Chapter 19 December 19th #3
He wrinkles his nose. “Camryn, I’ve eaten enough cake this morning to put Bruce Bogtrotter to shame. I don’t know if my cholesterol levels can take much more.”
I throw my head back on a laugh. “Oh my God, Matilda is our favourite film. I can’t believe a man of your standing knows who Bruce Bogtrotter is.”
Dec stares at me, and all amusement drifts from my face when I realise what I’ve just said. “Yours and Noah’s?” he asks softly.
Oddly, I don’t fold in on myself. I don’t crumble at the realisation that I’ve talked in present tense about my dead son. “Yeah, mine and Noah’s.” The lump in my throat though? That’s there. And it’s okay for it to be there.
“Tell me,” he says, handing me a cup piled high with marshmallows and cocking his arm for me to link. “I want to hear about him, if you want to talk about him.”
If I want to talk about him. Always. And I feel strong enough to now.
“Noah had a teacher called Miss Honey,” I say, letting Dec walk us on, watching as the steam breaks through the gaps in the puffs of sugar and dissipates in the frigid air.
“He threw a tantrum on his first day when Miss Honey introduced herself as Miss Honey. Stood up from the carpet and declared her a liar.”
“Oh God,” Dec says around a light, soft laugh.
“Yeah, the first day of pre-school didn’t go to plan.
” I smile to myself, revisiting the moment we had to sit Noah down and explain why his Miss Honey didn’t look like the Miss Honey.
His little four-year-old mind just couldn’t get around it.
“I bought him the book for his birthday,” I go on, dipping and nibbling a bit of marshmallow. “That just made things worse.”
“How?”
“None of the characters drawn in the book looked like the characters in the movie.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Yes. It was stomped on and tossed in the recycling bin.”
“Poor kid.”
“He told all the kids Miss Honey was a fraud.”
“The innocence,” he muses. “How simple the world is when you’re a kid. No adulting to do. No one to keep happy, no bills to pay, feelings to hurt, or grief and heartache to feel.”
“Kids are not kids for long enough anymore.”
“Here.” Dec plucks a marshmallow off the top of my cup and pops it in my mouth so I don’t have to release him to do it myself. “Good?”
“Very,” I waffle around the lump, making him smile. “Have . . . ou . . . ied . . . ot . . . et?”
“Sorry, what?”
I chew and swallow, licking at my lips. “Have you tried the hot chocolate yet?” I can’t get to mine until I’ve chomped my way through these marshmallows.
Dec dips and blows across the top, making the steam billow away from us, then he tentatively puts the cup to his lips and takes a sip. “Oh wow,” he murmurs, his eyes widening at me. “That’s insane.”
I smile, that statement coming out of Dec’s mouth sounding odd. “Good?”
He stops us walking and reaches for my cup, knocking off the marshmallows and sending them tumbling to the ground. “You don’t need those. Get to the good stuff.”
“It’s that good?”
“Try it.”
So I do, blowing too, before taking a sip, my eyes widening also. “Christ.”
“Right?” Dec sups some more, looking up to the sky. “I think it’s got a bar of melted Dairy Milk in it.”
“Definitely,” I agree. “It’s so velvety.”
“But not too sickly.”
“I can’t confirm that until I’m finished.”
And we stand beside each other, working our way through our drinks, the heat in my belly warming me up a treat.
But not as well as Dec’s arm around me. I watch him tip his head back to get the very last drop from the bottom of the cup, his stubble-coated throat appearing from beneath his scarf.
Unable to resist, and not wanting to, I turn into him and reach up on my tippy-toes, pushing my lips onto his neck, feeling him swallow under my mouth, his cup poised at his lips for a second before he pulls it away and peeks down at me, lowering and angling his head just right to kiss me, our chocolatey tongues swirling softly, our bodies pushing closer.
“Yum,” he whispers, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth. When I smile, it pops free, and Dec inhales, taking my cup and tossing it in a nearby bin with his before tucking me under his arm and getting us walking again. “What’s your least favourite colour?” he asks.
“Yellow.”
“Figures.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bet your favourite’s black, isn’t it?”
“Actually, yes. And I bet yours is grey.”
He scrunches his nose and gets me in a headlock, mauling at my ear, and I laugh, easy, light, and . . . happy.
We pass a few pop-up stalls, all loaded with an array of Christmas gifts and decorations, none of which I’m interested in, but something catches my eye and I find myself steering us that way.
I home in on a snow globe that’s been placed on a raised stand, set apart from the endless other snow globes.
