Christmas Spirit: An Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Age Gap MM Christmas Romance

by Ali Ryecart

  “Sorry, got to do this,” Georgie said, jumping up from the sofa they were sharing. “There,” he said, turning the Santa model that sat to one side of the fireplace around, so it faced the wall.

  “Why did you do that?”

  Georgie’s face reddened, and his lips lifted in a sheepish grin.

  “It kind of gives me the creeps. Stupid, I know, but it’s like it’s looking at me. Here, let’s have some more of these.”

  Georgie held out a large plate, stacked with sweet Christmas treats, to Roland.

  He knew what Georgie meant. The plaster model had a lifelike quality about it that was just the wrong side of comfortable. He even thought it had smiled, when he and Georgie had been settled in front of the fire.

  Ridiculous.

  “Thank you,” Roland said, picking up a couple of the little cakes. Mince pies, stollen and lebkuchen he recognised — he’d overseen the baking of all three at the Manor in recent weeks — but the other things he’d never come across.

  “What are these?” Georgie held up one of the miniature cakes studded with sharp, tangy berries and rich marzipan.

  “I don’t know. Scandinavian in origin, I suspect, but I’ve never come across them. Delicious, though.” He took a bite, and sour-sweetness danced on his tongue.

  “We’re not going home for Christmas, are we?”

  They had fallen into another comfortable silence, and Georgie’s stark words were a sudden jolt.

  Home. It had been a long time since he’d had a home, in the true meaning of the word.

  He’d had one when he had been a kid, he’d dreamed of one with a man he’d stupidly, blindly, believed had been his soul mate, before Hell had been unleashed… Roland shuddered. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, think about those dark and desperate days. A house. Yes, he had a house, a beautiful heap of bricks and mortar, but that’s all it was. He cleared his throat.

  “No, I don’t think we are. Nicholas said the roads are closed, and I don’t disbelieve him. I’ve never seen such a heavy snowfall, or not in this country. And the car’s damaged. It’s drivable, but it’d be far from safe in these conditions.”

  And I don’t want to go, because as strange as this place is, I’d rather be here. With you.

  The thought ached to become words. But he couldn’t say them. He was the Executive Chef, Georgie was the kitchen boy, and he’d been down that path once before. He’d vowed never to tread it again.

  He might not have had anybody to worry about him, and be concerned that he had not turned up to take part in the Christmas celebrations, but Georgie had people who were worried that he wasn’t with them — didn’t he?

  “What are — or were — your plans for Christmas?”

  Georgie had been about to take a bite from a Santa decorated gingerbread man. The biscuit rested against his lower lip as he stilled.

  “I was supposed to be flat sitting,” he said, putting the biscuit aside. He focused his attention on the fire, his face bright with the flickering light before he sighed and turned back to Roland with a small, sad smile that made Roland’s heart pang.

  “A friend of mine, Ned, who’s travelling around Southeast Asia, said I could spend Christmas at his place. It’s a lovely flat. I used to live there, I rented the spare room. It was great, and I felt really settled. Too settled, I suppose. When he asked me to leave, it was like I’d had my legs kicked from under me. But I should have seen it coming. Ned met somebody, and three’s a crowd, isn’t it?”

  “So you’re not spending Christmas with your family?”

  “No.” Georgie’s face tightened. “My mum and stepdad are the only family I have, if you can call them that, but I’ve not seen them in three years. I don’t know where they are and I don’t want to.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Georgie shrugged but said nothing as he turned back to staring into the fire.

  So, they were both in the same boat, Roland thought. Nobody waiting for them with open arms and a warm and loving smile. For all their differences, they were the same, anchorless, and drifting in an empty sea.

  Silence filled the room, broken only by the spit and crackle of the fire and the howling wind beating at the windows. Roland gazed at Georgie, unashamedly, not caring if the boy turned and caught him. A sadness and a kind of resignation had settled over Georgie, as tangible and heavy as an old blanket. He was too damn young to have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  “What made you apply for the job at Pendleton Manor?”

