Not Another Lonely Christmas

  Not another lonely christmas

  Ellie R Hunter

  Contents

  Also by Ellie R Hunter

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Bonus Chapter

  Ellie R Hunter

  Not Another Lonely Christmas

  © 2018 Ellie R Hunter

  Self-publishing

  ellierhunter@hotmail.co.uk

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

  twitter.com/EllieRHunter

  www.facebook.com/ellie.r.hunter

  Cover Design by

  Tracie Douglas at Dark Water Covers.

  Also by Ellie R Hunter

  Incurable Hearts

  Perfectly Obsessed

  * * *

  The Grace Porter Series

  To Live or To Die

  * * *

  Four Fallen Souls Series

  Smile, Alice

  The Lost Souls MC Series: Biker Bait

  Biker Faith

  Biker Bound

  Biker Born

  Biker Saviour

  Biker Taken

  Biker Torn

  Biker Ruined

  Biker Salvation

  Sons of Lost Souls MC: His Father’s Son

  His Selfish Love

  His Ride or Die

  Her Crazy Life

  Prologue

  14 years old

  * * *

  “I promise you, there is no one I’d rather be chasing down on this cold night than you. There is no where I’d rather be than in front of you, about to beg for your love because I can’t be without you. I choose you, Samantha, it was always you.”

  Oh god. My chest tightens as I watch Harry fall to his knees and declare his love for the beautiful Samantha. She has to say yes, and then she must kiss him. She must, it’s law.

  “Seriously, Remi? When are you going to get a life?”

  The door slams shut and my roommate, Emma, walks in and kicks off her trainers.

  The mattress squeaks as she falls onto my bed and I curse I don’t have my own room. Miss Barley has promised me when the next single room becomes available, it’s mine.

  The remote-control slips from my lap and the tv screen descends into blackness.

  “Hey, I was watching that. Don’t you have somewhere else you can go?” I yell, getting up to snatch the remote back from her.

  “You’ve watched this film more times than you should ever admit to anybody. It’s not healthy to soak yourself in such things that will never happen to you, it’s mindless drivel.”

  It’s not mindless drivel and they could happen to me, I watch them because the escape of romantic movies and romance novels is exactly that, my escape. I’d rather be reading or watching how two people come together and fall in love, it beats leaving this room and seeing the loneliness of abandonment down in the rec room.

  There is no love in the foster care system and my favourite movie, Chasing Samantha, is what keeps the prospect of love alive for me.

  Love is out there somewhere and when I’m old enough and I’m far away from this place, I’m going to find it and keep hold of it till my last day on earth.

  “Honestly, Remi. In case you haven’t realised, it’s Christmas next week…”

  I can’t listen to another word out of her mouth. Forgetting about the remote, I fall back on the bed and close my eyes.

  If I can stay in my room and immerse myself in all things romance and Christmas cheer, I can forget how doom and gloom my life is on the other side of my orphanage door.

  One day, I’m going to fall in love and we’ll spend all our Christmases together where it snows, people knock on the door singing carols and we’ll drink mulled wine, even though I’m pretty sure I won’t like it, and we’ll eat too much turkey. My love will hide a present under the tree and we’ll wear matching tacky festive jumpers on Christmas Day.

  My love is going to be romantic.

  He’s going to be perfect.

  He’s going to be everything.

  Chapter One

  I’ve just had one of the most intense orgasms in my life and all I want to do is lie in his arms as he strokes my arm soothingly and drift off to sleep. What do I get? A clear view of him slipping into his trousers so fast he forgets to put his boxer briefs back on. He buttons his shirt up so quickly he misses one button and he leaves looking like he’s been royally fucked himself and then dragged through a bush.

  Tonight, is not the night for jokes. However, if I don’t laugh, I will cry and I’m sick of crying, I’m tired of tears and I’m flat out desperate not to be the one left alone all the damn time.

  Obviously, I shouldn’t be picking guys up at the pub anymore. He was probably married anyway, about to scuttle home to his wife who will smell my perfume on him and wonder where her fella has been.

  He barely has his shoes on when he freezes at the door, with his hand on the handle and looks back at me over his shoulder.

  “Tonight…was…thanks…you were good. I’ve got to go.”

  And then he’s gone and apparently, so has the romance.

  Is romance gone, or have I watched too many movies and read too many books?

  I mean, do guys really chase down women at airports to declare their love? Do they turn up in their military uniform and swoop the girl up in their arms to declare she is his for ever and ever? Do they really fucking wait at the top of the escalator holding a bunch of flowers?

  Perhaps it is too much to ask for, I mean, are men capable of putting their minds to romance and carrying out an act of love for the one they can’t be without?

