I Heart Christmas. Lindsey Kelk

thinking hard, I looked like I needed the bathroom, or was about to cry. Because sometimes when I had to think that hard I did cry. ‘Is he the one I met at your wedding?’

      ‘Yes,’ I replied, practising my judgey face for when I got back to the office. ‘In England and in New York. He’s the bassist in Alex’s band? Very tall, handsome, glasses? You had sex with him several times?’

      James clicked his fingers and nodded. ‘Oh yeah. Nice guy.’

      ‘And so memorable.’

      ‘It was ages ago,’ he said, as though I was being entirely unreasonable. ‘We hooked up, we weren’t the ones getting married.’

      ‘I suppose it is easier to remember the names of everyone you’ve ever had sex with when you can count them all on one hand,’ I replied. ‘Names, dates of birth, identifying marks, names of parents, allergies and medical issues.’

      ‘I can’t decide if you’re my hero or the saddest woman I ever met.’ James squeezed his arm around my shoulders, elbowing Woody and Buzz in the face. ‘Poor lamb. Tell me all about it. Have you got the seven-year itch a bit early?’

      ‘No,’ I protested, horrified at the very thought. ‘I wouldn’t cheat on Alex. Not even with a Hemsworth.’

      ‘What about both Hemsworths?’ he asked.

      I paused for a moment.

      ‘Nope,’ I declared. ‘Not even both Hemsworths and a Gosling.’

      ‘Shit, that’s serious,’ James clucked. ‘You really should think before you say such things.’

      ‘I mean it,’ I said and I did. ‘Let’s be honest, I was never very good at dating. I’m perfectly happy to have retired early.’

      ‘Sounds nice,’ he said, contemplative for a second. ‘But yeah, there comes a time when enough’s enough. But what can a boy do when he’s ready for a change?’

      ‘Secretly pop over to New York without telling his friends,’ I suggested, ‘and audition for a part in a musical?’

      ‘Oh Clark, you’re not as green as you are cabbage-looking, are you?’ He smiled and gave my shoulder another squeeze. ‘You can be quite perceptive sometimes.’

      I smiled. Upsettingly, it was the nicest thing anyone had said to me all day.

      ‘So what’s going on?’ I asked, smiling broadly at the bored-looking shop assistant who was in charge of shoving people on and off the ride. I wondered if anyone ever fell off. I wondered if anyone ever jumped off. It would be a hell of a way to go.

      ‘Nothing really.’ He peered over the edge of our car and tapped out a beat on the side of the carriage. I noticed the stubble on his cheeks, the dark shadows under his eyes. I’d assumed they were evidence of too much travelling and fun times but maybe not. ‘Just feeling a bit shit, a bit lonely. It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone around.’

      ‘And that’s what you want?’ I covered my mouth so as not to offend him with a mouthful of neon goo. ‘A boyfriend?’

      ‘I want something,’ James said, looking behind us. Buzz and Woody seemed to understand. ‘I want someone to text stupid things to, not just a picture of my knob and my place at twelve? I’m thinking about moving to New York permanently actually. LA feels a bit tired.’

      ‘Obviously I would love that.’ I decided to ignore the dick pic part of the debate. That was an issue for his agent, not me. ‘You really think the dating prospects are better here than in California?’

      ‘That’s what I hear,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘And it’s a better place to raise a family for me, I think.’

      ‘Everyone has gone baby mad.’ I dug my hands deep into the pockets of my coat and tried to remember if I’d taken my Pill that morning. ‘Is there something in the water?’

      ‘You too?’ James broke into a real smile. ‘That would be amazing. Imagine, our little babies growing up together, going to school together, beating each other up, having incredibly awkward sexual encounters and then crying about it all in therapy twenty years later. Amazing.’

      ‘Well, as special as that sounds …’ I couldn’t quite return his big grin but I mustered up the ghost of a smile so as not to let him down. ‘It’s not me just yet. Alex, maybe. Jenny, yes. My friend, Erin, just had her second.’

      ‘You’re not ready?’ he asked.

      I fiddled with my engagement ring and shook my head.

      ‘I just pulled a half-empty, family-sized bag of Sour Patch Kids out of my handbag and that was supposed to be my lunch,’ I said. ‘No, I’m not ready. How am I supposed to take care of a baby? I am a baby.’

      ‘You know what they say, there’s never a right time,’ he said, taking another handful of sweets and throwing them into his mouth. ‘But I have just crossed you off my surrogate list.’

      ‘Thank you.’ I scooped up the rest of the sweets into my hand and folded the bag as small as possible to avoid filling the bottom of my satchel with sour sugar. Again. ‘It is appreciated.’

      ‘You say Jenny’s feeling broody?’ James did not extend the same mouth-covering courtesy to me that I had shown to him. Gross. ‘She seeing someone?’

      ‘Yes, she is, and sort of, but maybe not by now. She’s being ridiculous. It’s totally out of nowhere.’

      ‘Hmm.’ My favourite gay leaned forward, elbows on knees, swinging the carriage forward. I just managed not to squee with delight. ‘Biological clocks are pretty intense, Clark, and she’s a couple of years older than you, isn’t she?’

      ‘I know,’ I said, feeling a tiny bit guilty. ‘I’m not giving her a hard time, or at least I hope I’m not. I just don’t want her to rush into something this massive and then regret it. I don’t know if she really wants a baby or she just doesn’t want to be on her own. I don’t think dating Craig has really been the relationship of her dreams.’

      ‘Which one is Craig?’ he frowned.

      ‘The one in Alex’s band that you didn’t have sex with,’ I said. ‘I hope.’

      ‘I definitely only did the one in the glasses,’ he said, squinting with the effort of remembering. ‘But I think I remember him. He’s hot.’

      ‘He is,’ I acknowledged. ‘But I don’t think he’s particularly thinking about the future right now. He’s a straight, good-looking thirty-two-year-old musician in Brooklyn. That gives him the emotional maturity of a nineteen-year-old anywhere else in the world.’

      ‘Alex manages monogamy,’ James said, his foot tapping along to ‘Frosty the Snowman’ as he spoke. ‘Maybe you’re just being cynical.’

      ‘And I fully expect to wake up from my coma and find out Alex was all a dream any day now,’ I replied. ‘He is not the norm here, you know that. Dating is hard. I think that’s a bigger problem for Jenny than the baby thing. I just don’t think she wants to admit it.’

      ‘It’ll all come out in the wash,’ he said with a yawn. ‘You’ll get the truth out of her eventually. Probably when you’re hammered.’

      ‘You know me so well,’ I said, wincing at the thought of ever having to drink again. I could not hold my ale like I used to and that was saying something. ‘Why don’t you come over for dinner? I’ll call her, we’ll get her liquored up together?’

      ‘In Brooklyn?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Oh, Clark,’ James replied with a friendly smile. ‘How many times? I Don’t Go There.’

      You had to admire a man who had his principles.