One New York Christmas

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘For the record, I didn’t want to let go of your hand,’ Seth said over the music. ‘It really was a wallet and paying thing.’

  She nodded. She really didn’t want him to talk about the hand-holding right now. ‘So, has your mom replied yet?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I haven’t looked.’

  ‘You need to look,’ Lara said. ‘If you don’t then you won’t know.’

  ‘I know.’

  When he moved his head, his hair shifted just a little bit, strands tickling his forehead. It made him sexier. And he was sexy. Quietly sexy, like he didn’t know it at all, like it was wrapped up for the most part then revealed, slowly, piece by piece, tantalisingly …

  ‘I’ll look later,’ he told her. ‘She might not have seen it yet or …’

  ‘She might have seen it and replied straight away and be wanting to meet you right now.’

  ‘I’m with you right now,’ he reminded her.

  ‘I know, but it’s your birth mother. If your birth mother has replied and wants to meet you then you should go. Right now, if you have to.’ What was she saying? What was this all about?

  ‘Lara, have I done something wrong?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. Why was this happening now? He was too special to be the rebound guy. Why couldn’t Susie have suggested a January or February break to New York when she had had time?

  ‘Then … dance with me?’ Seth asked.

  He had asked her to dance. This was not the first time he had literally opened up a door to her thoughts. And he had gone one better. He had asked her something she had never been asked before. The band began to play a song she was familiar with. It was a soft, slow Brazilian version of The Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’. And there was his hand again, just waiting for her to clasp his fingers. A shock, a mix of heat, realisation and longing trod over rational thought and she reacted with her heart and complete free will. She put her hand in his.

  Seth’s heart was lost somewhere between Brazil, Italy, Thailand and … Appleshaw. Tonight was one of the best nights he had had in his entire life and he didn’t want it to end. He didn’t step too far into the open space, just far enough away from their table to be able to move. And then Lara was standing facing him, looking so incredibly beautiful, he felt his whole body melt. He was nervous, yet suddenly driven by all the feelings that were gathering speed inside him, feelings he didn’t want to dismiss … He drew her tenderly towards him, his arms around her waist, their torsos tight together. He held her close as the music filled the room.

  He wanted to talk because not talking felt too intimate, even though he knew this was intimate and that he very much wanted it to be. Talking was his get-out. It was almost an acting technique. Flood the situation with words, move it on. Except here and now he didn’t quite know what to say, apart from maybe to tell her exactly what he was feeling. But his mouth was dry and all he could feel was her body moving with his …

  Lara was shaking on the inside and it was taking all her strength to not let that show on the outside. She was a burning ball of sexual tension, midriff to midriff with a man she was finding more irresistible by the day. And here she was, in the middle of a Brazilian restaurant in New York, slow-dancing to one of the most erotic songs ever created, with Seth Hunt, a man she had once admired on her TV screen but now knew … and knew so well in so short a time. She wanted to relax into this moment. She wanted to be cool with it, but cool was the last thing she felt. One half of her was saying if she didn’t snog his face off on this dance floor she was going to regret it for the rest of her life. The other part was saying if she did kiss Seth then her whole world was going to change. She needed to decide which one of those she couldn’t handle. She moved her hands upwards, circling his neck, stepping back a little to look at him.

  ‘Seth,’ she whispered.

  ‘Lara.’

  ‘I didn’t ever want to stop holding your hand.’

  She watched his reaction to her words, her stomach tense, as if waiting to receive some sort of rejection. She was speaking in the moment from a place she wasn’t quite yet familiar with.

  ‘I meant it when I said I didn’t want to let you go either,’ he said.

  She shivered then, and when he cupped her chin with his hand she knew he had felt it. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, dropping her eyes.

  ‘Please, Lara, you don’t need to be sorry. Not for anything.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ she said, moving to his rhythm as they still danced. ‘Coming here wasn’t meant to be like this. I wasn’t meant to come here and … find someone … find you. I was supposed to come here and shop-till-I-dropped with Susie and look inwardly and feel sorry for myself away from Appleshaw and—’

  ‘Now you’re dancing in a Brazilian bar with Dr Mike.’ He smiled. ‘It sounds like quite the mind-bend.’

