The office Christmas party is one disaster after the next for Maisie - especially when she has to leave early and her only option for a ride home is the biggest 'what if' of her life: Zach. Stuck in the car together (and stuck in traffic) who knows what could happen with a little Christmas magic? After all - there's no time like the present...

Work functions and an open bar are a recipe for disaster.

And yet somehow, this is the eighth year in a row they've had an open bar at the office Christmas party – or so I'm told. It's only my first year in this job (or any job, really) and my mum gave me a stern warning to not drink too much, because 'whatever else, this is still a professional environment'.

You wouldn't think that. Gerry's already been escorted out for being too sleazy, Caroline with three ex-husbands has thrown up in one of the potted plants and is now snogging some poor sap, Michael is trying to get a microphone he's found to work so he can start up karaoke, and Isla...

Well, if Isla's mum gave her the same advice as mine gave me, she's staunchly ignored it.

Right now, she's hanging off the finance manager's shoulder, red wine sloshing dangerously to the point where I think it's going to spill all over Frank's shirt. And even though Frank is only about three years older than us, and not really more senior, he will make Isla's life miserable if she ruins his shirt.

I should probably intervene.

Isla lets out a big honking laugh, snort and all, and starts doing her impression of the head of marketing.

It's uncanny, and hilarious, but she probably shouldn't be doing it in front of half the finance department.

I excuse myself from the conversation I'm not really part of anyway, slipping away from the small group I'm stood with. I down the last gulp of my prosecco before I put my glass down.

I give an awkward smile to the crowd of five people who are in stitches over Isla's impression.

"Maisie, hey," one of them says. "Have you heard this?"

"What's that?"

Best to feign ignorance. No hidden agenda here, folks.

"Isla does the best impression of Jeremy. Go on, Isla, do it again. Oi, Carl, come over here! You've got to hear this!"

Isla's cheeks are bright pink and her mascara is smudged under her eyes. There's glitter on her cheek from somewhere (God only knows where that came from) and she staggers unevenly in her heels. She gives me a bleary smile.

Professional my ass.

"I'm sorry, guys, I really need to borrow Isla for a minute," I say, putting on a big so-sorry smile and tugging her towards me gently, looping one arm around her waist when she topples sideways.

"Have you – hic! – have you heard my impression of Jeremy, Maise? Hic! Do you want some wine? Have – hic! – some wine."

Isla raises the glass up to my face, misses, and tips it anyway.

I could smack this girl, I swear to God.

The finance guys are in stitches. One of them pushes a crumpled (and I hope clean) napkin towards me, patting at my chin with it before dropping it, hooting with laughter.

"You alright there, Maisie?" Vic, the manager, asks, obviously trying hard not to laugh.

"Oh, Maisie," Isla laments, "that huge gob and I still missed."

Vic howls with laughter at that, and I don't even try to look sorry or nice about pulling Isla away from her admiring audience, just drag her with me to the bathrooms, all but frog-marching her there through the merry crowds. She stumbles trying to keep up with me.

The country house they rented for the Christmas party is fancy – so much so that there are plush purple chaise lounges in the loos. I drop Isla on one of them and grab some paper towels out of a dispenser, running some water on them and patting the wine off my arms and chest and neck as best as I can. I dab it over my dress, not sure if it'll be ruined or not. It seems okay – the whole dress is giant silver sequins, and the wine seems to wipe straight off them.

Isla hiccups quietly on the sofa while I dry myself off. After a while, she groans.

"Maise," she whines.

"What?"

Instead of replying, she lurches towards the nearest toilet cubicle and retches.

Great.

Tonight just gets better and better. Here I was just hoping I could keep her in the bathroom for twenty minutes, get her to drink some water and calm down.

Sighing, I follow Isla to the cubicle to hold her hair back. When she's done, she slumps on the floor, back against the wall of the cubicle. I get another wet paper towel for her to wipe her mouth.

"I'm sorry."

She certainly looks it: big green eyes full of tears, mouth downturned and lipstick smeared mostly off, poker-straight blonde hair lank against her skin, which has lost the blotchy pink blush she had a few minutes ago.

"It's okay," I tell her, even though it's not exactly ideal. I'd wanted to enjoy the Christmas party and stay a while, let loose a little...

Although, if I'm being brutally honest with myself, I was never going to let loose when I was trying to be so professional.

Hell, if I'm being really brutally honest with myself: I was having a pretty fucking miserable time.

And I've definitely got George to thank for that. Stupid George and his stupid girlfriend.

From the sounds of it, karaoke has started up. There's a raucous rendition of Fairytale of New York filtering into the bathroom. Isla hears it too, and smiles, eyes closed now, shoulders swaying to it even though the rest of her stays still.

"How are you feeling?" I ask.

"Not great." After a beat, she says, "You know who's a bum and a punk? George. Bloody George. I can't believe him."

I grunt in agreement, not really wanting to talk about it now. "You want anything?"

