All I Want Series Boxset, Books 1-3: All I Want for Christmas, All I Want for Valentine's, All I Want for Spring (40 page)

“This is quite something,” Tori said, picking up the glass of fizz the waiter had just brought to their table on Holly’s instructions.

Across the table, Holly blushed.

Tori’s heart melted into a puddle, just like Holly’s ice cream had earlier.

“I put in ‘romance’ and ‘Rome’ on a couple of sites, and this came up as one of the top picks.” Holly smiled hesitantly, looking around. “I hope it’s not overkill, though. I like the lights, but the rose petals? They’re a bit much.” She picked one up and offered it to Tori.

Tori shook her head. “On the contrary, who doesn’t love a rose petal?” she asked, trying to keep a lid on her smirk. “It’s perfect, all we’re missing is a man with a guitar playing a cheesy love song.” She couldn’t keep a lid on the smirk now. It was out of the bag and making its way to Holly.

“And maybe a neon sign saying ‘I Heart You’?” Holly countered.

Tori smiled and held up her glass. “I’m glad I found you, Holly Davis,” she said. And she was. Glad she’d found someone who interpreted romance just like she did. Or at least, when she got it wrong, knew exactly how to react. “Here’s to us and three months together. I don’t know about you, but I’ve kinda enjoyed them.” 

Holly clinked her glass to Tori’s and took a sip. “You’re not a bad girlfriend, all things considered,” she replied. “And I’m pleased you’re still here, despite everything Rome’s thrown at us so far. And beyond that, despite my family gatecrashing our first months together. It hasn’t put you off?”

Tori raised a smile. “It helps that your dad’s a good cook, and your sister is quite cute when she’s not puking, getting lost or traumatising our kitten.”

“Agreed.”

Tori took another sip of her Prosecco, and the room took on a woozy glow as the bubbles filled up her head. “Plus, it’s not just your family who’ve been chiming in on our relationship so far — my mum’s put in some miles, too. That’s what happens when you get together with someone they know.” Tori paused, pointing a finger at Holly before continuing. “I swear, she wants me to give her weekly updates on us, just to check our progress. If anything ever goes wrong, she might be more upset than us.”

“We’ll have to make sure it doesn’t then, won’t we?”

“We will.” Tori smiled as she pictured her mum, wanting everything to go right for her only daughter. Her mum loved Holly, which was great, and she’d been getting friendly with Holly’s mum since they’d shared Christmas together, too. All of which meant they now sometimes had their mums commenting on their relationship in stereo, which could be a little offputting.

“Were our mums getting together this weekend for dinner?” Holly asked, clearly thinking the same thing.

Tori nodded. “They were. So brace yourself. They were even talking about us all going on holiday together after they saw each other last time.” And while Tori didn’t think it was the worst idea in the world, she’d told her mum maybe next year. This year, she wanted to be greedy and have Holly all to herself. Especially seeing as Holly needed to relax into being on holiday, as Tori was finding out.

Holly went to reply, but the moment was interrupted by a shadow falling over the table, disrupting the candlelight.

The waiters swooped in and brought their first course of spinach and ricotta ravioli with sage butter. The plate was a work of art.

Tori was just about to dig in when another shadow fell over the table: this time, a saxophonist. She glanced up, waiting for him to move, but instead he put the saxophone to his lips and puffed out his cheeks.

At their table.

Just to them.

Tori panicked — she didn’t know where to look. Was this really happening? Apparently, it was. She stared at Holly, whose nervous flickering glance told Tori she was just as freaked out as her.

Tori took a deep breath and braced herself. What tune was he going to play?
Lady In Red
maybe, or
In The Air Tonight
? It had to be something that Magic FM would play with no hesitation, of that Tori was sure. Saxophonists abided by the same laws the world over.

But nothing prepared her for the noise that came — and it was loud.

Really
loud
.

And right in their face.

Then, when the notes curled their way up into the air, Tori had to bite her cheek to stop herself laughing. She looked up at the man’s face — he was
really
into the song. She didn’t dare look at Holly, because then she’d have no hope.

