Feeling Festive on Oak Tree Lane (Oak Tree Lane #3)

Prologue

Robyn didn’t think she’d ever sang so badly or been so distracted during a performance with her vintage vocal group, The Oakettes. There was nothing but love in the air all around her at this event, with an engagement as well as a birthday for the whole community to celebrate, and it had given her an unsettled feeling she was determined not to analyse.

“Can you restock the bottles of cider?” Matt asked her, using the same snippy tone she’d heard from him all day. Robyn knew it was a big event, the largest the Olde Oak Tree Inn had hosted in a long while, and was sorely needed to boost the place’s bank balance, but she was sick of being treated like a skivvy. She had said she’d serve as well as sing at the party as she knew Matty couldn’t afford to hire anyone else behind the bar, but she’d expected he might be just a little bit grateful about it.

“Do you think you could ask me nicely?” She bit back, hands on hips.

“Do you think you could acknowledge my existence?” He retorted under his breath.

“What?” They had been friends since they were toddlers at Little Acorns preschool together. Now in their late twenties, Matt had invited Robyn to share the flat above the pub that his dad had tasked him with managing while the old man pursued his own business affairs in Portugal. With Robyn’s parents having retired down to Devon, and she desperately wanting to stay in the Oakley area, she had jumped at her best friend’s offer, agreeing to help out behind the bar in return for board. That had been over a year ago, and to Robyn’s mind it had all been working out perfectly.

Until a few weeks ago, that is, when Matt had begun acting like a bear with a sore head, stomping around the place by day, and keeping out of her way in the flat where before they had shared movie nights and box set binges.

“What did you say?” Robyn repeated. She knew she was pushing it, and behind the bar at a seemingly make-or-break event was hardly the time or place, but his off hand, passive aggressive comment had her back up and she was never one to pussyfoot around things. At least she thought she wasn’t, until recently.

What if he was sick of having her here and she had outstayed her welcome? That had been Robyn’s biggest worry and one she had yet to find the courage to broach with Matt.

“Isn’t it funny how Janet was right under Brin’s nose the whole time? That they lived in the same village for years as friends and didn’t realise they wanted something more, much more, until recently?” His tone was bitter as he referred to the newly-engaged, older couple currently dancing by the stage, seeing only each other.

“I suppose so,” Robyn wished now that she hadn’t pushed for an answer.

“How do you think they realised it? That they were meant to be more than friends?” Matty’s tone was softer now, and he was standing so close that Robyn could smell the aftershave she’d bought him for his birthday.

“Um, I guess there was an attraction they couldn’t deny,” Robyn whispered, a strange feeling, like the butterflies she got in her stomach before singing, filling her.

“Yes, like an invisible thread or a chemical reaction,” Matt continued, the intensity of his gaze boring holes in her, “one that couldn’t be denied any longer.”

Robyn matched him, stare for stare, unsure what to say.

“Two pints of lager and a lemonade and lime, please.”

And the moment was gone as Matt went to serve the next customer and Robyn felt the sudden need to clutch the banister as she went down the stairs to the beer cellar on legs that felt like jelly.

Clearly, the strange conversation was not over. Far from it, she felt, and Robyn knew she’d be lying to herself if she said she didn’t have an inkling what it was all about.

But would they ever make a move that could ultimately threaten their friendship?

And would the friendship be lost anyway if they didn’t?