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Paige legged it presumably to her car and Melanie looked down at the gift bags. One with a Disney-wrapped present and the other . . . Sure enough it had top shelf tequila in it. ‘Come on, sis, I reckon we both need one of these.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Emily said.
‘No entertainer. But Paige has been able to get hold of a Rey costume and has gone to grab it now.’
‘Oh God. I was kinda pinning this whole thing on a princess.’
‘Me too,’ Melanie said. I still am she said to herself.
Chapter Forty-One
Paige
She tried the front door and saw it was on the latch. Gently pushing it open and tiptoeing down the hall towards the open plan kitchen and den area, Paige could see that a rather serious game of pass the parcel was taking place. There was only one thing for it really and she’d known it was going to come to this. She’d just hoped that it wouldn’t.
But, it was a large and it would fit Paige more than it would fit Melanie. Not to mention that Melanie was knee deep in sugared up five-year-olds. Nipping into the downstairs loo she got changed and hoped her Doc Martens would finish the look off. She found some bobbles that she assumed were Emily’s and styled her hair. Leaving her wallet and phone hidden underneath her regular clothes, she slowly pushed the door open. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror. She looked like an absolute badass. Too right. That’s exactly what Rey was. This was so far out of Paige’s comfort zone she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to find it again. But she quickly dipped back into the loo and grabbed her phone. There were two things she needed to do and quickly. The first was to take a selfie in the mirror and send it to the girls. Better that she was in charge of PR then they find out later. The second was to press send on the thing she’d worked on last night and hope for the best. Figuring she was already nervous anyway. And as Connie always liked to say, ‘might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb’.
She put her phone back away, picked up her staff and walked out and down and round to where pass the parcel was finishing up. Emily caught her eye first and positively beamed, beckoning her further into the room.
‘You look so cool. Thank you for doing this. He’s going to freak out!’ Emily whispered as the music stopped and the pass the parcel winner was announced.
‘You’re up!’ Emily whispered before shoving Paige towards the crowd. ‘Everyone, look who came to Alfie’s birthday party. Everyone say hi to Rey!’
The kids were screaming and crowding her and pushing her into the middle of the room, until she was knelt down and could talk to them all.
‘Er, hi everyone.’ Oh she had no idea what she was doing, but then she spotted Alfie.
‘Hi, birthday boy.’ And before she’d even really finished speaking, two little arms were flung around her neck and it was cute, until she actually couldn’t breathe. She tickled his ribs to get him to let go. His arms relaxed but he lent towards her ear.
‘I knew you were cool, Pwaige, but I didn’t know you were Rey!’
Not having any clue at all how to answer that she gave him another little squeeze. ‘Happy birthday, Alf.’
‘Why don’t we see if Rey wants to play musical statues?’ Emily shouted with frankly way too much glee in her voice.
But then Paige caught Melanie’s eyes. She mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ and Paige nervously smiled back.
Chapter Forty-Two
Melanie
Melanie had been taking lots of pictures and hadn’t seen the email notification. She’d made herself a promise not to check her work stuff today, but the notification on her app caught her attention.
Paige has invited you to join her To-Do list.
What? Paige had done what? The place was loud, the kids were wild, and although she suspected Paige would never admit it, she looked like she was having fun as she answered all their questions about being Rey.
She caught her sister. ‘I just need to check something, I won’t be a minute.’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Yeah, promise I won’t be long.’ Melanie moved towards the hallway.
‘I wouldn’t worry, the entertainer seems to have it under control. How much do you think she charges?’
Melanie smiled and disappeared into the front garden where she leaned on the wall. She couldn’t explain why, but her heart was racing and her hands shook. What had Paige done? Her heart now pounded against her ribs.
She opened up her app and saw a new list on there that wasn’t hers.