Yesterday
by The Beatles counted as romantic in Rome? Maybe the Roman dictionary had a different definition, but in Tori’s world, this was the sort of song you played just after being dumped, just before drinking two bottles of wine and sobbing. He might as well have turned up and played Radiohead, but she presumed the sheet music for their songs wasn’t widely for sale in Rome.

She took a deep breath and tried to focus on anything else other than the sax.

Holly, meanwhile, had reached over and was clutching Tori’s hand, by Tori’s estimation about to die laughing.

Tori started counting to ten in her head. Surely by the time she got there, this had to be over, right?

The sax was still loud in her face, crawling into her ear. Tori focused on her food, staring intently.

15, 16, 17… She got to 27 before the sax quit.

Tori glanced up, to see Holly offering the man a five Euro note.

He accepted and moved on to the table across the courtyard.

Tori swallowed down hard, before pasting a smile on her face and looking over at Holly. She was choking on laughter as she spoke.

“Yesterday
? Really? Since when was that a romantic song?”

But Holly couldn’t reply for the silent laughter that was consuming her body. Her head was nodding and her body shaking, but no sound was coming out.

It set Tori off too, only hers was slightly more audible.

“I couldn’t…” Holly began, before composing herself. “I couldn’t look at you.” She wiped her eyes, then grabbed her napkin and blew her nose on it. “Who comes to the table and plays
Yesterday
, thinking that’s romantic?” Holly began laughing again in earnest.

Tori shook her head. “I’d hate to be his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day.” She blew her nose too, then took a forkful of food and chewed it slowly. She pointed at Holly. “Try the starter — it’s divine.” And it was. Creamy, buttery, heavenly.

Holly did as she was told and nodded, a satisfied smile spreading across her face. “This is incredible,” she agreed.

Tori shot Holly a wink. “They might want to work on the romance angle, but the food scores an A plus. You did good, babe.”

Holly smiled. “Thanks.” She paused, getting the last of her laughter out before continuing. “So is there anything I could improve on?”

“In what?”

“This,” Holly replied. “My three-month review.”

Tori spluttered. Holly wanted a three-month review?

“I don’t know,” she said, shyness overtaking her. Tori played the last three months on fast forward in her head, watching at 200x speed. She couldn’t help but smile at it all: getting together, Christmas and Valentine’s, the dinners, the sex, the kitten. Even the bad times were better than anything else she’d ever had.

“I just feel so comfortable with you — I don’t think there’s much you can improve on.” Tori paused. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’re perfect.” She smiled now, a 100 per cent genuine smile. “I don’t want you getting too big a head. For instance, you could relax a little more on holiday.”

Holly gave her a bashful look. “I know, and I will — you have my word.”

Tori was still smiling. “But even though you’re not perfect, the thing is, you’re perfect for me.” She stopped, examining her words. Where they’d come from, Tori wasn’t sure: but now they were out, she saw how perfect they were. She wasn’t embarrassed by them, because they were true. Some things just
were
, and this was one of them.

Holly was perfect for her.

When Tori glanced up, her girlfriend was lost for words. That was a first.

“What about me?” Tori said, wincing as she asked. Of the two of them, she knew she was the one with the most to fix, but Tori was a work in progress. Still, she hoped her girlfriend was going to be kind. Holly knew everything about her, from top to bottom. And sometimes, that knowledge made Tori feel extremely vulnerable. So far, though, Holly had only seen the best in her.

“What could you improve?” Holly said, stroking her chin. “You’ve already changed since we started going out, after the whole Nicola Sheen debacle. You said you’d try harder and you have, which I’m still amazed at. In a
good way
.” Holly smiled. “You’ve always been charming with a hint of crazy. But I signed up for that crazy, so I knew what I was getting, didn’t I?”

“Charming. I tell you you’re nearly perfect, and you call me crazy!”

Holly laughed. “I’m partial to a bit of crazy, like I said.” She held up her glass of bubbles. “You’re my kind of crazy, Tori Hammond.” 

CHAPTER 8

Sunday

Sunday morning dawned hot and steamy, and to a cacophony of noise as the city rose from its slumber. Tori and Holly enjoyed their final coffee and croissant on their balcony before stowing their cases, their last day in Rome uppermost in their mind and how to wring the most out of it.

