‘Easier than yesterday. We’ve been watching Christmas movies,’ she said.
‘Sounds like a good plan.’
‘Love Actually is one of my favourite films. And you really can’t top the Christmas lobster.’
* * *
Then Amy remembered that one of the storylines in the movie involved an affair. Talk about rubbing salt in his wounds. How could she have forgotten that Josh’s wife left him for another man, last Christmas Eve? ‘Sorry. I just put my foot in it. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.’
‘I’m not a fan of romcoms,’ Josh said, ‘and you haven’t put your foot in it—even though I get what you’re saying. This is way better than Christmas was last year, believe me.’
Which didn’t make her feel any less guilty. Just about anything would be an improvement on his last Christmas. ‘Maybe I should start prepping dinner,’ she said awkwardly.
‘As the baby’s asleep, is there anything I can do?’
‘You can keep topping up the wine and chat to me in the kitchen, if you like,’ she suggested.
‘I’d like that. Funny, two days ago we were almost complete strangers,’ he said, ‘and now we’re spending Christmas together.’
‘As a kind of blended family with a baby who’s a complete stranger, too,’ she said.
‘I still don’t know anything about you,’ he said, ‘other than that you’re a maths teacher and you have a brother who lives in Canada.’
‘And you’re an emergency department doctor who’s the youngest of four.’ She shrugged. ‘OK. So what do you want to know? I’m thirty.’
‘I’m thirty-two,’ he said.
Amy started chopping the carrots into matchsticks.
‘And you obviously enjoy cooking—or at least you’re good at it,’ Josh said.
She smiled. ‘Thank you, and I do. Does that mean you don’t?’
‘I’d rather wash up than cook,’ he said. ‘Obviously I can cook a few basics—you wouldn’t survive as a student unless you knew how to make stuff like spaghetti Bolognese and cheese toasties—but spending all that time making something that people will wolf down in two seconds flat and then forget about...’ He smiled. ‘Or maybe that’s the medic in me talking.’
‘So food’s fuel rather than a pleasure?’
‘At work, yes,’ he admitted. ‘Shamefully, I eat a chocolate bar on the run for my lunch way more often than I ought to.’
‘So what sort of things do you like doing outside work?’ Amy grimaced. ‘I’m sorry. This sounds like a terrible speed-dating sort of grilling.’
‘Speed-dating,’ he said, ‘is something I’ve never actually done.’
‘Me neither,’ she agreed. ‘Though I guess, when you get to our age, it’s probably about your only option for meeting someone, if you haven’t already clicked with someone you met at work or with a friend of a friend at a party.’
‘And if you’re in a job with unsocial hours, work means that half the time you’re not on the same shift and it’s hard to find a time when you can actually do something together,’ he added. ‘Though I think being set up with a friend of a friend is worse than dating someone at work, because then if it doesn’t work out it makes things a bit awkward with your friend. You feel a bit guilty and as if you’ve let your friend down.’
‘That sounds like experience talking,’ Amy said.
Josh wrinkled his nose. ‘I did have a couple of well-meaning friends try to set me up, earlier this year, but I told them I just wasn’t ready.’
She nodded. ‘I know what you mean. It was a while before I could face dating after I split up with Michael; then, after that, I just didn’t meet anyone I could click with.’
Though she had a feeling that she could click with Josh, given the chance. It surprised her how much she liked him and how easy he was to talk to.
‘One of my friends tried speed-dating a few months back,’ Josh said. ‘He tried to talk me into going with him, but it sounded a bit too much like a meat market for me. He did say afterwards that all the women he’d met had had a massive list of questions they’d prepared earlier, and it felt like the worst kind of job interview.’
‘I guess asking questions is a quick way of getting to know someone,’ she said.
He smiled at her. ‘Maybe we should look at one of those lists. It’ll save us having to think up our own questions.’
‘Good idea,’ she said, carefully separating the tenderstem broccoli and adding it to her pile of stir-fry veg before starting on the butternut squash.
Josh took his phone from his pocket and flicked into the Internet. ‘Here we go. What you do at work? Well, we already know that about each other. Where are you from?’ He frowned. ‘That’s pretty irrelevant.’ He flicked further down the list. ‘OK. Let’s try this one. What’s the one thing about yourself that you’d like me to know?’
‘I don’t have a clue,’ she said.
‘Me, neither. Let’s skip to the next one.’ He grimaced. ‘That’s all about your last relationship. It’s too intrusive. Same as whether you’re looking to get married.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you’d actually ask a complete stranger if they’re looking to get married when you’re thinking about maybe dating them for the first time. I mean—you might be completely incompatible. Why would you talk about marriage that early on?’
‘Maybe that’s the point of speed-dating. To speed everything up,’ Amy said. ‘If you want to settle down but the person you’re thinking about dating doesn’t, you’re both kind of wasting each other’s time.’
‘That question still feels wrong.’ He scrolled down the page. ‘This is a bit more like it. What do you do for fun?’
‘Music,’ she said promptly. ‘Not clubbing—I like live music, whether it’s a tiny venue where there’s only enough room for a couple of dozen people listening to someone playing an acoustic guitar, or a big stadium with a massive stack of amps and a light show.’
‘What kind of music?’ he asked.
‘All sorts—everything from pop to rock. I’m not so keen on rap,’ she said, ‘but I love the buzz you get from going to a concert and singing along with the rest of the audience. What about you?’
‘I tend to listen to rock music when I’m running,’ he said. ‘Something with a strong beat that keeps me going.’
‘So you’re a runner?’
‘Strictly outdoor. I like the fresh air, and the views,’ he said, ‘rather than being cooped up in a gym on a treadmill where you just see the same patch of wall for half an hour or so.’
‘Park or river?’ she asked.
‘If it’s wet, river,’ he said, ‘purely because you’re less likely to slide on the mud and rick your ankle. If it’s dry, definitely the park because it’s lovely to see all that green, especially in spring when all the leaves are new and everything looks fresh. And if I worked regular hours I’d definitely have a dog to run with me.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t have a dog because my hours aren’t regular and it wouldn’t be fair to leave the dog alone for so long.’
‘You look like a Labrador person,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Or a spaniel. Or a Dalmatian—where I lived before, our neighbour had this amazing Dalmatian who used to smile at me. And it really was a friendly greeting rather than baring his teeth, because his tail was wagging