  Sighing, I sit up clutching the duvet to my chest and look around my shabby but clean bedsit and sigh again.

  This is all I have. Don’t get me wrong, I could do better than this place I call home, but I could also do worse, much worse. My landlady is a quirky old bitch who lives downstairs and yells through the halls if someone wakes her coming and going during the night, or during the day for that matter. Helga Dickens is an overbearing cookie but once you get to know her, she isn’t so bad.

  Crawling to the end of the bed, I lean over and grab my off-the-shoulder sweater from the floor.

  I said my place was clean, however, clean doesn’t always amount to tidiness. Reaching for my leggings, which I hope are clean, I discard the covers and throw on my comfy clothes.

  I can’t stop, if I do I think and if I think I’ll scream and if I scream, old Mrs Dickens will wake and curse me out till I apologise.

  I scoop up the dirty laundry from the floor and shove it all in the bag ready for my next trip to the laun
derette. I change the bedsheets, so they don’t smell like man sweat mixed with his faint cologne.

  The tiny kitchen area in the corner is already clean and tidy and I spy an unopened bottle of wine.

  I’m not fancy enough to have crystal wear, but I do have one last wine glass that isn’t chipped or smashed. To be honest, I’d drink wine out of a mug if I had no other option.

  Grabbing the glass and the bottle, I fall onto the chair at the small table and fire up my laptop. It doesn’t take long, and I log onto my Flipped page. It’s the same crap I see every day until I come across Natalia Hancock’s uploaded video of her boyfriend proposing to her. I don’t know why I’m friends with half the people I went to school with, I didn’t speak much to them back then and I don’t now, yet, I know everything about their lives nowadays. I sip my wine and press play on the video.

  “Hey. Babe?”

  “Yes?” Natalia answers turning to him as he sprawls out on the sofa.

  “I need to know something.”

  “What is it? I need to put this load of washing on before I have a bath.”

  What the fuck am I watching? This isn’t a proposal, she must have miswritten the entire caption to her upload.

  I carry on watching and she puts the basket down and goes to sit by the guy. Whoever is filming this needs to hold the phone or camera still. It’s giving me eye strain.

  “Will you marry me?” he blurts out.

  First the tears come, then she shrieks and jumps up to her feet as he pulls a ring from his pocket, his fucking pocket! What in the fucking fuck is this horseshit proposal? She is the most excited I’ve ever seen someone. If it were me, I’d shove the ring so far up his arse it’d get lost in his intestines. Where’s the well thought out plan? The flowers? A cute speech professing his love and promises of commitment to her? He’s laid up on the sofa wearing nothing but shorts and a vest, and she’s over joyed to shackle herself to this guy. I don’t get it, I really bloody don’t.

  I find myself watching the clip over and over as I drink my wine. The guy who ran out of here tonight made more effort with me and I was a stranger to him and he bolted.

  The video never changes, only my wonderment of where the romance has gone in the world changes.

  Maybe I should stop drinking. Moving the bottle out of the way, it turns out it’s a little late for the good intentions, the bottle is empty anyway. Digging around in my purse, I pull out my pack of cigarettes and the lighter and stumble over to the window.

  The fresh air hits me like a train and I swallow down the wine threatening to come back up. Lighting a cigarette, I inhale and exhale the smoke long and hard.

  I shouldn’t be smoking, and I shouldn’t be drinking, but tonight, in my romance free world, I don’t care.

  I’m a grown woman, living in a bedsit and I’m drunk after having a one-night-stand with a guy whose name I can’t remember. Smoking is the last thing on my mind.

  There’s warmth all around me, my stomach is angry with me, and my head is hurting, bad. I daren’t move a muscle. The wine was a bad, bad idea. Why did I think it was a good idea to sink the whole bottle on my own?

  I’m not sure if the pounding in my head is getting worse or if it’s someone at the door, either way, if I don’t move and steady my breathing, it’ll go away.

  The season has longed changed and the mornings are frosty. When I open my eyes, condensation is running down the window pane and I can already feel this winter is going to cost me a fortune in gas. I listen to the locks being twisted and then my door opens, and I still don’t move.

  “The door is ten foot from your bed, why can you never answer like normal people?”

  Gabriella Armitage is not happy with me from the taught tone she’s speaking to me in, and when I peek over the top of the covers, she’s hovering like the uninvited houseguest she always is. I never should have given my best friend a key.

  “If I don’t answer the door it’s because I want to be alone,” I mumble.

  “Is that because you drunkenly went viral at one am this morning?”

  I’ve what?

  Viral?

