3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream Read Free Page B

friends way back at art college, then found each other again so many years later and fell in love. He says that Mum must be crazy to put up with Paddy. ‘Either that or she’s fallen in love with his chocolate-making skills,’ he says, and tells everyone how Paddy used to send Mum home-made truffles to woo her.
    ‘The best one was the truffle Paddy made for me last August, just after he and Cherry moved down here,’ Mum chips in. ‘It was the day we got our bank loan for the chocolate business. Paddy made my favourite coffee truffle, but there was an extra ingredient, one I really hadn’t expected …’
    She holds out her left hand so that the diamond engagement ring glints in the sunlight, a plain gold band now next to it, and everyone cheers and whistles. I remember thatday – I thought that hiding the ring inside a chocolate was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen.
    Aaron slides an arm round my waist, and I smile and wriggle free again because I am still a little shy about the dress, and besides, I am actually not too good at the touchy-feely boyfriend/girlfriend stuff. Not yet, and definitely not while people are watching.
    Mum and Paddy cut the towering chocolate wedding cake and Jules and the Yorkshire aunts move through the crowd, topping up champagne glasses and handing out lemonade punch for the kids. Grandma Kate raises her glass to make a toast, then Paddy’s musician friends strike up a tune and Paddy takes Mum’s hand and leads her out across the grass. They begin to dance, slowly, gazing into each other’s eyes and smiling so softly I swear it would melt a heart of stone.
    It melts mine, and I push all thoughts of Dad away because they can only end in tears. Today is a day for Mum and Paddy, for new starts and celebrations.
    Honey’s heart must be harder than mine, though, because I see her slip away through the cherry trees with JJ, making pukey faces at it all.

4
    The party goes on till past midnight, beneath the stars and the fairy lights strung through the trees. I dance with Skye and Cherry and Coco. I dance with Tia and Millie and the little cousins who are hyper and giggling from too many cupcakes and too much lemonade punch. I waltz with the Yorkshire aunts and boogie with Mum’s art school friends and jig with Paddy’s musician mates. Last of all, I slow-dance with Aaron and he holds me close, closer than I really want to be held, and tells me I am the prettiest girl he has ever dated.
    It makes my heart race, although whether from happiness or panic I can’t quite tell. Aaron has had a few girlfriends in the past, and there’s even a rumour that a girl from the high school called Marisa McKenna is crushing on him. Marisawears her skirts so short it sometimes looks like she’s forgotten to put one on at all, but when I asked Aaron about her, he laughed and told me that the only girl he wanted was me.
    ‘Are you and Aaron in love?’ my twin asks later, as we snuggle down in our beds, music and laughter still drifting up from the garden below. ‘What’s it like, Summer? Honestly?’
    I frown in the darkness. I like Aaron a lot, of course – who wouldn’t? I’m just not sure I love him. Not true love, like Mum and Paddy have.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I tell Skye. ‘It’s early days.’
    ‘It’s been four months,’ Skye points out. ‘You must have some idea. Does he make your heart beat faster? Does he make you melt inside? Do you lie awake, tossing and turning, thinking about him?’
    ‘You make it sound like some kind of sickness,’ I say. ‘It’s complicated … Aaron’s been out with lots of girls. I worry that he’ll move on, find someone he likes better …’
    Someone who’s better at the kissing and cuddling stuff, who doesn’t flinch away when he pulls them close. In real life, kissing isn’t as dreamy as the magazines make out. You worry about whether your noses will bump, whether yourteeth will clash, whether the pasta sauce you had for tea is making