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Jay settled back into the cosy booth, still highly amused. ‘The way you said that, there. You sounded exactly like her!’
‘Oh God! I’m too young to be turning into my mother!’ Frankie was quite horrified.
‘You can’t argue with genetics.’
‘I can. And I intend to!’
‘Why? Your mum’s brilliant.’
‘Yeah, but I thought I’d be at least forty before I turned into her. I’m only eighteen!’
‘You’re always saying she’s obsessed with your love life.’
‘She is.’
‘Like you are with Rocco’s.’
‘I was merely commenting on my brother’s short-term interest in anything plastic and peroxide. My mum’s obsession is with trying to matchmake everyone that’s single. It’s what Nonna does too. If she meets two random people and thinks they’d be perfect for each other, she tries to get them together.’
‘Genetics,’ Jay repeated, in an annoying sing-song tone.
‘No!’ Frankie shook her head. ‘I’m just nosy and pass-remarkable about my brother’s choice in women. If I ever start to even think about matchmaking people, shoot me!’
Jay continued to laugh.
‘Seriously? My mother!’ But Frankie, too, was now laughing. ‘You’re such a dick!’ She threw her coaster at him, which missed.
‘I may be a dick, but I’m a correct dick!’ Jay said smugly.
* * *
Four drinks later, Frankie and Jay left the bar, making kissing noises as they passed Rocco and his date. Rocco looked up and rolled his eyes at them. Giggling at their juvenile antics, Jay and Frankie merrily made their way back through the hotel, toward the exit.
Outside, it had started to snow; great big fluffy flakes falling heavily to the ground.
Jay grabbed Frankie’s hand and they ran, slipping and sliding along the pavement. They crossed the empty road and over the village green toward the Christmas tree.
Laughing, slightly out of breath, they spent the next few minutes trying to catch snowflakes on their tongue.
Jay threw his arms out and his head back. ‘I love looking up and watching the snow fall.’
Frankie copied him. The flakes seemed to fall faster and harder when she did that.
One landed in her eye.
‘Ahh!’ She blinked furiously, feeling a trickle of moisture, now warmer, run down her cheek. ‘Oh no! My mascara.’ She tried wiping her finger under her eye and it came away with an inky black smear.
‘Come here.’ Jay tilted Frankie’s face up to his. Taking the edge of his scarf, he gently dabbed the corner of it under Frankie’s eye.
They were standing very close.
‘I love how it goes so quiet when it snows,’ Frankie said, realising the irony of her talking over the silence she claimed to love.
‘Me too.’
She reached up and pulled the bow out of Jay’s hair.
He took it from her and smiled. ‘I’d forgotten I had that in.’
