Chapter Twelve Christmas Is Going to the Dogs
chapter twelve
Christmas Is Going to the Dogs
Aaron fucking hated that new car smell.
It was artificial. Performative. Someone trying to convince you they had their shit together with leather seats and overpriced air freshener.
A lie disguised as polish. No different from spraying cologne over three days of sweat and pretending that made you clean.
But here he was, strapped into the passenger seat of whatever self-congratulatory penis-extension this was, with Hugo Blackwell behind the wheel.
Designer suit, smug smile, aftershave strong enough to make his nose sting.
He resisted the urge to roll the window down and vomit.
He reminded himself, once again, that this was for the dogs.
For the cameras. The stupid festive photos to get hearts melting and fingers clicking to donate.
This was a PR move to pull on the public’s last working nerve.
Local boy and rescue dogs visit the homeless shelter with the mayor in tow.
Cue the soft-focus lens and swelling music.
People didn’t buy Christmas cards anymore. They donated. Guilt was the new glitter. And yeah, fine, it was a good cause. The shelter needed funds. The dogs needed homes. The island could do with a bit more compassion.
He just wished he wasn’t stuck doing it next to this bloke.
“Thank you for stepping in to do this, Aaron.” Blackwell had one hand on the wheel, one arm draped on the centre console, as they turned into the heart of town. “I think you might be the right draw.”
Aaron said nothing.
He ducked deeper into his scarf, chewing on his bottom lip as the streets blurred past the passenger window. He could feel Blackwell’s glance. Measuring. Lingering. But he refused to give him the satisfaction of looking back.
Everything about Blackwell put Aaron on edge, and it didn’t matter that there were two dogs in the boot and Jonathon on the backseat with his headphones in.
He still felt as if he were alone with the man.
Was it because he reminded him of that foster carer?
The one who held doors open only to shut them behind him? Or was there something more nefarious?
Or, as Kenny would say, intuitive?
If he stopped to analyse it, and he probably should considering who he was sleeping with, Blackwell grated on him because he was polished to the point of parody.
All smooth charm and curated smiles, as if he practiced them in the mirror until they passed inspection.
He didn’t talk, he performed. Every compliment came laced with terms and conditions, approval dressed up as generosity.
Aaron knew the type. He’d grown up under it.
People who used warmth like a crowbar.
Pry. Wedge. Crack.
Fuck, his mother was the blueprint. All saccharine smiles and manicured cruelty, served with a side of religious delusion and full-blown batshit. Or, in clinical terms, narcissistic sociopath with psychotic tendencies.
He knew what manipulation looked like when it wore a kind face.
And Blackwell’s face was too kind.
“It’s nice to get this time with you.” Blackwell adjusted the heater, the vent hissing and blowing warm air directly at Aaron’s face, making his hair lift as if he was in some staged ad for shampoo and trauma. “To get to know you a bit.”
Aaron turned the vent away. The silence was his answer.
But Blackwell wasn’t done. “Tessa mentioned you’re new to the island, too?”
Aaron nodded. Lips zipped.
“How long?”
Persistent bastard.
Any other time, Aaron would’ve told him to shut up.
Not even rudely. Flat. He’d rather sit in silence sharp enough to cut skin than make small talk with men like Blackwell.
Why hadn’t he thought to shove his earbuds in like Jonathon?
But as Blackwell paid his wages, signed his ID card, allowed him entrance to the dog shelter, and the one who’d decide whether he got the higher paying job, Aaron felt as if he couldn’t be…
well, himself. And while Aaron wasn’t desperate for the money, it funded the real work.
It meant mornings like the one he’d had, crouched in the kennel with Lucky, the trembling lurcher he’d named on instinct.
She’d taken a crumb of food from his hand today. Only the one piece. But it was a start.
That alone was worth swallowing his pride for, listening to his inner Kenny telling him to play nice and speak.
“Couple of years.”
“What brought you here?”
“The boat.” Aaron watched sleet smear across the windscreen as if the sky was spitting at them.
Blackwell chuckled. “What a coincidence.”
Aaron didn’t bother replying. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
On the sleet-streaked windscreen, the grey sprawl of water giving way to the familiar lines of town.
Buildings hunched against the weather. Traffic lights blinking through the rain.