  ‘Not Dr Mike,’ Lara said immediately. ‘Seth Hunt. I’m dancing with Seth Hunt.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ he said softly.

  ‘And, that’s where I want to be,’ Lara carried on, emotion taking over any form of rationality. ‘I want to be here, dancing with you, almost in Brazil … having seen France and Italy and Thailand and met a lemur and a reindeer and watched a musical about pie …’

  He smiled, his fingers gently caressing her hair.

  ‘And I can’t stop thinking … what do you taste like? What would your lips feel like on mine? And maybe that’s wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t feel like that. But I do. I really do. And I ran away last night, with burritos, looking for napkins I didn’t really want and—’

  ‘Lara?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Please, stop talking.’

  ‘OK,’ she answered with a swallow.

  ‘Because I want to find out what you taste like too.’

  Lara didn’t have time to think or move or backtrack even if she wanted to. Her mouth was, all at once, caught up with his and it was everything she had expected and so much more. His full, gorgeous lips were exploring hers with so much raw passion she almost expected the band to stop playing but, in truth, all she could hear was her own heartbeat in her ears, telling her that this kiss, without a doubt, was something special. This was no rebound reaction. This was real.

  Lara tasted like sunrise, or maybe that was just the way kissing her was making him feel. It was like dawn breaking, a new day, something brilliant and better, opening up right in front of him. He couldn’t get any closer to her, their lips were locked, mouths open, breath stolen, the rest of the world unimportant and frankly invisible. If he could have stopped time and kissed her for all of eternity, then he would have. Except he wasn’t in charge of any wormholes and when the music changed from slow and sexy to fiesta and ‘Samba De Janiero’ he was forced to take a step back as diners flooded the dance space.

  ‘You OK?’ Seth asked, holding her hand and shouting a little as the volume of the music increased.

  ‘Yes!’ she called back. ‘So?’

  ‘So, what?’ he asked, with a smile.

  ‘What did I taste of?’ Lara enquired. ‘Apart from beer.’

  He drew her close to him again, padding her face with his thumb. ‘If I told you sunrise and literally every beautiful thing in the whole wide world, would you believe me?’

  She laughed. ‘No.’

  ‘Well,’ Seth said. ‘I’m just gonna have to kiss you again to double check on that.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Lara said, holding his hand but dancing backwards a little. ‘Kisses have to be earned in Brazil.’

  ‘So, you’re an expert on Brazilian custom now?’

  ‘I believe we have to drink tequila and dance before we kiss again … or our souls will never rest.’

  Seth shook his head, laughing. And then, before she could do anything else, he spun her around until she fell against him and his hands clasped both sides of her waist. ‘We can samba,’ he told her. ‘And, in Brazil, they actually drink cachaça.’

  ‘Then make mine a double,’ Lara repli
ed, putting her arms around his neck and moving to the music.

  Forty-Eight

  Lara and Susie’s Airbnb apartment, East Village

  ‘I don’t believe that man gave me his hat,’ Lara announced, her hands touching the brim of a newly acquired Panama.

  ‘You were wearing it way more than him and I guess he figured if he didn’t say you could keep it, it was basically theft on your part and no one wants to report anyone for hat theft this close to Christmas.’

  Lara took her hat off and swiped at him with it, almost slipping on the fresh snow that had fallen while they were in Brazil Brazil. They had danced until their feet were sore, sang words they didn’t know to songs they didn’t know, drank cachaça and lime and watched a dog in an elf costume dance the bossa nova on his hind legs while the whole restaurant clapped.

  ‘It’s almost two a.m.’ Lara stated, putting the hat back on her head, then looking at her watch. ‘Does that really say two a.m.?’ She put her wrist to Seth’s face, a little off balance due to the beer.