  A job that he’d helped make a living hell for Georgie. The unnoticed, unthought-of kitchen boy, except when he was being lambasted and — bullied. Bullied by everybody, bullied by him. He was King of his kitchen. He should have set an example for others to follow. He had, but he’d set the wrong one.

  “It’s weird,” Georgie said, still gazing into the flames. “I found a newspaper on the Tube, so I picked it up. It was open at the job vacancies pages. I didn’t think papers had those anymore, ‘cause everything’s online. And there it was. A live-in position. It seemed perfect because I needed somewhere else to live, after Ned got together with his boyfriend. I’d also just lost my job. In a kitchen. The owners sold up.”

  Georgie turned his attention to Roland, a sad, lopsided smile lifting his lips.

  “I loved that job. I loved the rush of being in a professional kitchen. It was a family run Italian place. Not that I was family, but they treated me well. They let me help out with some of the more basic preparation, and they gave me time off to go to college once a week — I’d started a part-time catering course.”

  Roland jerked, Georgie’s revelation taking him aback.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d started training?”

  “It was on my application.” Georgie shrugged. “I had to give up, what with losing both my home and job at about the same time. I thought, if I could get a foothold in another kitchen, I could work my way up by learning on the job. It was kind of what I was doing at the Italian restaurant. Seems I was wrong. Or at least when it comes to Pendleton Manor.

  “Everybody’s got a formal catering qualification and a lot of experience. No room for anybody else. That’s been made very clear. But working as a chef, even if I have to claw my way up, is what I want to do. As soon as I’ve saved enough money, I’ll leave and try my luck at getting a training position somewhere, maybe even restart college.”

  Roland could do nothing, other than stare at Georgie, as shame gnawed at his stomach. The memory crashed into him. Georgie had approached him about helping the junior chefs, he’d gathered up his courage, he’d shown ambition — and all Roland had done was knock him to the ground.

  He put aside his half-eaten mince pie. What had tasted rich and buttery and delicious was now as hard and tasteless as month-old pastry. He licked his suddenly dry lips.

  “Everybody who comes to work in the kitchen comes with a formal qualification and a personal recommendation. It’s the way I work. It’s how I’ve always run my kitchens and it’s served me well. It’s not a training kitchen, nobody has the time to…” He had been about to say spoon feed or nanny a member of staff, but the words felt like they would just be another blow. “We don’t have time to give the support a trainee needs and deserves.”

  “I know, I realise that now, which is why I’m going to have to move on as soon as I can. I get it. But I’m sorry, because it would have been good to learn from the best.”

  Georgie jumped up, suddenly and without warning, making his way to the large bay window, where he stared out into the dusk over the snowbound landscape.

  “It’s snowing hard again, and it’s already getting dark. How long have we been sitting here?”

  “I don’t know,” Roland said, getting up and following Georgie to the window. “Perhaps we dozed off.”

  Had they? He didn’t remember falling asleep in front of the fire…

  “I don’t think we did,” Georgie said, “but nothing else makes sense. It seems to be getting d
arker by the moment.”

  Roland gazed out over the barren gardens. Standing next to Georgie, he was aware of every atom of the boy’s presence, of each and every breath Georgie took, of the warmth of his skin. Roland imagined he could hear the rush of Georgie’s blood through his veins, and the beat of his heart. His own heart clenched. The boy who had started out as nothing more than an irritation, as an obstacle to his carefully laid plans, had become somebody he liked being with. More than liked.

  Images from the dream that had left his skin hot and his cock hard flashed through his head, illuminating the increasingly gloomy world on the other side of the window with flashes of light, lightning strikes in the dark and featureless void that was his life. Georgie was standing so close, was so still… What would Georgie say, what would Georgie do, if he pressed his lips to his, if he took control of that mouth? In his dream, it had felt so real. It had brought him to life from the dead place he’d been hiding in for so many years.

  “It’s so dark, and suddenly. Normally it creeps up on you, but it’s like a light’s been switched off.”

