Chapter Six
Christopher
It doesn’t take very long for Christopher to start wondering whether the innkeeper was onto something when he told Mary and Joseph to go and stay in the barn.
Nash takes up a lot of space. Even just drinking his coffee and gathering his wet things, his movements feel much bigger than his person.
He does wash his cup up in the small sink behind the counter without being asked, which gets him a couple of points, but they are quickly cancelled out by him saying, ‘You know, I’m pretty sure several horror movies start this way.
Tiny rural town, trapped in a snowstorm . . .’
Christopher ignores him and instead leads him through the bakery’s kitchen so they can take the internal stairs up to his flat.
‘See? Plenty of weapons to hand . . .’ Nash nods at the kitchen knives hanging on the wall. ‘Hang on, are these your initials?’ he asks, looking at them more closely.
‘Yes, we had to label them at cookery school so no one would get their sets mixed up,’ Christopher defends himself, stiffly.
‘Sure.’
He wants to add, ‘Of course we have knives, they’re slightly integral to a kitchen,’ but he’s not sure how an exhausted North American would take a dose of British sarcasm, and even if Nash is annoying him, he doesn’t really want to upset this actual stranger before they share his tiny flat for the night.
Be polite. Be normal. This is a weird situation and yes you’re feeling a bit emotionally tested but you can get through one night.
He loves this kitchen. It isn’t large, but the sense of calm he always feels in here washes over him, even now.
The gleaming stainless steel. The permanent smell of butter and sugar that hangs in the air.
The flour-dusted floor tiles that never get completely clean, as though the flour is baked into them from all the people walking through.
His Christmas might have taken a turn for the .
. . bizarre, but at least he is at the bakery. At least he has his safe haven.
And now Nash is trying to joke it could be the site of some kind of murder?
Someone is going to get murdered at this rate, Christopher thinks darkly.
A tiny little corridor leads round the back of the building to the stairs up to the flat. ‘This is it.’
Christopher takes off his shoes at the bottom of the stairs. To his relief, Nash has the manners to do the same.
It’s a weird thing seeing your own home through someone else’s eyes. This was precisely what he was hoping to avoid; originally, he was hoping he could just meet Tessa outside the bakery before scarpering off for his train.
He hovers uselessly while Nash appraises his slightly ramshackle flat.
Christopher has always liked it, even though it’s pokey and a bit cold and the walls look slightly wonky.
Cosy, that’s what the estate agent called it.
But now, he can’t help but see the cookbooks stuffed everywhere, even if he did clean up all the piles and consolidate them into one tall pile against the very full bookshelf.
The hallway console table is decorated with a vase Laurel gave him, which is empty – perhaps that was a little thoughtless?
The kitchen is a standard, slightly battered IKEA set-up that basically every student house has, and the fridge is so little that he has to bend down to put stuff in it.
The TV is thankfully on standby. He can’t imagine what Nash thinks of this place.
But Nash just asks, ‘So, where should I put my case?’
‘In here,’ Christopher says, ushering him to the bedroom.
This room looks the most normal. He tried to keep it as clean and empty as possible when he moved in so that his brain would have fewer things to latch onto, and so he painted it a deep, calming forest green.
The fresh towels are still folded on the end of the bed, which is made up with clean jersey sheets from Uniqlo for the extra warmth.
He had picked up the dark wood bed and the matching furniture from another house clearance sale when he moved here – Facebook truly does have one good use still.
It all creaks but he revarnished it with Kit one afternoon in the sun, so it looks pretty good at least. It’s his favourite room. And now, he has to give it up.
Which, yes, he was always going to do, but he wasn’t going to have to sleep on the couch next door while it was occupied.
Obviously, he’s going to have to sleep on the couch, because there’s no way he’s letting a guest sleep there.
That’s, like, Hospitality 101. He’d never hear the end of it from his mother.
‘You can unpack your things into the chest of drawers there, and there’s space in the wardrobe too.’
