Page 16 of One Last Gift

“Plus, I have to put up with everyone talking about their boring jobs at work, I don’t need it to that degree on dates, too.”

Hazel’s job was far from boring, in Cassie’s opinion—she worked as one of the creatives at an advertising firm, and was constantly coming up with new, inventive ways to grab people’s attention—but she understood the sentiment. “So, no second date then?”

“No,” Hazel said, padding across the little kitchenette and around to the living side of the room in those ridiculous fluffy socks with a unicorn horn sticking out on top of them. “Somehow I don’t think he’s The One.” Cassie held up her mug and they cheersed to that.

The doorbell rang and Cassie put her mug down. “It’ll be Josh,” she said.

Since Hazel was slightly closer to the front door on her side of the kitchen counter, she went to buzz him in, and Cassie took the opportunity to grab the game that she’d been up late last night making, while Hazel had been out not meeting the love of her life. It was something she’d made up for a hen party that the hotel had hosted last year. The bride-to-be had asked Cassie to come up with an icebreaker for them all, because a lot of people didn’t know each other, and Cassie had gotten quite into it, and had ended up designing a game with different categories, where each person rolled a dice, had to pick a card depending on the number they rolled, and then had a task or a question to answer that was somehow hen-party themed. Only her co-worker Josh had seen what she’d done and had gotten very overexcited and begged her to do one for his mother’s “epic” Christmas party. She threw one every year, and last year his sister had organized something special for it, so Josh had been determined to one-up her ever since. Cassie had been invited to said party for the last two years now, but Robert hated giving them both the same days off, because they both worked in the events department, so she hadn’t been able to go.

Cassie heard the door open down the corridor of the flat and Hazel say, “Well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”

“Hello, light of my life, I was hoping you’d be here.”

The two of them were chatting as Hazel brought Josh to the kitchen, his hair looking more ginger in the dull light of the flat than the strawberry blond he claimed it was. He crossed the room to give Cassie a big hug, almost making her topple backward with the force of it. He always gave good hugs, Josh. But right now, her hands were full of carefully organized cards, which she’d used the work computer to print out. “Careful!” She backed away from him, showing him the cards in her hands.

He clapped his hands together. “You did it!”

“No, that’s a game she made for me,” Hazel piped up from behind him. Cassie only rolled her eyes while Josh made a flapping gesture in her direction. “Mulled wine, Josh?” Hazel asked.

“Go on then.” He slipped out of his long black coat and placed it over the back of the sofa. He was wearing tight jeans and an oversized sweater, which seemed to emphasize his skinny frame—one that he often lamented stayed as such, no matter how many hours he put in at the gym.

Cassie laid the cards out on the kitchen counter and started to talk Josh through the rules and the categories. She’d made it Christmas-themed, obviously, and Josh had asked her to arrange it so that each table could have their own pack of cards. There was a general Christmas trivia category, a true-or-false category, a “challenge” card with a Christmassy dare to complete, and a “Have you ever…at Christmas?” question.

Josh beamed at Cassie as she finished. “This. Is. Amazing.” He hugged her again and she laughed as he lifted her off her feet. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are a goddess. A vision of perfection. My everything. The—”

Cassie held up a hand, as Hazel handed Josh a mug. “Yes, I know. I’m brilliant. You can buy me a drink after work sometime to say thanks.”

“You’ll need to buy her more than a drink,” Hazel said, leaning back against the cooker. “She was up until about four a.m. finishing this.”

Cassie gave Hazel a look—she didn’t really want her boasting about that—but Hazel just shrugged.

“Five drinks,” Josh said immediately.

“Ten,” Hazel countered.

“The best champagne.”

“A magnum of it.”

Hazel and Josh grinned at each other as Cassie noticed her phone light up on the little coffee table in the center of the living room. She crossed to it automatically, leaving Hazel and Josh to chat. It would be Tom, she imagined, sending her another glorious photo of Argentina. Photos that did not include Sam, who had proven himself to be the complete arse Cassie knew him to be by staying out to get so drunk on the night they’d all gone for drinks that he’d overslept and missed the flight. And he hadn’t, Tom had told her, been able to get another flight out there in time. Tom had let loose about Sam to her the first night he’d been there alone, which was a sign of just how pissed off he was, because Tom rarely got that annoyed—or at least, he always hid it from Cassie, especially if it was anything to do with Sam.

Still, Tom seemed to be having a lovely time now. He’d met another solo traveler out there called Toby and had been going on all kinds of adventures with him—bonding with a new friend in that instant way that Cassie had never mastered.

It wasn’t Tom’s number, though, that was flashing on the phone. And it wasn’t a message—someone was calling her. A cold caller, maybe? But it was someone calling her on WhatsApp—surely people trying to sell insurance or whatever didn’t use WhatsApp? She picked up the phone, hesitating—she hated answering when she didn’t know who it was, in case she got caught in some kind of awkward conversation. It was a foreign number, she realized, though she didn’t know the different country codes well enough to know where, exactly, it was coming from. As she hovered in indecision, the call stopped.

“You all right, Cassie?” Hazel asked from the other side of the room.

She turned to Hazel, nodding. “Yeah. Someone just—” But the ringing started up again, her phone vibrating in her hand. It must be important, if they were calling again. She turned her back on Hazel and Josh to answer, looking at the Christmas tree instead.

“Hello?”

“Hello?” a man answered. “Am I speaking with Cassie Rivers?” The accent was British, very posh, and it threw her—why was a posh British man calling her from a foreign mobile number?

“I…Yes,” she said. “This is Cassie. Who are you?” Confusion made her tone a bit blunter than was polite.

“I…” There was a hitched breath. “My name’s Toby and I—”

“Toby?” Cassie asked. “The Toby that’s been hanging out with Tom? What’s wrong?” she continued, not giving him a chance to confirm or deny. “Why are you calling? Where’s Tom?”