‘By the time she came back in, I’d read hundreds of text messages going back years between them. The kind of messages and photos you don’t send a colleague. For me, that relationship was it. We were going to get married, have children, and go on cruises in our retirement. For her, I was just an acceptable substitute until the guy she really wanted left his wife.’
The reindeer antlers jingle with every movement, the happy sound the complete opposite of how flat and quiet his voice is, and I can’t hold back anymore. I’ve practically pureed the dried fruit I was meant to be stirring gently, and I shove it onto the unit and march across to him.
‘What are you—’
I cut him off by leaning up to get my arms around his neck and pulling him down carefully until I can kiss his cheek. ‘I’m so sorry, James.’ I hold his cheek against my face for far too long a moment. ‘You deserved better than that.’
It’s a bit awkward and a bit uncomfortable because I’m at his side rather than front-facing, and there’s no physical way he can hug me back, but I feel him exhale and relax and when I open my eyes, his are closed.
‘Is this hurting?’ I murmur.
‘No, but my icing’s dribbling.’
I burst out a laugh mixed with a dash of mild hysteria and let go of him, not missing the groan as he stands back upright.
I force myself to step away because no gingerbread is going to get iced and no Christmas cake is going to be made if I hug him for as long as I want to.
I watch him as he shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. ‘How long ago?’
‘Four years … well, closer to five now. I moved out and got a little flat because it was all I could afford until we sold the house, but that took a couple of years and I’m still in that “temporary” flat.’
‘With your boxes still not unpacked?’
‘Exactly. No wonder I keep coming over here.’
‘Ah, so it’s nothing to do with the biscuit selection tins and tubs of chocolate then?’
‘Add in the homecooked food and freshly baked gingerbread …’ He laughs but it trails off. ‘No. Honestly, Nee, it’s nothing to do with anything edible.’
This man should come with a health warning. I’m having so many hot flushes with him around that I’ve started to wonder if the menopause has come on fifteen years early.
I have no idea how to respond to that so I concentrate intently on spooning glacé cherries into a bowl and only realise when the bowl is overfull that weighing them out is actually a key part of the process. This will be the cherriest Christmas cake ever.
‘Okay, my turn.’ James goes back to icing scalloped roof tiles onto the gingerbread house. ‘Now you’ve got to tell me about you. You’re the most caring, sweet, funny, and beautiful person I’ve ever met, and I can’t believe you’re not seeing anyone. I’m still expecting a husband to pop out of the woodwork any second. How on earth are you still single? What’s going on?’
‘Waiting for Prince Charming?’ I try to make a joke of it but he raises both eyebrows and I know I’ve got to carry on, even though his words make me feel like I’m going to choke on my own teeth. ‘Cheating. There’s been a lot of it in my life too.’
‘Really?’ I can feel his eyes on me, burning into my back until I force myself to turn around and look at him and he gives me a sympathetic smile.
‘Yeah. I was with someone for nearly six years and I thought that was it too, until I caught him with someone else. It was so unexpected. I trusted him wholeheartedly. Cheating was something that had never even crossed my mind. After that, I could never really trust anyone. Eventually Stacey set me up with someone else. It lasted a few months, but he cheated too, and since then I’ve kind of kept men at arm’s length and never let anyone get close enough to hurt me. I’ve dated here and there when Stacey’s nagging has driven me mad, but nothing that’s ever been more than a couple of dates, and every single one of them has ended with cheating too. One started messaging his other girlfriend while we were having coffee, one ghosted me for a bit and then posted an engagement announcement on Facebook, and one texted me a message meant for his other woman on the day before Nutcracker Lane opened.’
‘Oh, wow. God, that’s so bad.’
‘It’s okay. Since the first guy, it hasn’t mattered. I push people away. I don’t let anyone in or let myself get serious with anyone. It’s inevitable that every relationship is going to end the same way, so what’s the point? I don’t want to do it again, not even casually. I’d rather be alone forever than feel as worthless as I did after that first time.’ I’ve never said that out loud before, not even to Stacey, but everything James said about his own relationship puts me at ease because he understands what it’s like. ‘Unless Prince Charming steps out of the pages of a storybook, I’m done with relationships.’
