‘What are you thinking about?’ Chloe squeezes my arm through my thick woollen teddy coat.
‘Everything and nothing.’ A contented sigh slips from my chest. ‘It’s great to have you home. I wish Victoria would have come with us. She’s just at that age where she’d prefer to moon about her bedroom or watch videos of other teenagers doing stupid stuff on TikTok in a desperate attempt to go viral, rather than face actual conversation in the real world.’
‘Are you sure that’s what she’s up to?’ A small smirk slides the corners of Chloe’s mouth upwards.
My head whips round incredulously. ‘Well, what else would she be up to?’
‘You don’t think she might have a secret boyfriend? You know, only yesterday she asked me if she could borrow my make-up bag. Have you ever known her to show as much interest in her appearance as she has lately?’
Chloe has a point, one I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with. Though when I was her age, I was doing a lot worse.
‘She’s almost eighteen – it’s about time.’ Chloe pats my arm again and steers me into our favourite department store.
Everything seems to be changing and I know it’s all for the greater good, but it still renders me slightly uneasy.
The astronomical level of heat from bodies jostling and overkill heating in Brown Thomas literally melts the shiver straight from my spine before I can waste another minute overthinking any of it. Searching through the men’s clothing department, my heart sinks further with each item Chloe suggests. None of it is enough. None of it says what I want to say.
‘Come on, let’s go get a drink and put our heads together. Maybe something will jump out at us.’ Chloe steers us towards the escalator, out into the twilight.
Outside, it’s even busier than earlier. I didn’t think it was actually possible. Hurried shoppers line the streets in search of last-minute gifts and essentials. It’s a lot of fuss for one day.
A gang of teenage girls bomb towards us, shrieking and pointing. Chloe turns to me at the same time I turn to her.
‘Oh my god, is he with you?’ The girls literally hang from the tail of my teddy jacket.
‘Bring us to the castle,’ another girl pleads.
‘She’s not even that pretty,’ another declares.
Before the situation can escalate, Chloe barges past them and pulls me to a side alley. One I’d never even noticed before, despite being a Dublin native.
‘Quick, let’s find a pub to hide in.’
We half run, half jog along the narrow cobbled streets. Though the crowd is thinning out the further we get from Grafton Street, I’m conscious others might recognise us.
Two more women in their twenties halt dead in their tracks, blocking the path in front of us. Darting eyes take us both in, before glancing behind us. Clearly everyone is looking for Ryan.
‘Are you…’ one starts, but Chloe yanks me into the nearest open doorway, which happens to be a music shop.
Slamming the door shut and turning the sign to closed, she rests against it, catching her breath.
A plump man in his fifties raises bushy grey eyebrows from behind a messy counter. Guitars of all description hang on the wall behind him in an unorganised display.
‘We’ll buy something, I promise. But we just need to hide out for a few minutes,’ she explains.
Damn right we’ll buy something. I just stumbled onto the perfect Christmas gift for my boyfriend. A brand-new acoustic guitar. Hopefully, given that it’s a gift from me, he’ll be able to put aside the sentiment of the old one and find some new value in this.
Pushing thick charcoal glasses further up onto his nose, he says, ‘Errm, are you…’
I can only hope he has a genuine appreciation for music and isn’t another infatuated fan wanting to climb my boyfriend. ‘Yes. And I need to buy him a new guitar.’
When we arrive back at the castle, the final preparations for the Christmas ball are in full swing. I abandon my coat, the Brown Thomas bags, and the undisguisable guitar-shaped gift in search of Ryan.
The company renting out the marquee have spent the entire day constructing it. So elaborate in its design, inside almost feels like being in a proper ballroom.
They’ve set up a stage at the front of the room. Descending rows of seating circle the perimeter and in the centre of the room is a dance floor large enough to comfortably hold seven hundred people. It’s unbelievable.
It’s so solid, so well insulated, impenetrable even to the winter wind whipping the windows. Ryan stands in front of the stage where Matt and his band are fiddling with equipment in preparation for tomorrow night.
