Chapter 18
Molly
Max has been positively angelic so far today. I recognise an olive branch when I see one, but instead of allowing me to move on from the damage he did last night, his thoughtful behaviour is reeling me in. Touching me in places I swore I’d never let Max Rutherford touch me again.
Running Mike and Mia home last night was a thoughtful gesture (unless he recognised the importance of getting out of my hair after pissing me off so royally at the Christmas market).
Handing me that heavenly lie-in, a concept that’s been about as real to me as a unicorn this year, was a giant step up from that.
For someone who doesn’t want kids, he tolerates mine remarkably well.
Granted, he hasn’t gushed over them much to me, but he seems to have a not horrible time with them.
I heard the shrieks of laughter through my haze of sleep this morning.
He’s also good with them. They listen to him and seem to respect him. Kids can smell a bullshitter a mile off, and Toby and Daisy have taken to Max unquestioningly. If he despises their grimy little guts, they definitely haven’t got that memo.
Like now, for example. Max’s pièce de résistance today has been taking charge of the massive headache that is decorating our home for Christmas.
I know I should be all over it, especially given I work somewhere as gorgeous and inspiring and festive as Sorrel Farm.
But it’s been just another painful item on the to-do list, one that requires sheer physical strength as well as high energy levels and, presumably, some festive spirit.
And I don’t have any of those.
But back to now. Not only did Max order us to dig out our Christmas jumpers from last year and sweep us all off to the farm, but he bought everyone hot chocolate (his and mine were laced with Bailey’s and were outrageously good).
Now he has Daisy on his shoulders. For someone who’s not a fan of under-eighteens, he’s doing a remarkably convincing impression of a donkey, and for someone who should be able to tell if an adult finds her odious, Daisy’s all over him.
She’s pulling his ears to steer him, and smoothing down his beanie, and squishing his face, and shrieking come on donkey donkey at the top of her voice, and miraculously he hasn’t bucked her off yet.
On the contrary, he has a strong grip on both of her ankles, just above her bright red wellies, and he’s laughing in between making ridiculous noises as he trots (yes, trots) around the field housing the felled trees. Toby, utterly delighted and overcome with excitement, cavorts alongside them.
So yes. It appears Max has magically transformed what was a much-dreaded chore into a delightful, festive outing.
But the worst part? The worst part is that, to all extents and purposes, he’s making it look like a delightful, festive family outing.
Because, come on. Hot, strapping guy prancing around with an adorable, tow-headed little blonde on his shoulders?
It’s dad-porn! We could so easily be a family to any casual onlooker, and that gives me a kick and breaks my heart at the same time.
I want to shout look at us! But that’s ridiculous, because this is not real, so how pathetic does it make me that I’m happy to go along with the fantasy we’re portraying?
The answer is exceedingly pathetic.
The guy is perfect. He always has been, apart from the fact that his life vision dared to clash irreconcilably with mine. And, at one point, I think he would have said exactly the same about me.
It shouldn’t be this much of a revelation, seeing him like this with my kids.
He never said he wasn’t up for the regular dad stuff.
I know it was never about Max not having the energy or motivation to have children.
It was, for him, far more about self-preservation.
He was willing to forgo the highs of parenthood in order to protect himself from any potential lows.
I wasn’t.
And that’s the tragic kicker. Because the rest of it was pure magic, and the attraction has never gone away.
I’m painfully aware of the tension between us.
The heat. Aware of my own inconvenient feelings towards him—feelings that stopped me from having a perfectly lovely, harmless kiss with Paul last night—and of the feelings he’s communicated to me over the past few days.
You know, like telling me putting his hands on me had given him a boner.
Or that I looked so fucking beautiful last night.
God, when that man says things like that to me I want to melt at his feet like a chocolate fondue and beg him to take me to bed.
And it’s spectacularly unhelpful to think about Max’s erection, even for a split second.
Because that monster is something I don’t need to be reminded of.
Even after twelve years, the thought of it makes me salivate. Literally.
But I am not a twenty-one-year-old anymore. I’m not some girl whose only agenda is whether she can get the youngest, hottest Rutherford brother to kiss her under the mistletoe.
I’m a mother of two kids, and my only two options are to stay deliberately single or find them a new father.
Not to think with my lady parts. Even if the guy currently prancing around with my kid looks like something out of a premium weekend clothing campaign, with his soft grey beanie showcasing the sharp jut of his stubbled jaw and his warm jacket only accentuating the broad hulk of his shoulders.
He’s even making his festive jumper work for him.
It may sport snowmen and snowflakes and Christmas trees in rows of Fair Isle, but it’s hot.
The guy’s clearly managed to squeeze in a winter clothing shopping spree between processing my kids and repairing dry stone walls, and the results are working well for him.
Yeah.
It’s really, really shit.
@Wonderwomen of Sorrel Farm group WhatsApp chat:
SADIE:
How did THE DATE go last night Molly?
EVELYN:
Yesss! Tell us.
CLARA:
Did you kiss him?
ME:
It was lovely. He was perfect. Very sweet, very gentlemanly
SADIE:
I sense a but…
Ugh I don’t know. I had fun but I don’t know how I feel about him. Even though he’s seriously gorgeous. And no, I didn’t kiss him!