  “What?” Roland struggled to make sense of Georgie’s words as he fought his way to the surface of his fogged-up brain.

  “It’s like all the light in the world has been turned off and that doesn’t happen in England, does it? I mean, even when you’re deep in the countryside, there are roads and villages and towns not more than a few miles away, but here it’s like we’re outside of all that, somehow. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense. But, in a way I kind of like it,” he said, turning to Roland and smiling. “It’s like a break from the real world and real life, which isn’t that great. Or at least it isn’t in my case. Not like you, I guess. You’ve made it, and I’m not even on the first rung of the ladder.”

  Roland stared down at Georgie. There was no bitterness or green tinge of jealousy in Georgie’s words. He was stating a fact as he saw it. But he was wrong, so damn wrong.

  Yes, he had money, success, status, power, but in reality he had nothing, because he was alone, his life as featureless, cold, and barren as the winter-bound world beyond the window. But how could he even begin to explain to a boy who had nothing that he felt like the poorest man on Earth?

  They were close, no more than a few inches apart. In the grate the fire crackled and candles shimmered in the still air. The soft light shone on Georgie’s dark hair, and Roland itched to run his fingers through those strands. His breath was heavy in his lungs as his gaze fell to Georgie’s lips.

  Pink and damp, with a scattering of crumbs still clinging, how would they taste on those lips? Which would be sweeter? What would be more delicious? To find out, he only had to lean forward and taste—

  “Gentlemen, I hope you have enjoyed your refreshments, and that you are quite recovered from your earlier ordeal.”

  Both Roland and Georgie swung around, lurching back from each other as though jolted by an electric shock. Nicholas stood in the doorway, little more than a shadow in the undulating, uneven light.

  “Yes, thank you,” Roland said, his voice rough and hoarse, his face pulsing with heat.

  Roland rushed his fingers through his hair. He’d been about to kiss Georgie, a boy who worked in his kitchen. He couldn’t, shouldn’t. He could never do that again… If only the old man knew the favour he’d done him by his sudden arrival. Nicholas had stopped him from making a fool of himself. Then why did it feel like his heart had tumbled from his chest and crashed to the floor?

  “Ah, they are always trying to escape their tethers.”

  “What are?” Roland asked.

  Nicholas smiled as he stepped over to the Christmas tree.

  “The reindeer.”

  He bent and picked up a tree decoration that had fallen to the floor.

  Roland, with Georgie at his heels, made his way over to Nicholas, who held a wooden reindeer in his hands. The carving was exquisite.

  So lifelike. And those antlers—

  His skin prickled with the memory. He had to ask, he couldn’t not ask.

  “Before the crash, a herd ran across the driveway.”

  Deer, like any other, except—

  “But there was another. One like this. I saw it before I blacked out. It was huge.”

  “There are deer in the grounds. There have always been deer.”

  “But this was — I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in the Rockies, or Scandinavia.”

  “The herd is very old, sir.”

  “Old? But what’s that got to—”

  From its place on the mantle shelf, the ornamental clock struck a deep, reverberating chime.

  “Time is getting on, gentlemen. I’ve taken the liberty of lighting the candles in your room. The power, as you see, is still out.”

  “Time? But…” Roland’s words faded to nothing as he met Nicholas’ clear blue eyes.

  “Time, Mr. Fletcher Jones. It passes so quickly. Before you know it, it’s all behind you. All that time, full of everything you don’t want, empty of everything you do. Goodnight, gentlemen.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Georgie had meant what he said about being glad to be marooned in the strange hotel. A hotel which seemed to have only one member of staff and no other guests. It made no sense, none at all, but the warmth and the quiet had lulled him into accepting it all — and it was that, almost more than anything, that really didn’t make any sense.

  Almost more than anything… because what especially, absolutely, one hundred percent didn’t make sense, was Roland. Or, more precisely, his attraction to the man who, for almost six months, had been the cause of his life being a living, breathing hell.