This one’s different from the colourful Christmas scenes in each and every other glass dome.
This one has just a white feather inside it, nestled in snowflakes. “What is it?” Dec asks.
Trapped.
“Nothing.” I back away from the stall, forcing a smile when Dec looks at me. He doesn’t get a chance to push me. His phone rings, and he roots through his pocket and pulls it out, rejecting the call from Office. “Do you need to get that?” I ask.
“They’ll text or email if it’s urgent.”
“Could be about your potential acquisition of TF Shipping,” I say casually, watching my feet as I walk.
“I doubt it. Thomas Fryer is hardly prompt when it comes to replying in a timely manner.”
I laugh. “I feel your pain. What if he’s changed his mind?” I ask. “Off the back of you slashing your offer?”
“Then you get to keep the job you obviously hate.”
I nod, breathing in my reality. “Can you believe he was scared to fire me?”
“Yes.” Dec laughs, and I nudge him with my shoulder. He quietens down. “You’re not the woman you want the world to see, Camryn,” he says, hooking his arm around my neck and pulling me closer, pushing his mouth into the top of my head. “And I totally understand why you’re like that.”
“I don’t want to be like that.”
“I know that too,” he whispers. “And it’s one of the reasons why I love you so much.”
I smile.
And we walk on. Quiet. Just . . . together.
Hours later, after passing endless Christmas markets, enjoying a few more hot drinks, and having an impromptu mini tour of some of the landmarks hard-core Londoners neglect to appreciate when they’re immersed in the grandeur of the city daily, we find ourselves on King’s Road.
I’ve talked about Noah non-stop, his funny little traits, his loves, his hates, and I didn’t break down once.
My throat clogged up, my eyes stung, my heart squeezed, but I never fell apart.
Dec listened. He asked me questions. He smiled with me, and he held me close to his side as we walked, squeezing me into him a little harder when I needed it and kissing my hair often.
It’s been a lovely day—a special day—and I couldn’t have done any of it without him.
Dec stops us outside a store window, pulling me round to face it. I’m met by a mannequin in a muted gold mini shift dress, with a chic slash neckline. “You’d look amazing in that dress,” he says.
“It’s gold.” I frown at the beautiful dress.
“Try it on.”
“What? No.”
He grabs my hand and pulls me into the store. “Yes.”
“Dec, it’s a gold bloody dress. My favourite colour’s black, remember?” Gold is very nearly a shade of yellow, my least favourite colour.
“My girlfriend would like to try on the dress you have in the window.”
I freeze, those words knocking all fight out of me. His girlfriend. It probably sounds a bit stupid for me to balk at that statement, since declarations of love have been tossed around, but still. It’s shaken me. I’m his girlfriend. I’m his girlfriend whom he loves.
“Oh, it would look fantastic on her,” the assistant gushes, coming out from behind the counter, all big, bouncy hair and lashes. “Your colouring, your legs.”
“You can’t see my legs,” I murmur, looking down at my jeans.
“I can see your legs,” she assures me, pulling one of the dresses off the rail and holding it up. “I’ll pop it in the changing room.”
She disappears, and I turn into Dec, finding him looking at me fondly. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Just imagining you in that dress.”
“Do they have it in black?” I ask, semi-scowling.
“No.” He takes my hand and pulls me toward the back of the store.
“You haven’t asked.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re trying the gold.”
“And where am I going to wear a gold dress, Dec?”
“You’re going to wear it for me tonight when I take you out.”
I stop, forcing Dec to a stop too, and he turns, his face its familiar impassive beauty that I love so much. “We’re going out?”
“Yes,” he answers, assertive, leaving no room for protesting.
“And we’ll keep walking and talking, drinking hot drinks.
The only difference is, you’ll be wearing a gold dress instead of wellington boots, and I’ll have some clean clothes on instead of the clothes I wore yesterday.
We might even stop for dinner somewhere.
Have a drink. Maybe, who knows? It’s all a bit up in the air at the moment, but I hope we’ll finish off the day in my bed, for no other reason than I can’t bear the thought of not cuddling you all night. ”
“You hope?” I parrot, my smile stretching across my face.
“More than I’ve ever hoped for anything.”
“You love me. You just referred to me as your girlfriend, so I’d say me being in your bed tonight is a given.”
“Go try on the dress,” he says quietly, jerking his head toward the changing rooms. “And don’t show me.”
I slink off and look at the dress hanging on the hook as I strip out of my coat. “I’m buying the dress if I like it,” I call.
“Shut up.”