Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 121898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“I think he’d love it.”
“If you want him to make noise, a saucepan and wooden spoon are a much cheaper option.”
“Oh, Thomas, you’re so boring.” She took the catalogue back and sat down on the sofa where she opened it and set it on her lap, then produced a pen from inside her blouse.
I didn’t want to know where she’d stashed that.
“I’m not boring, Mum.” I forced myself out of the comfort of the armchair and looked over at her. “I remember when you bought me a drum kit when I was six. You didn’t get the lessons to go with it, so I’d imagine it was as annoying as having rats in the roof.”
She paused. “Did you ever get that sorted?”
“Yes. The exterminator wanted a ridiculous amount of money, so I got the barn cats instead.”
“What barn cats?”
I did a quick double-take. “You haven’t seen the three black cats roaming around from the stables?”
Her mouth formed a little ‘o.’ “Those are our cats? I was loving on them yesterday when I went to see the ponies.”
I tried not to sigh. Really, I did, but it just wasn’t possible to keep it inside.
“When did we get them?”
“Four months ago.”
Mum stilled. “Oh. Very sweet things. Are they really cheaper than an exterminator, though?”
I checked my watch for the time and pointed two fingers at her. “I’ll send you a link on their effectiveness. I have to change and drive into the village to see Joe.”
She blinked up at me. “Oh, all right then. What do you think Beth would like for Christmas?”
“Mum. Have to go. We’ll do this later,” I said, tossing my hand up in a wave goodbye before quickly taking my leave.
If I didn’t, she’d have me writing a list for the whole family.
Then again, if she did, maybe it’d give me some ideas for what to buy everyone, because I was buggered if I knew.
CHAPTER TWELVE – SYLVIE
The worst part about Christmas, by far, was being single.
All right, so it wasn’t. There were many things one could criticise about the season in this day and age, but it wasn’t like I could change the barrage of adverts shoving their sales down my throat or the crazy commercialism that had taken it over, so what was the point?
Better to complain about things I could change while actively trying not to do anything about it.
Yes. That was a far better use of my time.
In my opinion, anyway. My mother would strongly disagree, but then she had a tendency to do that in general. She hadn’t agreed with my degree choice, she hadn’t agreed with me moving away, she hadn’t agreed with anything except the time I’d loosely mentioned that I was thinking about adopting a cat.
She had, however, disagreed when I’d decided it was a bad idea.
The only thing she’d ever voiced active support for was me purchasing my grandparents’ house, especially after Hazel had made it known she didn’t want her share and would rather have the money to invest in her here and now.
To her credit, she’d invested it very well thanks to advice from Julian’s dad, and it was paying off for her.
I was happy to have the house.
Despite what I’d said to my parents about my single life, I had long ago daydreamt about moving back to Castleton and raising my family in the house I’d basically grown up in. This house was full of many happy memories for me, and there was so much life left in it.
I hadn’t told my mother that.
If she agreed with two major life choices in one decade, I was afraid she’d spontaneously combust.
It wasn’t that we didn’t get along. We did—spectacularly well. She just wasn’t shy about sharing her opinion. To her credit, she was more than happy to admit when she’d been wrong about something, and she’d had to do an awful lot of that over the past ten years.
She’d even bought me chocolate every single time. You can imagine how confused I’d been to receive a two-kilo box of Celebrations chocolate from Amazon out of the blue one day until she’d come clean.
Man, that was a good day for chocolate.
Except Bounties.
Bounties could fuck off.
Controversial, I know, but if you asked me, the only thing a coconut was good for was drinking cocktails out of.
It did not belong in my chocolate. A bit like pineapple on pizza.
The only kind of pineapple I wanted with pizza was a Pina Colada.
I liked cocktails. Sue me.
Still, of all the things I could change about Christmas, it would be my relationship status. Every movie I watched was filled with small towns and happy families and some big hotshot city girl coming home to fall in love with a small-town boy in this year’s variation of a checkered shirt.
It was all happy go-lucky, lovey-dovey nonsense that just made me sad about being alone.