"You know what I want?" Isla sighs, cracking open her eyes and letting her head loll sideways to look at me. "I want some cheesy chips and a battered sausage, and I want to be lying in bed with A Christmas Prince."

I laugh. "That sounds perfect."

"Can we go home, Maise? Is that really shit of me to say?"

"Nah." I'm already taking my phone out to call a taxi. Isla drags herself up to get to the sinks and scoop some water into her mouth, then drops back onto the chaise lounge, all long limbs and no grace. "It's nine o'clock, I think we can call it a night."

Zach slams his driver's door shut and opens the door to the back seat when he sees us coming. His blonde hair is sticking out from under a navy beanie hat and his hands are stuffed into his coat pockets. He bounces on the balls of his feet. "God, hurry up, will you? It's freezing out here."

It is, and my teeth are chattering after being outside for all of about ten seconds. Isla doesn't seem to notice. She's humming Last Christmas to herself now (since that's what they were all signing along to when we left). She lurches away from me once we're down the steps at the front of the house, shoving the half-bottle of prosecco she nabbed on our way out into my hands to grab Zach's face in one hand, pinching his cheeks together.

"You're a good big brother, Zachy. Isn't he a good big brother, Maise? Our Christmas chauffeur."

Zach shrugs her off with a "How much did you drink? God," and helps her into the back of the car. Isla lies down across the whole back seat. I tuck her feet in after her. There's a ladder in her tights from her ankle to her knee.

"I think I'm going to take a nap," she announces, eyes already shut, hand tucked under her cheek.

"Guess I'm in the front," I mumble, scooting around to get in. The gravel crunches under my heels and my breath fogs up in front of my face. It's a damn sight warmer in the car though – and it's a ride home, so I know I can't complain too much.

I tried a grand total of nine taxi firms before Isla rang her brother. Three of them were engaged, one could get us a taxi in an hour and a half, and the rest laughed at me. (Because, really? The Friday night before Christmas? Of course I couldn't get a taxi at this time, this last minute. What was I expecting, a Christmas miracle? I'd have more chance of getting a ride on Santa's sleigh.)

There's silence in the car for what feels like an age, except for the whir of the heater and the muted noise of radio adverts. Zach puts the car in gear and pulls off, and I hug the bottle of prosecco in front of me before taking a gulp.

"Don't you dare throw up in my car, Maisie."

"Do I look like I'm Isla levels of drunk?"

I take another sip, almost to spite him. It's not the best prosecco. It's a little warm, a little flat, like it's been sat out a while somewhere.

"Don't spill it," he tells me instead.

We lapse back into silence after that. I nudge the volume on the radio up to try to fill the silence.

It's been about five months since I was last alone with Zach.

(With Isla on the verge of passing out in the back seat, we might as well be alone.)

The last time I was alone with Zach, he was leaving my bedroom and running late for breakfast with his family the day after mine and Isla's graduation.

He's got rid of that awful man bun and grown a beard since then, and he's wearing his glasses now. They're blue frames I think should look horrible but really don't.

He should not be allowed to look this good, I decide.

Especially when I'm sticky from Isla's spilled wine and it was so warm in there that my curly hair is now twice its usual size, and twice as unruly as usual.

By the time we're at the end of the driveway and back on a main road (which takes an unbearably long time), Isla is dead to the world in the back of the car and Zach can't take it anymore.

"Are you gonna sulk the whole drive home?"

"What?" I can't help but gawp at him. "I am not sulking."

Zach gives me a sidelong glance, a sceptical smile on his face and eyebrows raised. "Really? So that frown and that pout is you not sulking? I'd hate to see what you look like when you're actually pissed off."

"Could you blame me if I were pissed off?" I burst out, and then glance frantically back at Isla. She has no idea what happened during graduation week and I plan to keep it that way. Luckily, she's still blissfully unaware and fast asleep. "You ghosted me."

Zach scoffs. "That's not what happened."

"So you didn't just ignore my texts?"

I wanted to bash my head against a wall when Zach had stopped replying to my texts – and when I'd sent him three more messages, each a few days apart, after that, only to keep getting no reply.

"And you didn't tell me that thanks, that night was fun, but you were going to focus on your career and weren't looking for anything else?"

"I –"

I falter, and Zach looks over at me again.

"If that was a test, I was pretty happy to fail," he goes on. "I can't be dealing with mind games, or any of that crap. You made it pretty clear you weren't interested in anything else so..." He shrugs.

"I mean, I – I thought..." I can feel myself blushing with humiliation. I can't look at him. I focus on the prosecco bottle instead. "I thought I wasn't interested in anything else."

"But you realised I'm the man of your dreams?"

He's teasing; I'm glad I know him well enough to pick up on that. So in a voice dripping with sarcasm, I lift my head, clasp a hand over my heart and say, "What can I say? You stole my heart."

And that's the end of Part One! Part Two will follow in a few days - what do you think will happen? Will sparks fly between Maisie and Zach, or are they done for good? What's the deal with George? Let me know what you think will happen!