back in from my lunch break (leftovers in the kitchen with Arjun) and spot Mr. Townsend in the armchair by the lobby window. Now there’s a success story. It took me a couple of attempts to figure out what Mr. Townsend needed from his stay here. At first, I tried to give him a spa session, thinking he wanted peace and quiet—but now I’ve nailed it.
People come to a hotel at this time of year for all sorts of reasons, and I realised Mr. Townsend’s reason was exactly the same as mine: because he didn’t want to spend Christmas alone.
So I’ve set him up right here in the middle of things. I’ve encouraged him to see the builders not as a disruption to hotel activity but as part of it. Now that he knows the tall one hates the one with the ponytail, and the guy in charge is definitely in love with the one woman on the team, he’s quite content to sit here in the lobby and watch their antics—and ours.
“Any luck with your ring?” Mr. Townsend calls.
“Getting there!” I call back. “Can I fetch you anything? A tea? A new book?”
“I’m all set, thank you. You missed a call,” he says, nodding towards the desk, “but they left a voicemail.”
“We’re going to have to put you on the payroll,” I tell him just as Louis strolls into the lobby.
“Hey, Izzy,” he says. “Up for that swim tonight?”
He’s wearing jeans and a wool jumper, his hands tucked in his pockets. I get the sense there’s more to Louis than the boyish cheekiness—a bit of an edge, maybe. It makes me curious. He’s different from the usual men I go for, and after my chat with Grigg and Sameera, I’m thinking that’s definitely a good thing. Maybe I should give this a go.
I try to imagine what my mum would have said about him. She and Dad always told me I should choose someone kind and attentive—“A man who smiles easily, that’s what you need,” Mum once said.
That thought swings it.
“Why not?” I say just as Lucas marches out of the restaurant, looking furious about something.
Louis smiles. “Excellent. See you when your shift ends—five, is it?”