  ‘It does say two a.m. and I have kept you out too late. I apologise.’

  ‘No,’ Lara said softly. ‘Don’t apologise. I had the best night. It was like around the world in … six and a half hours, or so.’

  ‘I wish it could be longer,’ Seth replied. He enveloped her in his arms, gazing into her eyes as they stood just outside the apartment building. The night was dark and, for New York, quiet. The only sound was the buzz of traffic from the main street and a dog barking in the distance.

  ‘You could come in,’ Lara blurted out. ‘For coffee.’

  ‘Coffee,’ Seth replied, as if the word were foreign to him.

  ‘I don’t know why I said “coffee”,’ Lara admitted. ‘We both know I meant sex.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Seth answered. ‘I got that.’

  ‘And you’re not picking me up and racing up the steps to get into the apartment to have sex with me so I’m guessing that’s a no.’

  ‘God, Lara, there’s nothing I want to do more but … I’m inherently a good guy. And good guys don’t have sex on the first date, even when the girl they’ve taken out is the most incredible person they’ve ever met.’

  ‘Really?’ Lara asked.

  ‘You are incredible,’ he said again.

  ‘No, I meant, good guys don’t have sex on the first date? How about Season Four of Manhattan Med when Dr Mike saved that blond woman from the fire?’ She nodded with authority. ‘Unless you’re saying that Dr Mike wasn’t a good guy.’

  ‘I’m saying, as we discussed earlier, I’m Seth Hunt. Seth Hunt doesn’t have sex on a first date.’

  ‘But rules are made to be broken, aren’t they? New experiences, you said. Living in the moment …’

  ‘Lara, my resolve is already weak, but I am sticking to being a gentleman … for now.’ He smiled at her. ‘And, in the morning, when the international beer buzz has caught up with you, you’re gonna thank me for it.’

  All she could focus on was how gorgeous he was underneath the glow of the streetlamp. His dark hair was a little damp from the exertions of their dancing, his eyes alive, those lips looking like they were waiting to be kissed. She wasn’t going to thank him for it. She was going to wish that mouth was working its way down her entire body – but, if she was truthful to herself it was too soon. If she slowed her mind down and dismissed the après-beer excitement and really thought about it … he was right.

  ‘Hey,’ he whispered. ‘Are you pissed with me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘No girl wants a respectful guy.’ She laughed at her own comment. ‘OK, I lied. We all want a respectful guy. I’m just trying not to think about you going home and me greeting Ron, Harry and Hermione glowing through the blinds, then getting into that warm, cosy, huge bed in the apartment alone …’

  ‘You’re killing me with the glowing snowmen right now.’

  ‘They’re right there!’ Lara said, pointing to the window box on the wall of the building. ‘You can wave if you like.’

  ‘I’d rather kiss you again.’ He leaned in, whipping the hat from her head and delivering another heart-stopping touch of his lips. Lara clung on to him, relishing every sensation as his tongue came alive with hers and their bodies melded together, not wanting to be separate even by a centimetre.

  He kissed her lips lightly and edged back. ‘I ought to go … before I stay.’

  ‘Sure,’ Lara said with a swallow. ‘You’ve got to go.’

  ‘Can I see you tomorrow?’

  ‘Well, depending on how Susie and David’s shopping trip went, I’ll either be wedding planning or mopping up tears, so if we can meet somewhere in between that.’

  ‘I’ll call you,’ Seth said.

  ‘Please, Seth, please, before you go, check your phone,’ Lara begged as he replaced her hat. ‘I want to know if your mum’s replied.’

  He smiled, a little apprehensively, then breathed out. ‘OK.’

  She watched him draw out his mobile phone from the pocket of his jeans. Her heart was beating in a low panic and she could only imagine what his was doing. She couldn’t read his face and she waited, anxious for him to say something.

  ‘No reply,’ he answered slowly. ‘But she’s read the message.’