  If Roland had treated him with a modicum of respect, the smallest shred of civility, the rest of the staff at Pendleton Manor would have fallen into line. Yet here, in this strange hotel, hadn’t there been glimpses, much more than glimpses, of another man behind the frosty, distant façade?

  The ill-tempered, disdainful man who ruled the kitchen at Pendleton with a rod of iron had softened, become less brittle and hard-edged, showing a side of himself Georgie suspected few, if any, saw. Generosity, or a rough sort of kindness, in Roland’s insistence on footing the bill for the hotel — a bill that had made Georgie’s stomach tighten when Roland had left a wad of cash — was evidence of that. But there was more, and that was Roland’s belief that a promise or commitment should be met. Roland hadn’t wanted to help him out, not at first, but the man had kept his word when everybody who had drifted through Georgie’s life had broken theirs without a second thought.

  And Georgie liked that about Roland, he liked it a lot.

  In the bedroom one solitary candle, fat and creamy, cast its wavering light over the bed, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. In the grate, yellow flames licked at the ashy logs.

  Georgie tried to ignore the bed, the bed that seemed even bigger, the bed he’d be sharing again with Roland.

  The bed where he’d had a dream that had been so vivid it could have been real…

  Perhaps I should try and sleep in the chair.

  “Roland.”

  “Georgie.”

  They spoke at once, and fell into silence at once.

  Georgie swallowed. The dancing, waxy light threw shadows over Roland’s face, pockets of darkness against pockets of light, shifting and undulating, and all the time his eyes shone bright and glittering.

  “You—you go first,” Georgie said, stumbling over his words.

  “I want to say thank you. For everything you’ve done for me, since the accident. Your concern, it was…”

  In the shifting light, Roland shrugged. The movement was small, almost nothing, but there was a sadness in the simple raise and drop of Roland’s shoulder that reached deep into Georgie’s chest, and squeezed his heart.

  “Still reckon you should have seen a doc, to get checked over.” Georgie cleared his throat, suddenly rough, dry, and thick.

  Roland laughed, rich and deep, the sound spilling down G
eorgie’s backbone.

  “Then it was just as well it was a minor accident, because we couldn’t have got to a doctor, and one couldn’t have got here. In case you’ve not noticed, we’re stranded. Honestly, Georgie, I’m fine. You really should trust me.”

  Roland smiled, but Georgie couldn’t smile back. With blood running from his pale and lifeless face, and slumped over the steering wheel, Roland had looked… He swallowed.

  “For a moment, I thought—I didn’t find your pulse, not at first—”

  “I’ve taken more than my share of knocks over the years so maybe I’m tougher than you seem to think.” Roland sighed. “But thank you. Your concern was touching, and rare.”

  Sadness. Like the shrug, Roland’s words were brimming with sadness, and a bone-numbing loneliness, as cold and deep and fathomless as the ocean. Georgie wanted to take that sadness away, to lift its weight from Roland’s shoulders, if only for a moment, because he knew what it was to be sad and alone. With no thought, with only instinct to guide him, Georgie leaned into Roland and, cupping his hands to the back of Roland’s head, eased him down into a kiss.

  It was little more than a brush of lips. It was a kiss of comfort and care, of wanting to make something right. It was the softest, most heartfelt kiss Georgie had ever given, because all he wanted was to ease the sadness Georgie knew, just knew, wound itself around Roland’s soul.

  Georgie stared up at Roland. Under the wavering candle light, Roland’s eyes were dark and shadowed, unreadable. And he was still. So, so still. Georgie’s heart beat a fast and wild rhythm.

  What had he done? Roland was his boss… if he needed a reason to fire him, this was it… Roland would think he was coming onto him, making a pass… and he wasn’t. Was he?

  Georgie ran a shaking hand down his face.

  “Oh—oh, God,” he stammered. “I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t mean—I mean I did, but not because—”

  “I think the staff handbook says kissing the boss is a sackable offence,” Roland said, his voice even and measured. “I’ll have to insist Julia changes the rules.”