Chapter One #3
‘Heaven forbid.’
‘Don’t be cheeky now. You’ll be in my position any moment at your rate.’
She wasn’t wrong. He had watched a lot of Christmas movies in the last four months.
It had become a kind of routine: he’d close up the bakery and wind down while watching some glittering, joyful Christmas romance, regardless of the time of year.
After all, romance isn’t just for Christmas.
There was nothing more comforting than knowing things would be all right in the end, no matter what you were put through.
Christopher wished real life had that level of certainty.
‘Yes but I’ll just watch all of Nash Nadeau’s back catalogue again, and be glad of it,’ he says.
‘I would love to see that man’s back catalogue,’ says Shaz.
Me too, Christopher thinks to himself. Nash Nadeau’s various characters had started turning up in his dreams, always to whisk him off to some snow-dipped destination where they would kiss by the fireside and eat delicious food.
It was getting a little ridiculous. The last time he had a crush this intense was after he saw The Mummy Returns playing on ITV as a child, and had suddenly developed a fascination for both Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser.
‘Now, are you definitely sure you don’t want to stay here for your first Welsh Christmas? I’m sure we could squeeze you in on the kids’ table. I mean, you’d be wedged firmly into someone else’s armpit, but you’d be welcome.’
‘Thank you, but I’m sure. I wouldn’t want to impose anyway.’
‘It’s not imposing if I’ve offered. Plus, you’re on your way to being a local here – hardly anyone calls you “that one from London” or “English” any more. Sure, they don’t know your name yet, but at least they know you’re the baker guy.’
‘I’m practically born and bred.’
‘Don’t get any notions,’ she laughs. ‘Unless you were making a bread pun. Born and bread, get it?’
‘I wasn’t, but I wish I had.’
‘You’re staying with your sister and your ex-girlfriend-now-friend-slash-her-real-girlfriend, right?’
Christopher sighs, regretting that he had ever explained the intricacies of his family drama from last year to Shaz. ‘Haf and I weren’t ever technically dating.’
‘Oh yeah, fake-dating or whatever you kids call it,’ she says, as though this is something people regularly do, or as though she’s much older than him – Christopher is fairly sure there’s only a decade between them.
‘My parents are stopping by on the way to my grandparents’ up in Scotland. And I think our friends, Ambrose and Laurel, will come up the day after Boxing Day.’
‘Ah yes, Laurel. Your real ex-girlfriend.’
‘Correct.’
‘That sounds like a nice big reunion. Send me some photos so I can remember what grown-up Christmases look like while I’m being screamed at about Lego and Frozen and whether someone can have another snack.
’ She already looks tired. ‘Before I forget, you’re leaving the bakery keys with the house guest, yeah? ’
‘Oh. I was going to take them with me?’
Shaz fixes him with a look that says, You’re an absolute dingbat, though she’d probably say something much ruder than that.
‘Pop them through mine on your way, or if you run out of time, I’ll pick them up from your guest. I’d tell you to bring them over tonight, but the piranhas will be in the middle of their feeding frenzy, and trust me, you don’t need to see that.
Plus, I figure you’ll want to check you’ve turned everything off a good few times before you go. ’
It’s a little scary how well she knows him already.
‘Thanks, Shaz. That’s really kind of you.’
‘I know, I’m a saint.’
‘But if anything goes wrong—’
‘It won’t. And if I’m not sure of anything, I’ll get Tegan to come have a look. And if I’m really not sure, I’ll call you, all right?’
That seemed like a pretty decent plan, he had to admit.
‘What’s their name anyway?’
Christopher pulls up the booking confirmation on his phone. ‘Tessa Nichols?’
‘Hmm. Never heard of her. Must be a hermit.’
‘She’s not a hermit . . . I presume. She’s probably just visiting family.’
‘Nah, I’d recognise the name. Not like there’re many Nicholses around.
Anyway, I’ll know her what with her being inside your house and all.
I’ll make sure she doesn’t nick anything.
’ She’s joking, what with her wink and raised bicep, but Shaz is truly quite terrifying in that mums know what is happening at all times kind of way.
She downs the last of her coffee and hops to her feet, keys jingling in her hand.
She rushes round the counter, where she knows she’s not allowed to be, and pulls him into a big hug.
‘All right, I’ve got to go find out where I left my kids.
Text me when you go tomorrow, yeah? And wrap up warm.
The weather says it’s going to get somehow even worse. ’
‘Will do.’
She peers over the counter. ‘Who is left to pick up their puds?’
He checks the labels. ‘Oh, these are all for the Yangs.’
‘Give them here. Tammy lives on my street. Then you can close up.’
‘It’s too early. What if someone else comes?’
She looks around. ‘My sweet friend, it is deader than a graveyard in here. Plus, did I mention it’s witches’ tits out there. Everyone will be heading home if they have sense. Come on, lock the door behind me and finish for the day. What’s the worst that could happen?’
‘That’s not a thing to ask me.’ He laughs awkwardly.
‘I’m telling you, it’ll be fine. You need a bath and an early night.’
The voice in his head that sounds worryingly like his mother tuts, but Shaz is right. If anyone does come, he’d hear them knocking on the bakery door anyway.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Christopher, give me the puds.’
He hands them over, and she runs off to the front door with all her bags before he can change his mind.
‘See you next year!’ she shouts as she rushes out, only pausing outside the big window to mime opening champagne, filling glasses and doing shots.
Christopher takes this to be some kind of promise or perhaps a threat of a future celebration.
And once again, it’s just Christopher and his bakery. But this time, he can lock the door.
Thanks to Shaz, his break has officially begun.