‘I hear you there … well, maybe not on the Prince Charming front, but on the relationships bit. How do you ever trust anyone again? Not even just relationships. It totally changed the way I saw everything. It made me feel like everyone’s out for themselves and their own gain. I don’t trust anyone now.’
I think about the guy half-asleep on my sofa the other night, letting me hold the fingers of his broken arm. The guy who lets me hug him despite being bruised from head to toe. How open and uninhibited he can be sometimes. ‘I think you do. I think you just put up a massive front to stop yourself getting hurt. Like your Grinch side. Disengaging from all things festive is a way of shutting yourself off. Another wall up between you and the world …’ I trail off as I realise I’ve just completely psychoanalysed him, firstly without permission, and secondly when I don’t even know him well enough to know what his favourite colour is. ‘Sorry, James, I had no right to—’
‘I see behind your mask too, you know.’ He sounds gentle and caring, and when I finally look up, he gives me a soft smile. ‘I think you’re lonely but you put on a happy, breezy front and pretend you’re okay. You still hold out hope for a relationship but tell yourself you don’t so you won’t be disappointed. You have all those romantic Christmas movies on your TV box because you still believe in love and you want that happily-ever-after to happen to you but you’re too scared to put yourself out there in case it actually does.’
‘No, I’m scared in case it actually does and then it goes wrong.’ I try to ignore the quiver at the thought of how well he can see through me. ‘Besides, those movies are an escape. They don’t actually happen, they’re just fantasy, like Santa Claus or wishes on magical nutcrackers.’
He snorts. ‘Throwing myself into Nutcracker Lane this year has been good for me. The people there are good. Kind and genuine. They’ve welcomed me like an old friend. Invested their time and money and energy into making Nutcracker Lane special. And it is special. A real community. I’ve never had anything like that to believe in before, but seeing how much you love it, how much it means to everyone there … it’s enough to make me believe in magic again.’
I swallow so hard that he must’ve been able to hear it. ‘And in love?’
‘Oh, Nia, I don’t get it.’ He pipes bricks onto the chimney. ‘I want to fall in love with someone – one person – and take on the rest of our lives together as a team. If there are problems, I want to be in it together with someone. I want to believe there’s someone out there somewhere who was made for me forever. I want to wake up with someone every morning for the rest of my life and not worry that she’s going to get fed up of me and find someone better. I want someone who’ll be there for the good times and the bad. I want to know without a second thought that there’s always someone who’s got my back and for someone to feel that about me too. I want to be someone’s favourite person, the first person they call if something happens – good or bad. I want to share every moment of my life with one person. Someone who’ll do a celebratory dance with me or … hold my hand in a hospital waiting room.’
He still doesn’t look up from his icing. ‘The magic of love is in the security of it. Anyone can
go on dating apps and hook up, but aren’t we all searching for that one special person? An other half? A half you didn’t realise was missing until the first time you saw them?’
Maybe he really is a nutcracker come to life because I’m pretty sure he’s too perfect to be real. The answer to a magical Christmas wish is a more likely explanation than him actually being this perfect. He says everything I’ve always thought about love but never allowed myself to believe might be possible.
‘What are you doing over Christmas?’ I ask to distract myself and cover this weird tension between us because I don’t think the cherries were supposed to be chopped with quite this much fervour.
‘Working?’ he says like it’s a trick question. ‘After the shop shuts, I’m straight back to my regular job.’
‘Without even having a break?’
‘Even less of a break this year. I’ll have been away for a month by that time. I’ll have even more catching up to do.’
