Chapter 13 December 13th #2
“You shouldn’t have to thank me, it should never have come to that.” I carry on, Meredith flanking me, our pace leisurely. “Have you heard from him?”
“I’ve filed for a divorce.”
I wince. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“Nice jumper, Camryn,” Joshua says, holding up his Christmas mug in cheers.
I roll my eyes as we reach Debbie’s desk, and Meredith sets her coffee down. “I just have a few things to run over with Debbie,” she says.
“Then I’ll leave you to it.” I take the handle of my door.
“Where did you get it?” Meredith calls.
I turn my frown back to the two women. “What?”
“The jumper.”
I look down my front. “Some tat store around the corner. Why?” Both women claim their mugs and take sips, and it’s so fucking obvious that they’re doing it to restrain their smiles. “Okay,” I breathe, facing them. “What’s going on?” I feel like I’m the butt of everyone’s jokes today.
“It’s a cool jumper.”
“It’s a black fucking jumper with a Christmas hat on the front. It hardly justifies the airtime it’s getting.”
Debbie and Meredith cast looks to each other.
“What?” I snap, throwing my arms up.
“I wasn’t referring to the front of the jumper.” Debbie cocks a questioning look. “It’s the back that’s getting the airtime.”
“The back?”
“You didn’t see the back?”
“No, I didn’t see the back,” I say, looking over my shoulder, trying to see the back.
“Is there something on the back?” I find myself turning a full circle as I crane my neck, eventually giving up and taking it off.
And I die a million deaths when I see the words, big, fat red letters knitted into the design across the entire back.
“Oh. My. God,” I whisper, fucking horrified.
I turn my wide eyes and open mouth to Debbie and Meredith, who proceed to fall apart all over Debbie’s desk, cackling like witches.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I ask.
They can’t answer, because both of them are incapable of speech right now. So I go back to the words, as if I need it reaffirmed, as if the words might morph into other words, and I haven’t been walking around with SANTA’S FAVORITE HO emblazoned across my back all day.
Mortified, I bunch the jumper up in my fists, huffing out my indignation, but seeing Debbie and Meredith in a full-blown laughing fit takes the edge off my irritation.
Both women needed a laugh, and for that reason alone, I’m surprisingly happy to provide it, even if I’m rolling my eyes.
Besides, perhaps it serves me right for being so unapproachable, I reluctantly concede.
“I’ll be here same time tomorrow,” I quip, leaving them to pull themselves together, shutting my office door on their laughter.
I look at the jumper screwed up in my hand and shake my head to myself, stuffing it in my bag and calling the care home to check on Mum. “Hi, Deirdre, it’s Camryn.”
“Oh, Camryn, how are you?”
I frown. “Good.” I frown harder. “How are you?”
There’s a slight pause, and I wince, knowing Deirdre will be looking somewhat surprised. Have I ever asked her that? How she is? “I’m well.”
“Any visitors?” I ask, wondering if my brother’s finally shown his face.
“No visitors, Camryn.”
I shouldn’t be disappointed, but I am. “I’ll be there tomorrow.” As I go to hang up, I hear Deirdre call me, so I return my phone to my ear. “Yes?”
“The carols service.”
“What about it?”
“I wondered if perhaps you’d reconsidered.”
I press my lips together, my instinct yelling at me to shut this down, but I’m clearly behaving extremely out of character today, and I find some very unexpected words falling past my lips. “Let me see if I can move some things around.”
“Oh,” she sounds shocked. “That’s wonderful.”
Is it? I’m not so sure. I hang up and take a moment to process what I’ve just agreed to. Honestly, I can’t; I’m doing things and saying things I’m not sure are wise, and yet I can’t stop myself doing them and saying them.
I loved what you told me.
Dec.
A man of few words, and yet each one he speaks packs such a powerful and invigorating punch.
I’ve practiced my apology all the way here. Not to Dec, I hope he heard my sorry amid all the other things I told him when I kissed him outside his office. I’m yet to analyse what that was, it just feels so fucking huge. My apology is for Julio.
He clocks me the moment I step into the bar, and my face bunches. “I’m surprised to see you here,” he says, polishing a glass as I approach. “Or maybe I’m not.”
“I owe you an apology.”
“Sit down,” he says, dismissing me, flicking his head to my usual stool. “Two?”
I nod and do as I’m bid, perching and lowering my bag to the floor, rather than dropping it to the seat beside me, before making a quick scan of the bar.
“Who are you looking for?”
I throw Julio a tired look. “No one.” I reach down and pull my boots off, swapping them for my heels.
