by Sienna Blake
“Enough,” I growled.
He went silent.
Ah, shite. Silence with Declan was worse than the noise.
“I see,” Declan said finally.
“You don’t see anything.”
“Who is she?” Declan finally asked.
“No one,” I replied a little too quickly.
“Uh huh.” Dex did not sound convinced. At all.
“Where are you this Christmas? In Ireland?” I asked, changing the topic of conversation.
“And spend time in that freezing, soggy-ass country, heaven love the place? Fuck no. The missus and I are in the Maldives. Sun. Sea. And a private over-water villa.”
“Show-off,” I said.
Declan had done so damn well for himself. When we three lads met, he was the most messed up one out of the three of us. His past was…dark. Made me feel almost lucky.
He’d taken to fighting like it was a life raft. He pulled himself up out of the darkness and went on to smash down all the ceilings on the kind of life a boy with his background had over his head. It just went to show. He deserved all the success and money and fame that he had now. I didn’t begrudge him for it. Mostly.
But there was always a piece of me that brooded over his rise to fame because I compared his to mine.
Everything I wanted still felt so out of reach. So fucking out of reach. And…I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to grab hold of it. It felt so elusive. Like a star in the night sky.
“Where are you this Christmas?” Declan asked.
“In Dublin.”
“At your apartment? Alone?”
“Whatever. Christmas doesn’t mean shit to me, you know that,” I lied.
When Declan spoke again there was a touch of pity to his voice. “Dude, I know you musicians are broody loner wolf types, but you shouldn’t spend Christmas alone. Shit, if I’d known I would have gotten ye to come with us.”
I snorted. “And be forced to listen to the two of ye go at it like fucking rabbits? No thanks.”
“What about this girl you won’t talk about? Where’s she?”
Ailis.
She was with her family, wasn’t she? A twinge of sadness surfaced before I drowned it. Besides, she wasn’t my girl…
I brushed off Declan’s question, wished him and his new wife a Merry Christmas and got off the phone.
My eyes drew to Ailis’s gift I’d shoved to the corner of the table, a thread of guilt weaving through me that I didn’t tell her thank you. I ignored this thought, adding it to the pile of reasons why I am an asshole and deserve to remain alone.
Fuck it.
It was Christmas and it was my present and I was dying to find out what was inside.
I grabbed the gift and tore the wrapping paper open to reveal a box. I opened it and set the item inside on the table.
It looked like a small light of some sort with a metal shade that went all around it with holes cut out of it. It was kinda tacky, really. I hit the small button on the base and the light turned on. Well, at least it worked. Too bad this metal shade was blocking most of the light.
Maybe it came off. I placed my fingers on the top of the shade and to my surprise it spun, the light flashing through the cut-out holes and catching in my eyes.
Wait a minute…
I clapped my hands, turning the main lights off. The room was swallowed by darkness except for the pinpoints of light coming from Ailis’s gift. Stars circled my room, skipping along the walls and my clothes.
She’d given me the stars.
“My ma told me she would become a star when she died.”
Suddenly this box I’d been keeping my feelings for Ailis in broke open. I was overcome with a need to see her. To be near her. To just…hear her voice.
I grabbed my phone. I could call her.
No, too desperate. I never called her.
I could text her. Yes, people texted each other on Christmas, right? This wasn’t clingy or needy.
Hey Dearg, I just wanted to say that I opened your present and that I thought it was really—
So fucking rambling. I sounded like a girl. I deleted that and started again.
Merry Christmas, Dearg!
Too fucking chirpy. I didn’t do chirpy. She’d know something was up. Delete.
This Santa thinks you deserve a spank for xmas.
Ugh, too crude. Too much like what I’d usually send. Even I knew that.
I miss you.
I deleted that quickly before I accidentally hit send.
I miss you. I scoffed. What the fuck?
When did sending a text message get so fucking complicated? When did I have trouble with words, for fuck’s sake? They were supposed to be my superpower.
I stared at the stars tumbling around my dark room and back at my phone screen. I felt…things. For once in my fucking life, I could not understand them.
I clapped twice to turn the main lights on again. The stars faded, their light lost. But for some reason I didn’t turn the star lamp off. It felt…nice to know that the stars were there even if I couldn’t see them.
I turned back to the sheet of paper, all scribbled on and looking like a mess. It mocked me, reminding me that I was destined to fail.
The doorbell on my apartment rang and I broke out of my thoughts. I dropped my phone on the couch beside me and glared at the front door.
Probably fucking carolers or eejits looking for charity money. Someone in the building must have let them in. If I ignored them, they’d go away.
The bell sounded again, longer this time. Then a few knocks on the door.
Ah, fuck. Whoever it was wasn’t going away. They could likely see the light on inside and knew someone was home. Fuckers.
I threw my pencil on the table, hard enough to break the tip off, and stood, growling. They were going to regret ringing my doorbell. I should have put up a sign on my door saying “Fuck Off Christmas” or “House of the Grinch. Ring at your peril.”
