All I Want Series Boxset, Books 1-3: All I Want for Christmas, All I Want for Valentine's, All I Want for Spring Read Free

Holly’s spiel into a more workable format. But the more I thought about it, the more I was inclined to agree. This would make me stand out from the crowd. People might think I was a Christmas nut who secretly wanted to be an angel or a fairy, but so be it. It was worth a shot, and if I had no bites in a few days, I could always change it. I posted the best image of me I could find, hammered out the words before I could talk myself out of it and clicked post.
    Let the games commence.
    ***
    My history as a lesbian Lothario wasn’t great, truth be told — but I was determined this December was going to be different and memorable. I was tired of floating in a sea of lesbian debris. This time, I wanted to take control and steer my course with confidence.
    I first kissed another woman in the school library when I was 16. Her name was Nicola Sheen and she had the smoothest skin in our class. Honestly, if Nicola walked in right now, the girlfriend search would be over because to my 16-year-old self, Nicola Sheen was the perfect woman. Tall, dark and devastatingly handsome, the fact she had a boyfriend called Craig only made me want her more. At 16, she hadn’t yet realised her true vocation was to love me.
    I became friends with Nicola when we were 14, quite late in my school career — Holly treated her with suspicion, seeing as she’d been by my side since the age of 11. By the time we turned 15, I wanted to spend every waking minute with Nicola, but had no idea why. Every opportunity I had, I texted Nicola and hung out with her, and we told each other our deepest, darkest secrets. She told me she had a crush on Craig Dale way before they got together. In turn, I told her I liked Ed Hartman. It was a lie, but I had to say something.
    When we told each other stuff like this, Nicola favoured lying together on the bed — she’d watched too many American movies, but I wasn’t complaining. Lying next to Nicola on my flowery duvet, I’d never felt so almost-content in my whole life.
    We so nearly kissed a few times, but it was always her who pulled back, always her who had a freakish look in her eyes. But then, one day in the library down the history aisle, the lines blurred. When our lips locked, the klaxon that sounded in my head was loud enough to be heard in Scotland. In that moment, I knew what the invisible struggle I’d been grappling with was, and my life changed.
    Nicola sunk into the kiss, even slipping her tongue into my mouth. I remember I groaned — why wouldn’t I? I’d been waiting for this moment for 16 years. Most straight people have their first meaningful kiss before they reach their teenage years. Mine didn’t arrive till I was old enough to get married, smoke and join the army. I’d kissed boys before, but kissing Nicola Sheen made much more sense. If she’d proposed right there and then, I’d have dropped everything and said yes.
    But she didn’t. Of course she didn’t. Instead, she pulled back, looked at me with a veil of horror falling over her face and ran out of the history aisle as if I’d just produced a gun. She avoided me for days afterwards, despite my constant texting. And when she did eventually speak to me, it was to tell me we should keep our distance from each other, because what happened could never happen again.
    However, such grand statements only played more into my love-struck hands. I was studying English literature after all, and this seemed to have all the hallmarks of a dramatic Shakespearian tragedy. Only, I was convinced our story would have a happy ending — the folly of youth.
    Three months later, Nicola announced she was pregnant. She really went out of her way to tell the world she wasn’t a lesbian. After that, she moved away and we lost touch. I knew she had a miscarriage and went to university, but I often wondered where she was and if she ever thought of me and that kiss. Or even if she’d ever had another kiss like that one. I knew I hadn’t.
    At university,