by Lindsey Kelk
‘I love.’ Angie draped herself over the island in the open-plan cook’s kitchen as James and Jeremy paraded in with box after box of beautifully wrapped gifts. ‘You’ve totally outdone yourself. And the tree smells so good.’
‘Eh,’ I looked around at my masterpiece. There were freshly cut boughs of holly resting on the wooden mantelpiece, and vase upon vase of poinsettias on every available surface along with enough tea lights and strings of fairy lights to land a jumbo jet if we needed to. On her best day Martha Stewart could not have pulled this shit together, so it was hard to believe that just a few hours earlier I’d been ready to cancel Christmas altogether. ‘It was nothing.’
‘I’m feeling all festive,’ Angie announced, resting her head on her forearms.
‘Don’t you mean drunk?’ I asked. ‘Cause you look drunk.’
‘It was a long drive with two very gay men,’ she warned. ‘If you’d had the day I’d had, you’d be drunk too.’
‘Uh-huh,’ I said, pressing my lips together and narrowing my eyes. ‘Stressful, was it?’
‘You’ve no idea.’ She rolled her eyes and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. ‘I wish I’d come up with you and had a lovely restful day in the country.’
‘Sure,’ I replied, holding my hand out for a beer of my own. ‘A lovely restful day in the country.’
‘Jenny, you fabulous little slag!’ James ran inside and scooped me up in his ridiculously giant arms, spinning me round and round until he unceremoniously threw me back on the couch. ‘I’m going to be sick. Why are you dressed like a cheap slapper?’
‘Firstly, not a slag, James,’ I pointed out, although I still found the word weirdly endearing in a British accent. It had so much more chutzpah than ‘slut’ though. ‘I am a feminist and I refuse to denigrate a woman for her sexuality.’
‘All right, Jezebel,’ he replied, pressing a hand to his stomach. ‘Seriously, though, what’s with the Showgirls Holiday Special get-up?’
‘It’s festive?’ I offered. I really didn’t feel like getting into it.
‘You’re all here!’ A new voice rang down the staircase, heralding Sadie’s arrival like a Christmas angel. A Christmas angel who had fallen asleep in black eyeliner and hadn’t looked in a mirror for a while. ‘I’m so happy. Jenny totally tried to kill me.’
Angie looked over with one quirked eyebrow. I started to shake my head then stopped myself and shrugged instead.
‘Fair?’ Angie said.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed.
‘I’m really, really hungry,’ she said, pressing her hand against her near-concave stomach. Working long hours, short-staffed, might have been no good for my best friend’s complexion, but she was the skinniest I’d ever seen her. Bitch. ‘James had nothing but Twinkies, Ring Dings and Sour Patch Kids in the car.’
‘But you love Twinkies, Ring Dings and Sour Patch Kids,’ I said, eyeing the overflowing cupboards in the kitchen. ‘They’re, like, your three major food groups.’
‘Only when I’ve eaten something other than coffee during the rest of the day,’ she sighed. ‘And I hate cooking for myself. I haven’t been eating that well since Alex went on tour.’
‘Alex went on tour five weeks ago,’ I groaned, pulling myself upright again. ‘Okay, I’m hungry too. Let me check my emails and I’ll pull something together. Since you’ve had such a stressful day.’
She smiled sleepily, resting her head on the sofa while James and Jeremy threw Sadie around the room to the dulcet tones of Mariah Carey and I shuffled over to the kitchen. A bucket of water would hardly hurt, I figured, rubbing my furry tongue against the roof of my dry mouth. One too many pre-party cocktails with the lovely man.
Standing by the sink, running the cold water, I watched my friends unfold in the living room. Coats on the stairs, shoes by the door, the music getting louder and louder. It really hadn’t mattered how beautifully I decorated the place, this was what mattered. As much as that level of sentiment usually made me want to puke in my own mouth, it was kinda nice to see everyone laughing and smiling and singing at each other.
My phone rattled across the counter, my Beyoncé ringtone drowned out by the holiday party mix blasting out of James’ iPod, but it didn’t matter − I recognized the number. Grabbing the phone and running out of the back door, I hit answer and pretended I wasn’t shaking in my incredibly unstylish boots.
‘Jenny Lopez,’ I answered in a voice a thousand times more confident and a million times more composed than I actually felt.
‘You are a smart woman, you know that?’ A man’s voice came crisply down the line. ‘You’re really, really good.’
‘I know,’ I said, smiling. ‘I just can’t believe it took you this long to realize.’
‘And that really is my bad,’ Stephen Hall replied. ‘Your presentation was stellar.’
‘Well, that’s good news.’ I hopped back and forth from foot to foot and punched the air. ‘Then we’re going forward to pitch?’
A pause. ‘No.’
I froze, not from the sub-zero temperatures but because my heart had actually stopped pumping and all the blood had stopped moving through my veins.
‘We’re not doing pitches,’ Stephen continued. ‘I liked your pitch, Bertie Bennett loved it. He liked the personal touches, he liked the event strategy and he liked the media hook-up strategy with Gloss magazine. You know he’s Delia Spencer’s godfather, right?’
‘No?’ I screeched. No one loved a little nepotism like the fashion industry. If I’d known Bertie Bennett was Delia’s godfather, I would have pulled every last string in the goddamn book. I would have made new strings just to pull them.
