Page 87 of Just for December

‘Same as you always have, I’d imagine,’ she says. ‘Just plain old Duke.’

The plane is busy, but it’s so peaceful in first class that Evie feels like she could be in a private members club. She chats with Magda as they get served drinks and snacks, and flicks through the TV shows and movies on offer. None of it seems as dreamy as the story she has written for herself – even Duke aside, being away with her best friend, breaking herself open, the tattoo … the Evie Bird landing back in Utah isn’t the same Evie Bird who took off.

‘I’m proud of you,’ Magda whispers once the food has been cleared away and most people have gone into a mid-flightsleep. ‘I’m proud of both of us actually. Two best friends, weather-beaten by life, trying and trying again.’

Evie grins. ‘We’re doing okay, huh, friend?’ she says and Magda nods.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

As Magda falls asleep too, Evie pulls out her laptop from the overhead locker. Rereading the thirty thousand or so words of her new book, she can tell this is going to be a breakout novel for her. She just knows. The pace is different, the energy to it. She sighs happily, and then a figure appears beside her and she almost jumps out of her skin.

‘Jesus!’ she says, clutching her chest. ‘You scared me half to death!’

‘Sorry.’ Duke smiles, in that way that he does. ‘It’s just, they closed the curtain so I couldn’t see you anymore, and I was okay when I could see you, but with it closed …’ He trails off.

‘Well, aren’t you cute,’ Evie says, and he crouches down beside her so they’re eye level and does that thing he does with his face, where his eyes sparkle and his dimples form adorable craters. Evie reaches out a hand to his cheek and strokes it, and he takes it, holding it there against his skin, sighing happily.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Just had to remind myself what luxury looks like. The man beside me back there was using my shoulder as a dribble-catcher, so …’

‘I appreciate the seat,’ Evie replies. ‘You’re a true gent.’

He winks at her, kisses her hand, and then says, ‘Okay. Going now, before I’m kicked out.’

‘Bye,’ Evie whispers, and she doesn’t even hide that she’swatching his ass as he walks away, pinning back the curtain whilst no one is watching so that he can see her again. She has a thought:That’s my guy.It pleases her, to think of him that way. She doesn’t want just anybody, but she does want him. It feels like freefalling to admit it.

Evie returns back to her laptop, the story in front of her – the one she thought might not, this time, be a love story like the others. But isn’t that just the thing? This love story isn’t like the others. This is the one she finally gets to be a part of, and so she feels compelled, now, to finally write one she can believe in. She looks back to see Duke staring down the aisle in her direction, the curtain suspiciously pinned back again. He lifts a hand, does his cute half-smile. She lifts a hand back.

Something gurgles in her chest, something she knows she can trust. She turns back to her computer and starts a new chapter. One she is really very excited about.

45

Duke

Two months later

A movie set is an extraordinary place. But not, Duke thinks, as he pads through the living room, as extraordinary as being here, at home, with her. He could get used to this. Slowly, slowly, and with no rush, he can see that this would be a nice forever. You know, eventually. He’s not forcing anything. He’s trying, for once, to let things unfurl in their own time. So far, so good. It’s funny how surrendering to the current can work out better than trying to swim upstream. If it was all leading to this, it was worth it. Staying present suits him: the past has happened, the future isn’t yet written. Enjoythis.It isn’t hard.

‘Cup of tea?’ he asks, getting up from where he’s been planted in the living room for the past few hours with scriptsand his laptop. Evie doesn’t look up from her spot in the sunroom, which, in the two months he’s been in Utah, has unofficially become her workspace when she’s over. She’s in there, listening to Cleo Wade and Bach, her little dog Doctor Dolittle at her feet, and he’s in the other room, taking calls and making plans, and they work, they chat, they make love, they take walks … they say goodbye for a few nights when she goes back to her place and then do it all again.

‘Coffee,’ she hollers back, not looking up from her computer. ‘Double shot, please.’

Duke busies himself pulling out mugs and teabags and putting a capsule in the coffee machine, locating the milk. It’s not his house. It’s rented. Over Christmas, when he stayed with her, she’d floated the idea of him sticking around for a bit, in between awards shows and visiting his mum back in Sunderland, before he’s due on set in Brazil for a month at Easter – his last movie for a while, he’s told his agent. When Evie asked, he said he’d like that – but that in the spirit of unfurling he’d stay nearby, not with her, to take the pressure off. It’s going so well that he’s just asked her if she wants to come with him to Rio. She said she’d like that, too, since it turns out a little travel is actually quite fun. It’s give and take, and they’re both practising the roles. Duke finds it easier to give love than receive it, and Evie says she finds the same. Together they’re helping each other to be loved. It’s not a bad endeavour.

Duke’s phone rings. He holds it in one hand as he delivers Evie’s double-shot, extra-foamy soy latte with the other, and she looks up at him, smiling gratefully. They look at each other, a beat suspended in time, as if surprised by thecontinued presence of the other. Doctor Dolittle stirs at her feet, and they break eye contact so she can bend over and ruffle his head. He watches the lean muscle of her neck ripple and enjoys the sing-song of her giggle as the dog leaps up to lick her face.

‘Silly boy,’ he hears her say into the dog’s fur.

‘Daphne,’ Duke says, as he answers the call, still taking in the sight of his girlfriend. ‘What do you think?’

He’s talking about a script he’s just sent her, which he got this morning. It’s from a screenwriter who has been creating buzz around her latest arthouse movie, which she wrote and starred in. This new script is one she told him about in passing, at a party after the Globes – where Duke lost out on his award and didn’t, to his surprise, really care. It’s about a glitch in the space-time continuum that means a couple of sixteen-year-old star-crossed lovers keep meeting again and again, and he likes it. Daphne would be great to direct, and Duke wouldn’t mind playing the lead’s dad, which is a first.

‘I’m obsessed,’ Daphne enthuses. ‘I just have a few notes?’ she adds. ‘If you’ve got time?’

Duke deposits a kiss onto Evie’s forehead, and she receives it with a smile before exclaiming, ‘Look! Snow!’

They turn to face the double window with the view out over the valley, the sky getting dark, the fire roaring, and Duke smiles.

‘I’ve got time,’ he says, and even though it’s not Evie he’s talking to she looks at him and pulls a face, a happy face. A contented face. God, he loves her. He knows she feels it too.

Daphne gabbles down the line with her ideas, and Dukegoes back to the kitchen where he rests against the breakfast bar. And when he’s done, Evie comes over to him, hops up onto the counter so her legs are wrapped around him and she says: ‘Duke. I’m sorry to tell you this, but, apropos of nothing and everything … I’ve fallen in love with you.’

He smiles, tipping her chin up to him, whispering right back, through a smile and an almost-kiss, that he’s fallen in love with her too. Not a happy ending. A beginning.