That familiar feeling of my stomach dropping hits me again. It’s so cut and dried. He’s gone as soon as Nutcracker Lane closes for Christmas. That’s it, over. ‘Christmas is the only time of year that I do have a few days off. No working, no crafting, no online orders or customising bespoke stuff or packing products up to post. Just watching TV and eating too much. That’s one of your tasks for this year, Grinch. You have to have a break. No work. Don’t even get out of your pyjamas. Just curl up in front of the TV and eat cheese and chocolate. Not together. Well, unless you’re into that sort of thing, but I can’t see it working.’
I’ve gone off on a chocolate-and-cheese-related tangent because what’s scary is how much I want to invite him over. I can’t think of anything better than cuddling up with him and stuffing our faces while watching old movies on the television. I’m searching for a way to keep him in my life for longer. To make sure we have something outside of work, because for all his help, it’s blatantly obvious that he’s not sticking around.
‘What about the day itself?’ I tip the cherries into the bowl, give it a quick stir, and start sifting the flour over them.
‘Taking enough painkillers and drinking enough mulled wine to wake up on December 27th?’
My hands still and the flour comes out in a whoosh, and I point my wooden spoon threateningly in his direction. ‘You had better be joking.’
He turns the gingerbread house and starts icing window frames and doesn’t say anything.
‘Do you still go to your parents’ on the “Big Day”?’
‘Of course. I visit as often as I can, but I’m always getting in the way. My dad’s still working – still trying to get the business in the best possible shape for me to take over.’
‘Come to me for Christmas Day,’ I blurt out.
‘I have to spend it with my family. It’s going to be my dad’s last—’ He can’t finish the sentence.
‘Is your dad still up to travelling? They can come too.’
‘You can’t …’ His voice catches and he stops himself and takes a few breaths before he speaks again. ‘It’s family time for you too. You don’t even know my family. You can’t seriously be inviting—’
‘It’s not right that you’re helping me with all this prep and then I won’t even see you on Christmas Day. Seriously, James, I’m cooking anyway; it’d be no trouble to add a bit of extra veg and put a couple more chairs out. It’d take pressure off your mum having to do anything, and I always cook enough to feed half the country.’
‘Nia, I …’
‘I’d love to have you here. And my family won’t mind at all. I could invite the local dog shelter and they wouldn’t care as long as Mum didn’t have to do the cooking.’
‘I would love that. Spending Christmas with you or the dog shelter, but mainly you.’ He puts the bag of icing down again and crosses the kitchen with a couple of long steps, and reaches out to take my hand, his fingers folding around mine.
My cheeks heat up. ‘Will you ask your parents if they want to?’
‘They don’t care about Christmas. They won’t mind what we do.’
‘So it’s settled then.’ He’s holding my left hand and I put down the wooden spoon that’s still in my right and let my fingers travel up to his shoulder and squeeze gently, feeling ridiculously happy about the prospect of spending Christmas with him. For the first time in a long while, the world feels like it’s spinning in the right direction again.
‘And after Christmas …’ I take a deep breath before I can chicken out. ‘There’ll be a ton of leftover cheese that I’ll need help eating, and there are always eleventy billion boxes of chocolates, and in that space between Christmas and new year, all the festive films are gone from the TV and they just play old musicals from the Fifties …’
Another deep breath. In for a penny and all that. ‘Come and have a break with me. I feel like you need a proper Christmas. The past couple of weeks have been all about trying to show you what Christmas should be like and it doesn’t just stop on the 25th.’ My fingers trail up and fiddle with the thick hair at the back of his head, the longer front bits pushed back by the headband, and I reach up and play with a felt-covered antler.
His eyes drift shut and he drops his head until his forehead is resting against mine, the reindeer antlers on his head tangling with the bow on mine. ‘Nia, you should know that if you don’t step back right this second, I’m not going to be able to stop myself kissing you.’
My arms tighten around his neck in response and he makes a noise from deep within his chest. Before I know it, his lips are … not on mine. Instead he kisses me right at the side of the mouth, softly and oh-so-slowly touching his lips to my skin, both infuriatingly slow and gorgeously gentle, and nowhere near enough, and I think it might be the sexiest way anyone’s ever kissed me.
