The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea: A gorgeously uplifting festive romance!. Jaimie Admans

see you soon” – and even I text Gavin one of them when I leave work every night.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter, I’m not interested.’ I ignore the flutteriness again. There must’ve been something wrong with that cereal this morning. Nothing more.

      ‘Right, notes. He could have written his address in there in case his phone ever got lost.’

      ‘Daph! This is his private property!’

      ‘Oh my God, Ness. He’s a vegetarian too. He’s literally the male version of you. Look, last week’s shopping list.’ She waves the phone in front of me. ‘Halloumi cheese, Quorn sausages, veggie bacon, Coco Pops, Nutella, and Cadbury’s Fingers.’ She sighs happily. ‘Any guy who buys Cadbury’s Fingers is a keeper. They’re your favourites.’

      ‘He’s probably buying them for his wife,’ I say, even though warmth floods my insides. I’m not interested in men, but if I could invent a perfect one, that would be his shopping list. ‘Besides, Cadbury’s Fingers only mean he’s a keeper if he bites both ends off and sucks tea up through it like a straw until it goes all melty and gooey on the inside.’

      ‘No address then?’ Zinnia asks. She’s all about yoga and detoxing teas. She doesn’t approve of chocolate. Daphne and I regularly joke that it’s all a front and she often leaves abruptly so she can get back to the bar of Galaxy hidden in her desk.

      ‘Nothing. What shall we do? Call the last number he dialled and see if they know how else to get in touch with him?’

      ‘Oi!’ I finally do protest. ‘I’m the one who found the phone. I should be the one doing this. It’s not right for us all to gather round it like some kind of soap opera.’

      ‘Yeah, and I’m pregnant so you can’t hit me to get it back.’ Daph ducks behind Zinnia and pokes her tongue out at me. ‘Right, call log.’

      I sigh as I watch her go through the phone. ‘Again, no repeat calls to any specific number. No late-night booty calls. Here, last number dialled was local. I’ll ring it.’

      She presses the dial button and puts the speaker on.

      ‘Cheap N Easy Pizza is closed at this time. Try again after five-thirty,’ a tinny voice comes through the phone.

      Daph hangs up and bursts out laughing. ‘The last thing he did was get a takeaway pizza. Ness, he’s literally you. When did you last have a takeaway pizza?’

      ‘The weekend,’ I say, trying not to blush. ‘There’s nothing wrong with takeaway pizza. Not all of us have husbands who like to experiment with cooking gourmet meals for us, you know.’

      ‘Not for my lack of trying to find you one,’ she mutters. ‘And I bet he even likes pineapple on it too.’

      ‘There’s nothing wrong with—’ I start to protest but Daph drops her arm and I see an opportunity to snatch the phone out of her hand. ‘Ah ha!’

      ‘Okay, how are you going to find him then?’ Zinnia asks. I’m surprised she’s getting so involved in this. She loves anything to do with love, but she’s not usually got much time for me. I’m supposed to be a fact-checker for Maîtresse but my heart’s not in it. She knows it and I know it, and I’m not fast enough, thorough enough, or dedicated enough for her to like me.

      ‘There’s not even any social media,’ Daphne says. ‘I’m getting a bit worried here, Ness. Where’s his Facebook app? No Twitter? No Instagram? You are sure he isn’t a technophobe ninety-year-old, aren’t you?’

      ‘Well, maybe he just likes to keep things private. Not everyone’s on social media. Some days, I think we’d all be a lot less stressed if we weren’t. I don’t have the Facebook app on my phone either.’

      ‘See?’ Daph holds her hand up. ‘Perfect match.’

      I sit there and scroll through the photos. He’s certainly got a thing about carousels. Almost all his photos are of them. There are photos taken of aged photos depicting them in olden days, pictures of broken parts of various wooden animals, paint-chipped poles, carousels in fairgrounds, one on a pier, and there are other rides too. I spot what must be joints of a rollercoaster and possibly some tracks, what looks like antique furniture and old steam engines. I linger on the distant photo of him standing on a carousel for longer than could be considered normal. My heart is pounding harder just at the sight of him in a zoomed-in photograph.

      I have to stop thinking about it. The sooner this phone is out of my hands, the better. ‘Why don’t I try texting someone on his contact list and ask them how to get in touch with him?’

      ‘I volunteer my services while you go and get on with work,’ Daphne says quickly. ‘I’ll find someone who can get in touch with him and verify his relationship status.’

      ‘Chop chop.’ Zinnia taps her wrist like I’m on a schedule.

      I scroll through the messages again but Daph’s right, there don’t seem to be any ongoing conversations or anything other than perfunctory messages and courier confirmations, so I go to his contacts list instead, hoping it might be in some kind of most-contacted order but it’s alphabetical.

      ‘Just text the first one,’ Zinnia says, and I get the feeling this has gone on too long for her. She’s efficient and doesn’t believe in wasting time, which is probably why she’s the editor of a popular women’s magazine and I’m the person who phones round publicists trying to find two sources to confirm that Brad Pitt’s name is actually spelt Brad Pitt. Nothing is too pedantic in fact-checking.

      I slide my finger back up to the top. ‘Okay. Alan it is. Let’s hope he’s a good friend of Train Man.’

      Hello, I type out. I found this phone on the train this morning and I’m trying to get hold of the owner to give it back. Do you know how I can contact him?

      ‘Now we wait.’

      Daph starts talking about the baby pressing on her bladder, but within minutes, the phone lets out a low jingling noise and lights up in my hand.

      ‘Oooh!’ we all say in unison.

      I unlock the phone and blink in surprise at the reply. ‘Oh. No “oooh” at all. Wow.’ I ignore the growingly insistent chorus of ‘whats’. ‘That’s not very nice.’

      I read the text message from Alan aloud, cutting out some of the more, er, choice language. ‘Eff off Nathaniel, don’t involve me in whatever stupid game you’re playing now.’

      ‘Ooh, intriguing,’ Daph says.

      ‘Worrying,’ I amend for her. ‘What’s he done to this bloke? What “stupid game” has he been playing before?’

      ‘Why’d he bother to keep him as a contact if they hate each other so much?’

      ‘A mystery,’ Zinnia says. ‘To solve.’

      ‘Nathaniel is such a sexy name,’ Daph says, fanning a hand in front of her face again.

      ‘That’s what you took from that message?’

      ‘Well, at least we know what he’s called now. Although I don’t fancy texting dear old Alan back to ask for his home address or landline number, do you?’

      I recoil at the thought. ‘Don’t you think we’ve invaded this poor man’s privacy enough? We’ve been through his pictures, his notes, his messages; we’ve even managed to text his number one enemy. I should have dropped this phone straight in at lost property in the station. It has nothing to do with me if he gets it back or not.’

      ‘There’s an amazing story in this. It’s so romantic. A man you’ve been silently flirting with on the train for months, eyes meeting across a crowded carriage, and now you being the one to spot his dropped phone and the quest to find this mystery man and return it … Our readers will love it.’ Zinnia looks between me and Daphne with an expression