"Go away!" I whispered loudly at Cindy, not knowing what she was up to and trying to get her to leave."...Pardon Chris?" I heard Debbie ask me in the ...iddle of her flow of talking about the trials of bringing up her daughter."Um, sorry Debbie. It was a ... fly buzzing around here and was annoying me." I hoped that sounded plausible and I turned away from Cindy so I could concentrate on the call with her mom. "It was no trouble looking after her the other day, and if you need any other help I. It was my ideal card. I never actually used it though but I really wanted to. The real reason I hate Christmas is that everyone else seems to enjoy themselves and have more fun than me, especially Melissa, my wife.oOo I was standing at the bar of a private company party, making polite conversation with a gorgeous redhead called Emma and her partner, Chris. Neither of whom I knew. It wasn’t my Christmas party, it was Melissa’s. Emma did catch my eye, on one or two occasions where it drifted to. Perhaps it was her total submission last night that had wiped out all of my fears.I got up from the sofa and went over to my bed. I turned off the alarm clock only seconds before it was to ring. Instead of heading to the bathroom to take a shower as I usually did every morning, I headed for the kitchen and closed the door. I took out my mobile phone and called the office to leave a voicemail."Hi Elisabeth, this is Martin. I'm not feeling well today and need to take a sick day. If you need to. "He mentioned his girls were there," continued Brian.I shifted in my seat uneasily. "Yes," I replied in what I hoped was a relaxed voice. "Twins. They were charming. You know, I'd forgotten that he even had daughters." Apparently he wanted you to come to their birthday party on Sunday." Er, yes he did." ... And you refused." He looked at me accusingly. Clearly I had let him down."Well, it's short notice and it would have been a bit awkward," I tried to explain.He suddenly came over all friendly.