Tidings of Great Boys Read Free Page B

spoon tapped the waxed cardboard of his size-large bowl as he hunted down the last of his gelato. “So
     once the torture is over on Friday, what’cha got going? Big plans?”
    “Just getting ready to go home for the holidays.”
    “Home to the UK?”
    “That’s where it is.”
    “We do have big plans,” Lissa put in. Carly looked up suddenly, and her hand jerked, as though she wanted Lissa to stop. I
     looked at her, puzzled, as Lissa went on, “A bunch of us are going with her. It’s going to be great.”
    “Huh? You’re all going to Scotland?” Tate’s eyebrows rose into his carefully mussed hair.
    “What’s this?” Brett looked round the glass-topped table, stopping on Carly. “Scotland?”
    The penny dropped. She hadn’t told him yet about our plans, which in itself was unusual. Those two talk constantly. What about,
     I don’t know—couple stuff, one presumes. Not that I envied her or anything. After all, I had my chance with old Tate here,
     anytime I wanted.
    “Are you going with them?” Brett asked Carly.
    “Nothing’s for sure yet.” Her voice was soft. “Mac invited all of us, but I haven’t had the guts to bring it up with my dad
     yet.”
    “Don’t wait too long, or we won’t all be able to get seats on the same plane,” Lissa told her. “We’re cutting it pretty close
     as it is.”
    “Your dad’s not going to let you go to Scotland.” Carly looked up from her gelato at the finality in Brett’s tone. “If he
     won’t let you come to my place, he’s not going to let you go there.”
    “I know,” Carly said. Why did he have to make such a point of it? “It would be fun, though.”
    “So would Christmas with us.” He slid an arm round her shoulders and smiled. “Even if he did say yes, you’d still come to
     our house, wouldn’t you?”
    Carly’s answering smile, which had been all soft and besotted, faltered. “I don’t know. That’s a tough call.”
    Brett drew back a little. “It is?”
    This was getting far too serious. Time for me to step in and lighten it up. “Oh, yeah. Nineteen-sixties plumbing versus the
     latest in high-tech bathrooms. Stone walls versus Italian drapes. A howling gale off the Hebrides versus the sun on the Golden
     Gate. That’s a tough call, that is.”
    Any more and I’d convince myself to stay with Carly instead of the other way round.
    Brett had been so focused on her that he looked surprised at my horning in. “I think we need to talk about this in private.”
    “Brett, relax,” Carly told him. “There’s nothing to talk about, because my dad won’t let me go anywhere but the mall on the
     day after Christmas. If I’m lucky.”
    Not that I’m competitive or anything, but somehow his proprietary attitude with her rubbed me the wrong way. “Carly, if I
     came to stay with you at the weekend, maybe I could talk him round.”
    She laughed. “Thanks, Mac, but you don’t know my dad. If I even bring up Scotland, we’ll have another rolling blackout on
     our hands.”
    “But what if I bring it up? I could even get my dad to call him.”
    “Great idea.” Brett’s dark eyes have a rep for slaying the girls. Only in my case, slaying took on its literal meaning. “Break
     the ice for me. ’Cuz if he okays Scotland, then for sure he’ll okay Christmas with the Loyolas. The old bait and switch. The
     lesser of two evils.”
    “You’re not an evil,” Carly assured him. “You’re my guy, and I’m sure the only reason he’s bent about it is because he’s been
     in Guadalajara for, like, the last month. He misses Antony and me. It’s got nothing to do with you as a person. You know that.”
    Me, I thought it had quite a bit to do with Brett as a person. What dad—Latino or not—would ship his daughter off to her boyfriend’s
     house for a bunch of overnights? I mean, even Mummy, who trusts me despite certain evidence that she shouldn’t, wouldn’t let
     me spend a weekend with a boy, family hanging about the