ZOE:
I’m glad you had fun, sweetie. You deserve it x
JESS:
Me too, though I won’t rest till we’ve got you laid
EVELYN:
Give the girl some time, Jess! It’s been one date!
JESS:
If you know, you know
I definitely don’t know
CLARA:
How did he leave it?
He left things in my court. He says he wants to see me again and he’s already texted me today
EVELYN:
What a good boy. And he sounds super keen
NORA:
Sorry, I was tied up. What did I miss?
SADIE:
Tied up figuratively or literally?????
NORA:
NO COMMENT
SADIE:
OMG
There is one other thing. Max was really hostile to him when he came to pick me up, and then he showed up at the market and just stood there and gave us dirty looks while we were watching the choir
CLARA:
Oh. My. God. This is far more exciting.
NORA:
Maybe they could fight a duel?
Been bingeing Bridgerton again, Nor?
NORA:
I have no choice. I can’t watch Grosvenor, because watching my best friend pretend to shag her now-fiancé on screen is plain creepy
Fair
EVELYN:
Angus mentioned a few of them were going to the market. Do you think he went there to stalk you?
Honestly not sure. But I bollocked him when we got home and he’s been nice as pie this morning
CLARA:
Told you there was something there. What are you going to do?
Ignore all men forever and buy a cat?
ZOE:
Did Max have Daisy on his shoulders this morning, by any chance? And was she wearing red boots?
Yes, when we went to buy a tree. How the hell did you know that?
ZOE:
Just a feeling I had. I sense a growing affection between those two
CLARA:
You are seriously, seriously spooky Zoe
NORA:
Hey. Don’t knock Zoe’s special gifts. They helped me get my Happy Ever After, remember?
EVELYN:
Anyone else finding Max’s behaviour last night quite hot, if a little toxic? Or am I just hard-wired to find those Rutherford men attractive?
Sigh.
You’re not the only one.
When I’m done batting back replies to my smutty friends’ smutty texts, I trail back into the living room to find Max is already on the case.
He’s secured the tree in the cast-iron base he lugged out of the garage.
The boxes are sorted into piles based on whether they contain tree decorations or general household trinkets, like the burlap-clad Santas or the nativity set.
He’s even lit the wood fire and hooked his phone up to our speakers.
Instead of the high-octane eighties Christmas classics he insisted on in the car, Bing Crosby is crooning in the background, and I appreciate the mellow vibe.
He’s located both sets of white fairy lights for the tree and is doing that man thing of plugging them into the mains first to make sure they work.
I lean against the doorframe and watch the scene.
He’s squatting on the floor, his festive jumper straining over his back and shoulder muscles, dirty blonde hair falling over his eyes as he fiddles with the lights, unspooling them carefully from the thick cardboard around which they’re wrapped and handing length after length to Toby, who snakes them painstakingly on the floor.
Daisy, meanwhile, is elbow-deep in a box of what are almost certainly glass baubles, cooing to herself in delight. Beyond the room’s large picture window it’s starting to sleet, the sky prematurely dark, but inside, the fire’s taking nicely and Bing’s crooning, and it is pretty damn delightful.
‘This looks like a good production line,’ I comment, and Max looks up at me, shooting me a grin so warm, and so genuinely contented, that my breath catches in my throat.
Maybe, just maybe, the memories we create today will override some of the kids’ Daddy-centric memories of Christmases past. For Toby, especially.
I can’t imagine Daisy’s memories go back too far yet.
‘Found myself some helpful elves,’ Max says dryly, and I manage to smile.
‘Mummy. Mummy. I’m helping with the lights,’ Toby announces. ‘Max said we have to untangle them before we put them up.’
‘He’s right,’ I tell him. ‘The lights are the trickiest bit. We need to get them on first, and then we can hang up our baubles.’
Max gets to his feet, still holding one end of the string of lights.
‘How about this?’ he says to the room at large.
‘Your mummy feeds me the lights as I do the highest bit, and then, when the lights are on, I’m going to get everyone a drink and some yummy Christmassy treats that I may or may not have bought from the farm shop earlier. ’
Once again, I have that feeling, like we’re acting out some kind of nauseatingly perfect family vignette here, but it’s about as real as The Truman Show.
It’s almost too cruel. We’re so near to, and yet so far from, the kind of traditional family unit that I know is no longer the norm in our society, but which I still desperately want for my kids.
After all, it’s the vision that drove me to break up with the love of my life.
Still, I know I’ll drive myself to distraction if I continue to step back and observe and over-analyse every single interaction Max has with the three of us. I need to take it all at face value.
There’s a sweet (when he’s not stalking my dates or cockblocking me), dreamily handsome man who’s in my home, giving my kids a brilliant time of it, and taking a tonne of the workload and pressure off my shoulders.
It shouldn’t matter what it is or is not.
Bottom line: he’s here, and I’m determined to enjoy the here and now.
‘Is there, by any chance, wine in that bag of goodies you brought home?’ I ask, fluttering my eyelashes at him.
‘Even better.’ He grins. ‘Champagne.’
‘In that case,’—I weave my way between the boxes on the floor and hold out my hands for the lights—‘let’s get this bit over with.’