I can feel his stubble with the skin of my lips, hear every shiver of his breath, my nails have started digging into his hand where he’s still holding mine and the fingertips still in his hair can feel every strand as my fingers tighten. It’s really nothing more than a peck, but it leaves no doubt about how incredible it would be to kiss him properly.
When he pulls back, I’m torn between holding on tighter so he stays, and feeling so overheated and flushy that I might swoon in his arms, which would do his injuries no good whatsoever. I reluctantly unfurl my hands from his body and try to furtively cling on to the edge of the counter to keep myself upright, and the half-dazed, half-seductive and ridiculously flirty look on his face lets me know that he knows exactly how much of an effect he’s having on me.
‘That was a yes, by the way.’ He goes back to his side of the unit and picks up the icing bag. ‘In case there was any doubt.’
I can’t help giggling. For once, there was no doubt. ‘I’ve never realised I could speak “kiss” before, but believe me, even I managed to translate that.’
‘You can literally lip-read.’ It’s an adorably terrible pun and his cheeks are fittingly red, but mainly I’m relieved to see his hand is shaking when he picks up the icing bag. I’m not the only one feeling something. And I’m suddenly really looking forward to Christmas. I’m not usually a fan of the haziness of that time between Christmas and new year when no one knows what day it is and you feel generally bloated from overeating the whole time but all you do is keep eating … and it’s always a bit sad because Christmas is over and you’ve got a whole year to go until the next one, but with him here … It’s going to be my favourite part of Christmas.
‘If you think I can concentrate on icing a gingerbread house now …’ he says with a laugh.
I giggle too because my brain has simultaneously turned to mush and melted out of my ears. I’m glad I’ve made this Christmas cake many times before and have a well-used recipe to follow because all I can think about is that burning hot spot next to my lips and the tingling where his stubble grazed over the edge of my jaw.
We carry on in almost silence, but whenever I have to weave around him to get my fruitcake in the oven or ch
eck on it, the touches are lingering, and everything about him makes me want more.
‘You know that’s amazing, don’t you?’ I say when he finally steps out of the way and lets me see the gingerbread house.
He’s used white and milk chocolate buttons as roof tiles between scalloped lines of icing. Each window and doorframe is lined with perfectly even dots and there are Jelly Tots along the middle of the roof and down each slanted side. He’s used candy canes on either side of the door and stuck red and green M&M’s on like Christmas lights. The traditional peppermint swirl is above the door, surrounded by tiny stuck-on snowflakes and colourful dots. He’s even managed to do some lattice work at the back, and there are lines of icicles drying on the greaseproof paper, ready to be peeled off and stuck to the roof edges.
‘You’ve seriously never done this before?’ I carry on when he shakes his head. ‘You’ve got such a steady hand and an incredible eye for detail. You’ve done better one-handed than I could do if I was the human equivalent of an eight-handed octopus. You’re wasted in your day job. Do you seriously just sit in front of a computer all day?’
‘Yep.’ He shrugs and aborts the movement when it clearly pulls on his ribs. ‘Analysing figures. Sometimes for a change of pace, I spin around in my spinny chair and stare at the wall.’ He lifts his arm and drops it around my shoulders. ‘That was so much fun, and surprisingly relaxing.’
Relaxing. Not a word I would ever usually associate with baking.
I must look dubious because he squeezes my shoulders tighter. ‘Honestly, Nia. I never do stuff like this. It was fun.’
I’ve thought he had a creative side since that morning Stacey and I watched him repaint his shop sign, and it gives me a weird thrill to see this gorgeous man, who I thought was so uptight at first, wearing reindeer antlers and an apron that’s now covered with splotches of multicoloured icing and so much powdered sugar that it looks like he’s just come in out of a snowstorm.
The Little Christmas Shop on Nutcracker Lane Page 23