I stormed to the door, muttering obscenities under my breath, and threw it open.
“Surprise!”
I blinked, unsure whether my vision was betraying me. There at my doorstep, wearing a red coat with ridiculous green and red striped stockings, was Ailis.
54
____________
Ailis
Danny stood at his doorway in all his stormy glory, looking more beautiful than the day I left him. The glare on his face faded into a blank mask.
“Merry Christmas,” I said, giving him a limp wave before cringing internally.
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t say a word.
Well, fuck. I expected…okay, maybe it was sheer fantasy to expect that he might be excited to see me. When I played out this scenario in my head, he had a reaction. I would have settled for shock at this point. I licked my lips, which had gone dry.
“So, ah, my family decided to come up here for Christmas instead of staying in Limerick. We’re all crammed in my apartment. Thankfully Anna isn’t there so we have enough space.” My voice faltered a little in confidence.
Danny wasn’t excited to see me at all. He was probably horrified. Probably wondering how to get rid of me nicely.
I should just go.
Before I could turn away I spotted the star lamp I’d given him for Christmas sitting on the low living room table past him. The light was on even though the main light was drowning it.
He opened my gift.
He turned it on.
He kept it on.
Which meant…he liked it.
This gave me hope. I’d come all this way. I’d kick myself if I didn’t at least say what I had to say.
I took a deep breath and barreled on. “I know you were planning to spend Christmas alone, but…I thought we might bring Christmas to you.”
He remained frozen to the spot, saying nothing, just looking at me.
“My family are waiting downstairs in the car, just in case this was a bad idea and you decided to tell me to
fuck off.” I felt my cheeks heat up. I dropped my gaze to the floor because I just couldn’t deal with his stare anymore. “But I hope you don’t. I hope you invite us in and soon because one of my sisters has the pre-cooked turkey in her lap and it’s heavy and she was already threatening to throw it out the window when I left them. So…” I trailed off, running out of steam.
After a pause I dared to glance up at him.
He blinked. The only sign that he’d even heard me.
I felt like a compete twat standing there, rejection burning in my veins. What a stupid idea this was. And we came all this way…
“I’ll go, then,” I said, my voice infused with bitterness. “Sorry for disturbing you.”
I turned to leave.
Danny put his hand on my shoulder, stopping me. When I turned back, he was standing so close to me, his blue eyes alight, his features softened. “I’ll help carry stuff from the car.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding and my shoulders sagged with relief.
He was letting us come in.
He grabbed a jacket and his keys and came down with me. We said nothing, but his presence was a warmth at my side.
“Danny, you remember my ma and da, don’t you?” I said when we’d made it down to the car. My ma, da and Eileen had gotten out of the vehicle, but Rachel remained in the backseat under a huge turkey.
Danny had met my parents at the hospital when I’d been sick. He hadn’t met Eileen or Rachel, though. They’d mainly been at school or at my auntie’s.
Danny nodded at them all, giving them a short wave. My ma, in all her beaming self, strode right up to him and enveloped him in a hug. He caught my gaze over her head, his eyes wide as saucers. I held back a laugh. I don’t think Danny had ever been ninja-hugged like my ma just did to him.
My ma pulled back and looked him all over with a brilliant smile on her face. “Good to see you, Danny. My God, you’ve grown into such a man now.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks tinged with pink.
My da stepped up to him next and held out his hand which Danny took, a note of relief on his face, probably that he didn’t have to hug my father, too.
I noticed my ma looking between us and a weird feeling wormed in me. Dear God, please don’t let her get the wrong idea and embarrass me. I had repeated over and over again in the car on the way to Dublin that Danny and I were just good friends. But now I could see my ma had suspicions…or hopes.
“What can I help with?” Danny asked my folks.
In minutes we had unloaded the car with all the containers of pre-cooked food and were all ensconced in Danny’s apartment. My father had made himself at home on the couch, a lager in his hand. My two sisters sat next to him as they watched a rerun of an Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special and bickered amongst each other.
My mother bustled in the kitchen, the oven preheating, making herself right at home and kicking me and Danny out.
“Is that the first time your kitchen’s been used?” I whispered to Danny as we sat at the dining table side by side, our arms close, almost touching but not quite, watching my family being, well, my family.
“I use my kitchen,” Danny defended.
I snorted. “Boiling the kettle for tea doesn’t count.”
He made a face.
“Neither does reheating takeaway leftovers in your microwave.”
He nudged me with his arm. I nudged him back, a giggle escaping my throat.
I felt him watching me, could see his face turned towards mine out of the corner of my eye.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
It might have been the first time I’d heard those words coming out of his mouth. I knew how hard it was for him to say them.
I nodded, a small lump developing in my throat. “You’re welcome.”
55
____________
Danny
The dining table was just large enough to cram the six of us around it, elbow-to-elbow. I dragged two spare chairs from other rooms so everyone could sit. Ailis sat beside me on the long side, her two sisters on the other side of the table and her mother and father at the heads of the table.