Tori was optimistic — after all, they’d managed a whole day yesterday without a hitch or an argument. She was crossing her fingers that had gone some way to dispelling Holly’s ‘holiday doom’ theory, but she figured they needed another solid day to back it up just in case. Holly, it was turning out, was more superstitious than Tori had first thought. 

Church bells rang out through the air as Roman families made their way to their weekly worship, dressed in their Sunday best. Tori let one such family pass before jumping down the steps of their apartment building, shifting the daytime backpack up from its present, wildly uncomfortable position — she wasn’t sure what it was, but something was sticking in her back like a knife. She pulled on Holly’s hand and together they weaved their way through the crush of tourists and church-goers clogging the streets, breathing in the balmy air, revelling in the heat before they had to jet back to the UK.

“When is our next holiday booked?” Tori asked, looking up at Holly. Her girlfriend still had a sleep crease on her face, which amused Tori no end.

“We don’t have one.”

“We should book it, as I already know I’m going to miss the sunshine when we get back.”

Holly nodded. “No complaints here.” She slung a lazy arm around Tori’s shoulder as she steered her up a side road.

Tori stiffened. “Why are we heading this way?” She stopped in her tracks, arching her neck one way then the other in a bid to spot a street sign. Some roads had them, some didn’t; it seemed to be the Roman way.

“Because I have a surprise,” Holly said.

Tori furrowed her brow. “First dinner, now another surprise? Is this all my romance used up in one trip, then none for the next few years?” Tori had a love-hate relationship with surprises: she loved them, but she also hated not knowing what was going on. An uneasy nodule of fear rose up her windpipe, stopping at the base of her throat. She swallowed down hard and tried to keep her emotions in check. Freaking out on their last morning in Rome was not part of her grand plan.

“We’re walking this way because we have an appointment. We’re going on a Segway tour of the city. It’s a present from Dad and Sarah, a thank you for taking care of Elsie.” Holly paused. “They did it when they came here, remember Dad was raving about it?”

Tori shook her head. “No.”

Holly frowned. “Maybe that was a time I was there on my own. But he was.” She elbowed Tori in the side. “Anyway, Segways are cool.”

Tori raised a sceptical eyebrow as she allowed herself to be led up the road. She was scrolling through her memory bank, trying to locate the file marked ‘Segway’, but her brain didn’t appear to have it in stock. What the hell was a Segway? It sounded like a company that did coach tours for elderly people, but she didn’t think Holly would be getting so excited about that.

“What’s a Segway when it’s at home?”

Holly placed her hands in front of her like she was revving a motorbike. “It’s like a hoverboard, but with handles — you remember Melanie went on one, she showed us pictures?”

Tori frowned. “Didn’t she crash, too?”

“Melanie crashes everything she gets on — cars, bikes, relationships.” Holly smiled. “It looks like a lot of fun. You’re gonna love it.”

Tori didn’t reply. She wasn’t a keen ice skater and roller discos had never been her cup of tea. Still, she’d give it a go. She was in Rome and in the sunshine with her beautiful girlfriend, after all. Sure, her ideal Sunday morning had involved a spot of shopping and lunch in a sun-splashed piazza, but they could do that afterwards. Holly was excited, so Tori was going to dig deep into her reserves and slap on a happy face. She was going to break Holly’s holiday voodoo and show she was adaptable and capable if it killed her.

Which it might well do.

***

The woman standing in front of them was unmistakably Italian with tanned skin and chestnut hair that fell effortlessly around her sharp cheekbones. Tori was squinting behind her shades, but she noticed the woman’s smooth brow and film-star smile. It was impossible not to.

Tori was also studiously ignoring Holly, who was up on her Segway standing to Tori’s right, a wide grin on her face. Holly had just been trying out the Segway and within moments, she’d been zipping around their secluded practice area like she’d been doing it all her life.

Tori could already tell Holly was a natural, and watched with a growing sense of dread building in her stomach. She was happier behind the wheel of a car where she had complete control and knew where everything was. But an electric scooter?

She took a deep breath and strapped on her helmet as their guide, Rosanna, brought a Segway to a standstill in front of her.