The sea, somewhere distant behind it all, a murky blur existing more as a threat than view.
Thankfully, the car slowed. Turned off the main road.
Tyres crunched over gravel laced with old grit and ice.
Two streets from where Luke Wells had last been seen alive as Aaron had learned that morning, the shelter came into view.
A squat, two-storey building tucked behind the covered market, beside the edge of a former churchyard.
It looked as though it had once been something else.
An old parish hall, maybe. Now it wore its repurposing like an ill-fitting coat.
Streaked paint, fogged-up PVC windows, a sagging front door that opened and closed too many times without ever really welcoming.
Christmas had done its best.
Plastic holly zip-tied to the handrails.
Battery-powered fairy lights blinking around the lintel, half dead, the rest flickering like a failing pulse.
A pop-up artificial tree slouched beside the entrance, its foil base flapping in the wet, tinsel drooping as if it couldn’t quite commit to joy.
And above the door, a torn banner read Hope Starts Here.
Aaron couldn’t comment if that were true.
The crowd had already assembled. Volunteers in branded hi-vis handed out thermal mugs and leaflets, breath misting in the cold.
A news crew adjusted tripods under tarps, shielding cameras from the sleet.
A reporter with blow-dried hair and too-clean boots recited lines to a man in a mayoral chain, who fumbled a folded speech while two aides clutched branded donation tins.
Aaron watched it all through the fogging glass.
The theatre of it.
The performance of compassion.
Festivity layered like tinsel over hardship. Decorative, temporary, and ultimately, hollow.
It reminded him of the halfway house in London where he’d spent four Christmases.
Four years of paper hats, institutional tinsel, and staff paid to pretend that maybe next year would be different.
That someone might see him. That a family might take him in.
That he’d be chosen. That someone might believe he was worth saving.
Never happened.
No one came.
He was also unrehomeable.
So he stepped out of the car, heart already pulling back behind walls he thought he’d left behind.
The cold hit first. Sharp and slicing. Then came the noise.
Laughter, movement, greetings exchanged.
Jonathon joined him at the back of the car, gave a smile and retrieved the Labrador puppy he’d brought.
Aaron unclipped Chaos and both dogs bounded out eagerly, tails wagging, utterly unaware they were props in a Christmas photo op.
He envied them that.
“Big turnout,” Blackwell said, straightening his coat, smoothing his tie. “The right balance of grit and hope. Should make the evening bulletin.”
Aaron crouched to adjust Chaos’s lead, stroking through the dog’s thick coat, grounding himself.
He hated this.
The press. The staged charity. How something as ugly and complicated as homelessness was being dressed up like a fucking Hallmark card.
He knew it brought money. Knew it saved lives.
But it still felt like theatre. And a little grotesque considering someone connected to the shelter had been murdered a mere day ago.
He’d half expected the place to be in mourning. Quiet. Muted. Draped in black.
Oh wait, hang on…
The annex doors swung open and a man emerged.
Large. Full of life. Cheeks as red as his cranberry lips, with his long black cassock flaring in the wind like a cape, more superhero than saint.
The white clerical collar pressed neatly to his throat marked him as clergy.
Priest? Chaplain? Pastor? Whatever the proper term was.
Aaron didn’t know the right formality. He avoided people like that on instinct.
Hard to trust anyone draped in robes when his bloodline traced back to a cult who preached salvation while practising control.
Or, again, to call it what it was: psychopathic murder rituals.
With square glasses framing eyes crinkling at the edges and silver curls tucked neatly behind his ears, the man’s smile arrived first. As if smiling was his thing.
“Welcome, welcome!” He clapped his hands with theatrical warmth before extending one towards Blackwell. “Chaplain Wynter. An absolute pleasure.”
“The pleasure’s all ours,” Blackwell said with a tight grin, shaking quickly before pulling back and smoothing his tie, as if he’d dipped his fingers in something unpleasant. “You know Jonathon.”
Wynter nodded and Jonathon desperately tried to hold onto the Lab’s lead.
“And this is Aaron.” Blackwell gestured to him. “Looking to be our new outreach coordinator. Current dog handler.”
The chaplain turned to Aaron with a beam so polished it practically glowed. “Oh, how wonderful!” He then smiled down at the dogs.