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Get your arse up and check your Flipped page, your inbox must be going crazy.”

  If I move I’m going to be sick.

  “What time is it?”

  It feels kind of early.

  “It’s two in the afternoon, now get up and oh my god, you didn’t drink two bottles of wine on your own after you got home last night, or did what’s his name help you? Kick him out this morning, did you?”

  Her rambling is drilling into my head and there’s no stopping her.

  “What’s his name ran out less than five minutes after he done his load last night,” I mumble, trying not to remember.

  The bed dips as Gabriella makes herself comfortable beside me with my laptop in her hands. Pulling the sheets further over my head, I listen to the tapping of her nails hitting the keys and then I hear my voice.

  “I am twenty-nine years old, I turn thirty in three months and I have never been romanced. No one has ever gone that extra mile to sweep me off my feet. Am I not worth the time? Maybe I’m not pretty enough?”

  Shoving the sheets off me, I scramble up onto my bum and whip the laptop off Gabriella’s lap.

  My face is filling the screen and I get a flashback of watching a video clip about something last night. It wasn’t of me though. Was it a sofa? Shit, the wine-over is messing me up.

  I push play and I watch myself droning on, my nerves hit a high not knowing what I’m about to go on about.

  “What is wrong with men? I just saw someone record a guy proposing to his girlfriend while he was lying on the sofa like a slob. He just laid there. There were no flowers, no candles, no soft music in the background. His thought process was like he remembered he had a ring and pulled it out of his pocket, not a box.”

  My voice slurs and I look half cut. The wine hit me hard last night and while I’m embarrassed to wake up to this video, I do believe in what I’m saying.

  “Every weekend I go out and all I meet are men who want to come back to my place, get their dick wet and then run home so they don’t have to wake up to me. Yeah-yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I have bad taste in men, I’m not going to meet a nice guy while drunk, blah-blah-blah. I’m sitting here drinking all this wine to myself because the guy I brought home has run out already. Either I’m a sucky lay or I was so good he had to get away from me before he rocked a permanent hard-on.”

  I laugh to myself on camera, clearly, I’m drunk, my eyes are glassy, and my movements are slow and jilted. I continue to ramble on for a further seven minutes about the guy from the pub and how he ran out on me. I don’t know whether to cringe or laugh at myself. No doubt everyone who’s watched this is laughing at me. I hit pause and shove the laptop off my legs.

  “Oh no, you don’t. Watch it all and see what you’ve done.”

  I can’t work out if she’s angry with me, am I in trouble?

  “That sounds worrying, can’t you tell me?”

  She puts the computer back on my lap and hits play on my behalf. I brace myself.

  “So, as I’m sick of men using me for sex and me too using them without even remembering their names, I want romance. I want to be swept off my feet so hard I land on my back for the same guy for the rest of my life, but I’ll settle for being romanced. Christmas is in two months and I don’t want to spend the holidays believing romance only exists in stories, again. So, I make this offer. I will give twenty thousand pounds to the guy who can romance me. I’m not looking for love, well, I am, basically I just want one act of romance to sweep me off my feet. Make me believe again and make it as genuine as you can. That’s all I want. Think big or don’t bother. Make me believe.”

  The video cuts off and I sit there. Stunned. Silent. Even Gabriella doesn’t say anything, well, for a moment.

  “Now check your inbox.”

  Scrolling the
curser across the screen, I gasp at how many notifications I have. I’m usually lucky to have two or three and they’re usually people inviting me to play a game or join a group. Today, I have three hundred and eighty-nine.

  “Oh my god.”

  “Oh my god, indeed, Rem. What the hell were you thinking? You’re going to have all sorts of weirdos coming for that twenty-grand offer.”

  Another seventeen messages have come through in the last two minutes. This is crazy.

  “The last I saw, it had been shared over three thousand times.”

  I cannot believe this.

  What have I done?

  The contents of my stomach are coming up and I rush to the bathroom and hover over the toilet just in time to puke my guts up.

  This isn’t happening.

  Last night was Friday night, every Friday we go out after work and destress after the long work week. It’s not uncommon for me to wake up with a hangover, even vomiting, but to be going viral? This is a first, for sure.

  “Remi, what were you thinking?” Gabriella asks, calling through from my bed.

  Flushing the chain, my body relaxes, and I lean against the wall. This might not be as big as we think, people and cats are always going viral and I never see them after I’ve watched the clip the first time.

  “I was thinking I’ve had enough of having meaningless sex, obviously,” I mutter as the early hours begin to come back to me.

  Pulling myself up using the sink for help, I brush my teeth and I drag my arse back to bed and ignore Gabs as she scrolls through the messages.