Read Online One Perfect Christmas by Paige Toon - Free Book Online Page A

go, but we can always do a day trip. ’
    ‘It’s six hours there and back,’ I remind her.
    ‘Well, we could go for a night or check it out on the return journey, something like that. What do you think?’
    ‘Sure,’ I reply. ‘It will be good to get to our hotel and…’
    ‘… And get into our swimming costumes and head to the beach-slash-bar,’ she finishes my sentence for me, although that wasn’t what I was going to say.
    ‘We could unpack first,’ I suggest.
    ‘No. No,’ she says firmly. ‘You are not unpacking. Not this time. On this holiday you are going to throw caution to the wind. There will be no unpacking, no trawling through
the tourist brochures, no writing of shopping lists, or anything like that. I’m not having it.’
    I roll my eyes at her and say thank you to the air stewardess as she returns with our drinks.
    Bridget shifts in her seat on the other side of Marty and sweeps her wavy, medium-length brown hair over her shoulder as she tries in vain to get comfortable. It’s been a long flight and
we had an early start.
    ‘Have you managed to get any kip?’ I ask Marty quietly.
    ‘No. I’ll sleep on the beach. Cheers.’
    We chink glasses. Matthew’s face appears in the forefront of my mind and I wince as nervous anxiety swells inside my chest. I take a gulp of my drink.
    ‘Stop thinking about him,’ Marty snaps.
    ‘I wish I could,’ I reply, not taking offence to her tone. Anything but sympathy.
    ‘How long until we land?’ She changes the subject.
    I check my watch. ‘Two hours.’
    ‘Just enough time to watch a movie.’
    ‘Good plan,’ I agree.
    She reaches into the seat pocket in front of her for the entertainment guide and then presses the call button once more.
    ‘You haven’t finished your last one!’ I exclaim.
    She sniggers like a naughty schoolgirl. ‘I know. I thought I’d ask the snooty cow if she has any popcorn…’
    For all her bravado, Marty doesn’t last long before she falls fast asleep in the front passenger seat of our hired red Chevy Equinox. Bridget is driving and I’m
relieved because we’d barely turned out of the airport car park before we’d had two near misses – the drivers here all seem a bit nuts.
    We’re on a long, wide, straight road heading away from Miami and towards the Florida Keys. I stare out of the window at the fat palm trees planted in the central reservation. It’s a
bright, sunny afternoon and in a rare, uplifting moment, I think to put on my sunglasses, but then I remember that I packed them in my suitcase and I can’t even be bothered to feel irritated.
It’s hard to care about anything much these days.
    Jessie J comes on the radio and Bridget turns up the sound. We’ve barely said two words to each other since Marty crashed out. We’re not friends.
    That sounds wrong. What I mean is, she’s Marty’s friend, not mine. It’s not to say that I don’t like her. I do. Sort of. But Marty and I have been best friends since
childhood. Bridget only dates back to Marty’s early twenties, when they shared a flat together in London. They’re great friends, but not old friends. When it comes to longevity, I win.
And yes, it does feel like a competition.
    I wasn’t supposed to come on this holiday. Bridget is a travel writer, Marty, as I’ve already mentioned, is a travel
agent
, and between the two of them, they had this
holiday sewn up long before I came along and ruined it.
    That’s not strictly true. Marty invited me. And Bridget couldn’t exactly say no, considering 20.10.12.
    20.10.12. The date of my hen night, the date of Matthew’s stag do, the date that popped up on one of his Facebook messages just two weeks ago:
    Are you the Matthew Perry who was at Elation on 20.10.12?
    ‘There it is!’ Bridget interrupts my dark thoughts with a gleeful cry.
    Before she fell asleep, Marty challenged us to be the first one to spot the ocean. Bridget thinks she’s the victor.
    ‘That’s not the ocean, is it?’