‘Doesn’t matter − icing on the cake. He loved the work.’ Stephen raised his voice to make himself heard over an airport loudspeaker. ‘Anyway, I gotta go, but I wanted to give you the good news before everyone disappeared. Let’s touch base next week. Happy holidays, Lopez.’
‘Happy holidays,’ I echoed, ending the call and resuming my mad dance of joy. For such a shitty day, this really was turning out okay. Before I could take my freezing ass back inside, my phone buzzed again, but this time it was a message. From Mason.
‘Merry Christmas!’ I read out loud. ‘FYI, this is my first ever dick pic.’
Face frozen in fear, I scrolled down to reveal a photo of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. I had never, ever been happier to receive a text.
‘Oh look, it’s Father Christmas,’ Jeremy bellowed over the music as I slipped back into the house. ‘Shut the door, love, you’re letting the cold in.’
‘Father Christmas wishes he could pull this off,’ I said, flicking my hand in his general direction, altogether too pleased with myself to be bothered with him. ‘Who wants to open a gift?’
There were so many brightly packaged boxes and bags, it was kind of shameful that they were all for four fully-grown, childless adults. We were kind of disgusting and kind of wonderful.
‘But it’s not midnight,’ Angela shouted as everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and ran over to the tree, rifling through the gifts to find a tag with their name on. ‘We can’t open presents until midnight!’
‘Really?’ I ran from the kitchen to the front door as a pair of headlamps shone through the window. ‘You want to wait another two hours for your gift?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whined, her entire body shaking like an overtired, over-sugared toddler. ‘It’s not Christmas yet.’
‘Fine.’ I opened the door, smiling so wide that I thought I might swallow my own damn fine face. I was so freaking good. ‘Alex, you can get back in the car, Angela doesn’t want her present yet. Can you come back in two hours?’
‘Alex?’ Angie sat upright as though someone had shoved a million volts up her ass. ‘Jenny, that’s not funny.’
‘This cold isn’t funny,’ Alex replied, dragging himself, a foot of snow and two giant duffle bags through the door. ‘You guys know it’s summer in Australia, right?’
‘Oh my God
.’ Angie ran across the room so fast she was practically a blur and leapt into her husband’s frosty arms. ‘Oh my God, you’re here.’
Watching them grin at each other and swap messy kisses, I rested my head against the glass pane in the front door. That was real love − a man you were so excited to see that you didn’t even glance in a mirror to check your hair or make-up before you threw yourself on him. I wanted that.
‘Happy Christmas, doll,’ I said as she beamed over his shoulder right into my face. ‘Couldn’t think of anything better to get you.’
‘There isn’t anything better, you sneaky cow,’ she said, reaching an arm out of the Angela–Alex melange and just managing to pat my head. ‘Merry Christmas. I got you shoes.’
‘I want to be upset that you told me before I could open them when I just kept the biggest secret of my life for weeks,’ I said, pointing at her miraculously appearing husband. ‘But I do love me some shoes. They’re good shoes, right?’
‘There’s a gift receipt in the bottom of the box,’ she added.
It had started out as a pretty shitty day but no one had died, I’d won the Bertie Bennett account, the power was working, I’d met the last wonderful single man in Manhattan, and Alex had arrived in one piece. Not a bad day, even by my standards.
‘Come on, guys,’ I said, pressing my hands and my phone against my heart. ‘Let’s get this Christmas started.’
Keep Reading
If you love Lindsey’s books, look out for her new novel
ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID
Published May 2015
Click here to pre-order now
978-0-00-758234-1
Catch up on the rest of the I HEART series and find out how it all started!
Click here to buy I Heart New York
Click here to buy I Heart Hollywood
Click here to buy I Heart Paris
Click here to buy I Heart Vegas
Click here to buy I Heart London
Click here to buy I Heart Christmas
And don’t miss the ebook-only exclusive novella, Jenny Lopez Has A Bad Week
Click here to buy now
If you love Lindsey’s I Heart books, why not try her new series, starring Tess Brookes, who kicks off her adventures in Hawaii with About A Girl…
Click here to buy now
And the second book, What A Girl Wants, continues Tess’s escapades in Milan…
Click here to buy now
‘Fans of the I Heart series will instantly fall for this gorgeously funny and romantic read’ Closer
About the Author
Lindsey Kelk is an author, journalist and prolific tweeter.
Lindsey loves living in New York, expensive shoes, professional wrestling and wondering whether or not it’s time for bed. Lindsey dislikes too much frosting on a cupcake, being so far away from London, spiders and not being in bed. Lindsey is indifferent to sushi and dogs that are smaller than a cereal box.
Lindsey has written eight other novels: I Heart New York, I Heart Hollywood, I Heart Paris, I Heart Vegas, I Heart London, I Heart Christmas, The Single Girl’s To-Do List, About a Girl and What A Girl Wants, as well as another Jenny Lopez ebook-only novella, Jenny Lopez Has a Bad Week. You can find out lots more about her here: http://lindseykelk.com
Follow Lindsey on Twitter @LindseyKelk
Also by Author
I Heart New York
I Heart Hollywood
I Heart Paris
I Heart Vegas
I Heart London
I Heart Christmas
The Single Girl’s To-Do List
About A Girl
What A Girl Wants
E-novella
Jenny Lopez Has A Bad Week
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
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Canada
HarperCollins Canada
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New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
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Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com