The Wake-Up Call

by Beth O'Leary

‘You have too much bite to be an angel. Too much sting.’

‘Meu amor,’ he whispers, his lips against my ear. ‘My love.’

And it’s true that I’ve thought of marrying her. If I could, if this world were perfect, I’d dredge the ocean for that ring from her father, the one she lost, and I’d get down on one knee and hand it to her. But this world isn’t perfect, and neither am I. Sometimes things are lost, and you grieve for them, and they change you, and that’s OK.

both holding that ring; for a moment it holds two messy love stories inside its loop.

‘We’ve wanted you since that first photo, amiga,’ Ana says. ‘Anyone who annoys Lucas that much belongs in this family.’

Yes, of course I told him everything. Yes, we are mutually deciding not to destroy you. No, I am not confident I can prevent him from breaking rank and beating you to a pulp if he so chooses.

‘What? Oh.’ Mandy looks from one to the other. ‘I thought if I put Twitter on this one and Instagram on this one then all the notifications wouldn’t be quite so overwhelming. But then I couldn’t get Twitter off this one and Facebook wouldn’t update on this one so now I’ve got everything everywhere and . . . it’s just . . . so . . . much.’

Sameeeee

Why does Santa have three gardens? So he can “hoe hoe hoe”!’

Lucas laughs. I love that laugh – it’s his lightest one, unselfconscious and full. I want to make him laugh like that a hundred times a day for ever.