  Lara smiled. ‘Oh my God, Seth, she’s read the message. That’s something! I mean, that’s huge! It makes it real, doesn’t it? It makes her real.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed, nodding. ‘It makes her real.’

  Lara threw her arms around him, holding him close, wanting him to know she knew how much this meant to him. ‘She’s going to reply,’ she assured him.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Seth said, matter-of-factly. ‘And, you know, if she doesn’t, that’s her choice.’

  ‘She’s going to reply. You have to believe that your nice came from her nice.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘I believe it,’ Lara said firmly. ‘Have some faith.’

  ‘OK, then, Lemur Girl, I’ll take your word for it and believe in the power of a Christmas miracle.’

  ‘Well, some people think Mark Zuckerberg can do anything, so a more divine sort of miracle should be quite possible.’

  ‘Goodnight, Lara.

  ‘Goodnight, Seth.’

  He kissed her once more and then he smiled and pulled the brim of the hat down over her eyes as he turned to walk away.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he called, waving a hand. And then she heard the opening bars of ‘Light My Fire’ being whistled on the wind and her heart soared like Santa’s sleigh.

  Forty-Nine

  Union Square Christmas Market

  ‘Excuse me, could I have a closer look at that large photo of graffiti?’ Susie asked, pointing at a canvas on an alternative art stall.

  It was the following morning and the two women were working through Susie’s list of go-to shopping venues, interspersed with coffee shop stops, after Lara had claimed no sane person could manage that many shops in one morning. It was cold and crisp, last night’s snow set to ice, but the red-and-white topped Christmas stalls were a haven of hot chocolate steam, sugary doughnut smells and kitsch gift ideas for all.

  The couples’ Christmas shopping trip the night before had ended up in Tiffany’s but not for engagement rings. David had wanted Susie’s opinion on a very expensive brooch for his grandmother. Lara couldn’t see the problem with this, in fact, she had thought it was nice that David wanted to include Susie in a family present decision. But every time she went to suggest this was a relationship plus point, Susie countered it with every other slightly irritating thing David had done in the course of their relationship … from taking too long in the bathroom one Saturday in June to dropping a fork at the Spanish restaurant they went to a few days ago wiping it on his napkin and reusing it. After that, Lara had kept quiet.

  ‘Who are you thinking of buying the photo for?’ Lara asked. ‘Because I’m not sure it’s going to fit in your suitcase.’
/>   ‘Oh, it isn’t for anyone at home,’ Susie stated as the stall owner went to get the photograph. ‘It’s for David.’

  ‘Does David like modern photography like this?’ Lara asked.

  ‘No,’ Susie said. ‘He hates it.’

  The stallholder returned with the photograph and Susie nodded her approval. ‘I really like it. How much is it?’

  ‘Hang on, just a second,’ Lara said to both her friend and the man on the stall. ‘Susie, you don’t want to get David this. No offence,’ she said, looking to the seller holding the picture. ‘It’s really good, but my friend here is wanting to buy it as some sort of revenge gift and I don’t think she should.’ She swallowed, looking at the beanie-hatted man who seemed like he would now rather be anywhere other than talking to them. And she couldn’t say that she blamed him. ‘Do you?’ Had she really just looked at the stall-owner for solidarity?

  ‘Well,’ Susie began. ‘Last night, my boyfriend took me to Tiffany’s and made me look at a diamond brooch for his grandmother. We were in there for what felt like hours, right next to the engagement rings, and his gaze did not shift for the entire time, not even when I said “ooo that’s pretty” three times and interspersed it with a few “I really like that’s”.’ She eyeballed the stallholder who looked like a tortoise ready to shrink back into its shell. ‘That is mental cruelty, isn’t it? To take your girlfriend to Tiffany’s, the iconic store for engagement rings the world over, and not look at engagement rings.’ She pointed a finger at the seller. ‘You wouldn’t do that, would you? I mean no one would do that!’ Her hair, today curled like she had a giant pretzel on her head, bobbed a little as she got all accusing and Lara took hold of her arm.