The table was crammed with so much food: Brussels sprouts roasted with bacon, spuds dripping with Kerrygold butter, steaming white bread rolls, and the main event, the turkey perfectly golden covered in weaved strips of bacon across the top.
Chattering mixed with the clatter of plates and serving spoons as food was dished out.
“You have enough potatoes, Eileen?” Rachel said as she snatched the tray off her sister.
“It’s not that many,” Eileen defended, staring at her overflowing plate.
“Enough to feed the British army.”
“Ah, feck off.”
“Careful of this one here,” Rachel said as she leaned in towards me. “She’ll snatch food off ye plate.”
“I will not!”
“Ye will too, now.”
“Now,” Eileen said, leaning in, her eyes sparkling, “did Rachel tell you what she did last week with Andrea?”
“Oh my God, Eileen, shut up.”
“They gate crashed a wedding. A wedding at the fecking Savoy, no less! And walked right out with a bottle of wine under each arm, bold as anything!” Eileen cackled. “They were both munted the next day, served them right.”
Rachel smacked Eileen on the arm. “Tattletale. While we’re tellin’ stories…”
As Ailis and her sisters bickered, a strange, warm feeling coiled inside me. Emotions rose in me that I’d not felt before. An emptiness. I’d been walking around doing fine when I kicked over this rock and here was this well, so deep, so raw.
I wanted…this.
This noise.
This chaos.
This…warmth.
A smile tugged on my lips as I looked to my side and caught Ailis’s eye. She was watching me. Had she known what I had felt?
Your family is mental, I mouthed.
You are mental, she mouthed back.
I shot her a smirk. I didn’t say it was a bad thing.
Oh.
I like it.
Her smile widened. Well, then, thank you. She placed a hand on my knee under the table.
Before I knew what I was doing, I’d grabbed her hand, pressing it to my thigh and squeezed her fingers. Her eyes widened a touch with surprise before her features eased into that radiant trademark smile of hers.
Something tugged in me.
Before I could decipher it, her mother called my name.
“We’re so pleased to hear how well you’ve done,” Mrs Kavanagh said, breaking through our moment.
“Thank you.”
“I was worried for you after your poor mother passed on, God rest her soul.”
Ailis stiffened beside me. I squeezed her hand, telling her it was okay.
“So, where did you end up going to school, Danny?” Mrs Kavanagh asked. “Here in Dublin?”
I froze. Ailis never told her that we ended up at the same school? I glanced over to Ailis but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Why didn’t she tell her mother?
“No,” I said, turning back to Mrs Kavanagh. “Not in Dublin. Rachel,” I said to her sister, “Ailis tells me that you are looking to get into reporting for music and lifestyle magazines.”
No one seemed to notice my vague answer and my quick change of subject. Except for Ailis. I could see she was watching me out of the corner of her eye.
Rachel beamed at me, placing down her fork and leaning towards me. I could tell by the sparkle in her eyes that this was something she was incredibly passionate about. It was the same sparkle I got when I spoke about music. The same sparkle Ailis got when she hit on the right chord when we wrote music together.
“I just finished my degree,” she said. “I’m looking to get an internship, but they’re hard to come by. I was thinking of maybe going back to study a master’s.”
“If you like, I can contact some of the guys I
know who work for State and Pure M Magazine. See if I can put you in contact with them.”
Rachel let out a scream. I dropped my fork in horror, my ears splitting. Had she hurt herself?
“Rach,” Mrs Kavanagh cried. “What’s the matter?”
But Rachel ignored her. Her eyes were on me. “Oh my God, would you actually do that for me?”
That’s why she screamed.
I nodded. “Sure.”
Rachel proceeded to thank me profusely, as did Mrs Kavanagh. When I glanced to my side, Ailis’s lips were pinched together.
“You okay?” I asked Ailis in a low voice when the conversation had turned to something else.
Ailis wouldn’t meet my eye.
Before I could ask her what was wrong she stood up abruptly, grabbing the jug of gravy, almost sloshing it all over the table.
“We need more gravy. I’ll make more gravy.” She turned her narrowed eyes at me. “Danny, you should come and help me with the gravy.”
She stomped off to the kitchen.
Gravy. Right.
I wasn’t so dumb or inexperienced around women that I didn’t know that this was not about the gravy.
I stood and excused myself, following Ailis.
When I entered the kitchen, Ailis was standing with a bowl out, a box of gravy powder in her hand.
“What’s wrong?”
She ignored me and poured gravy powder into the bowl. I grabbed her hand and gently forced her to place the box of gravy down on the counter.
“Ailis,” I said gently, “that’s enough gravy.”
“Don’t do that,” she cried, whipping round to face me.
I blinked. Were we still talking about gravy? “Do what?”
“You can make promises to me that you won’t keep. I’m used to that. But don’t you dare do that to my sister.”
“What?”
“When you told her that you’d get her in contact with a bunch of reporters you knew. I know you were just saying that to be nice.”
The hell?
“It’s just going to get her hopes up,” she continued, “and when you don’t—”