“The American checked out this morning, in case you were looking for him.”
“I wasn’t.” But I’m eternally relieved.
“Still snowing out there?” he asks.
“Relentlessly.”
“They’re predicting we’ve got weeks of it.”
I smile mildly, setting my phone on the bar. “Is this what we’re resorting to now? Mindless chitchat about the weather?”
“Do you want to talk about something else?”
I shrug, watching him go through the motions of making my dirty martinis. “I suppose it makes me just like any other patron you encounter daily.”
He laughs under his breath. “You are unlike any of my other patrons.”
“I’m not taking that as a compliment.”
“You should. You’re fascinating.”
I let out a light, low breath of laughter. “Stop talking, Julio, and get me my drinks.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says around a smile, pouring and setting the olives atop, then sliding them simultaneously across the bar to me.
I push one in front of the stool next to me.
Then I inhale, long and deep, glancing down at my phone to check the time, mentally working back to how long ago he messaged me to be here in half an hour.
It was thirty-five minutes ago. Butterflies are fluttering like crazy in my tummy, and I reach down, rubbing circles to try and calm them. It’s no good. God, I’m so nervous.
What did I say in that kiss? I accept you? I accept what this is? And what is this?
Growling my frustration under my breath, I reach for my glass and pull it forward, placing the olive aside—my mouth too dry to eat it—and take a sip, fidgeting terribly. I check the time again. Check my messages.
“Waiting for someone?” Julio asks.
“He’s late.” I smile timidly. “How rude.”
“He wasn’t late.”
“Sorry?”
Julio nods past me. “He’s been there for ten minutes watching you.”
I look over my shoulder, the butterflies flapping harder when I see Dec standing in the doorway, fully suited, his coat lying over the crook of his arm with his scarf. Have I ever set eyes on such a beautiful man? “Watching me,” I murmur as he slowly strides over. “What a creep.”
Julio laughs when I face him, the sound fading as he wanders out from behind the bar to serve a young couple who’ve settled in the far corner.
“Hello,” Dec says on an intentional whisper when he makes it to me, his eyes shining, sparkling so madly, like champagne bubbles popping in a glass.
“Hello,” I breathe, enamoured. So completely enamoured. I can do this. I can be vulnerable. I can allow the bricks to tumble and let him in.
A hardly-seen smile lifts one corner of his mouth, and he dips, slipping one hand onto my nape.
The closeness, the contact, sets off a bomb in my chest, as he drops a featherlike kiss on my cheek.
It’s light, it’s chaste, but God help me, it’s earthmoving.
I close my eyes and soak up every wonderful bit of him.
He smells outrageously wonderful. His bristles pressed against my cheek force me to concentrate on taking in air.
I’m rendered breathless when he pulls away.
“Two martinis?” he asks, turning the stool toward me and sitting.
I slide one closer to him. “This one’s for you.”
He can’t hide his small, satisfied smile. “Tell me about your day.”
“My day?”
He sips, eyes on me. “Yes, your day.”
“Okay,” I say, unsure. “Well, I ratted out the boss’s son.”
“Oh?”
The corners of his eyes crease as he squints in interest, silently encouraging me to go on. To talk. “He paid for first-class flights and a luxury cruise on his business card and was going to try and pass it off as a business expense.”
“Risky,” Dec muses. “And very, very stupid.”
“Agreed.”
“So how did you snitching on him go down?”
“Like a cup of puke.”
He huffs an amused puff of laughter. These smiles I’m not used to, the light bouts of laughter, they’re like preludes to the main event, a breathtaking buildup to something that could rob me of the ability to breathe completely.
To hear him laugh. I want that, and it’s an odd desire for me.
To want distraction by someone’s aura, their beautiful glow, rather than physical, mindless distraction.
I want that too. God, I want that too. But I’m also really fucking terrified it will seal the deal on my feelings for Dec.
The chemistry is potent, a constant sizzle between our bodies.
Our kisses have been like nothing I’ve experienced before. Healing.
“Sounds like you’ve had a day,” he says.
And now you’re here to take me away. “That’s not the half of it,” I go on, and Dec’s head tilts in question. “It was Christmas Jumper Day.”
He looks down my front, to my requisite black dress. “I can see you didn’t take part.”
“I did, actually. But wish I hadn’t.”
“Why?”
“It was all a bit of a rush,” I explain.
“I dipped into a store this morning and grabbed the first jumper I found.” I lean down and pull the offending object from my bag, then place it on Dec’s lap.
He puts his drink down and lifts it, and the words on the back glow, an encore of mortification creeping back up on me.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asks.
“The back.”