Nash sets his case at the end of the bed, and sits down on it, bouncing slightly. ‘Man, this is so much better than sleeping on the plane. Or the sheep truck.’
Christopher looks longingly at his bed, and quietly bids it goodbye for now.
‘Let me know if you need anything. I’ll leave you to unpack.’
He retrieves his own suitcase and sets it in the corner of the living room. That’ll have to do.
Now what?
What exactly do you do with yourself when an actor you’re pretending to know nothing about is making themselves at home in your bedroom? Especially when you’ve already cleaned everything in anticipation of guests.
He primps cushions, rearranges the already neatly folded blankets, and straightens the huge baking bibles that live permanently on his coffee table. Christopher very quickly runs out of tasks, and so resorts to British basic programming: he makes tea.
Nash has left the bedroom door open, but he still knocks to be polite.
‘Tea?’
Nash grins. ‘I wondered how long it would take for you to offer me tea. I’ve heard it’s a compulsion for you guys. That was a whole five minutes. You must have been dying inside.’
‘Well . . . yes. It is one of those stereotypes that’s mostly true,’ Christopher says with a smile. ‘How do you take it?’
Nash raises his eyebrows and gives him a smirk. ‘Depends who’s asking.’
Christopher can feel his face go completely beetroot. At this moment, he would quite like to escape his own skin, never mind the flat.
Hopefully oblivious, Nash just laughs at his own joke. ‘I dunno, man, milk and sugar, I guess? Our tea tastes like piss so I drink freshly ground drip coffee at home. I’ll take it however you have it.’
It’s a strange experience being simultaneously attracted to someone and irritated by everything they say. Imagine having such a blasé attitude to how you take tea; and of course he’d be a has-opinions coffee drinker.
Be nice, Christopher. Just be nice!
Christopher makes tea in two of the nice stoneware ceramic mugs that Laurel got him for the new flat. He puts an extra sugar in Nash’s because Americans love sugar, but then remembers LA people probably think it’s the devil. Either way, it’s too late.
As he squeezes out the teabags, he hears Nash in the bedroom say, in the worst cockney accent ever, ‘One cuppa, governor.’ Against his best intentions, he can’t help but chuckle. But only a very little one.
His phone buzzes, and he’s relieved to see a text from Shaz.
Shaz: Oi, you all right? Did you leave? Any word from Tessa?
Let me know if you need me to pop over. Sorry for not messaging earlier.
Gar was clearing the snow off the drive and pavement this morning, fell over on some ice, and has a probably broken ankle according to Priti (have you met her?
Nurse, nice) who came over to help. The Piranhas have been up since four.
Merry Christmas???? I need more gingerbread! !!!
Christopher: Oh no! Is Gar okay? Do you need anything? Good job I gave you two reindeer.
Shaz: Gar is Gar. Stoic but also sleeping it off in front of Frozen 2 with the kids. And my mother-in-law has helpfully told me the bath needs cleaning. Reindeer are long gone.
Shaz: Wait are you still here then?
Christopher: Yes. No trains running.
Shaz: Ah shite, I’m sorry! Wanna come over? What happened to Tessa the hermit?
Christopher: Tomorrow? Need to sort some things out. Will bring gingerbread.
‘Sort some things out’ seems like the world’s biggest euphemism. And sure, telling her that Nash Nadeau is here might give her the distraction that she needs, but Christopher himself is still wrapping his head around it all. At least promising her gingerbread means he has A Task to focus on.
After all, how do you even condense the enormity of yes that film star we’re mutually obsessed with is currently putting his things away in my chest of drawers and also I feel conflicted because turns out he is terribly annoying into a single text message?
Perhaps he is thinking about it all too much.
Nash has closed the bedroom door, so Christopher calls ‘Tea!’ to no answer, and sets Nash’s tea down on the coffee table. This reminds Christopher he should process a refund for Nash – yes he’s technically staying in Christopher’s bed tonight, but it’s really not right to keep the money.
The wind roars outside again. It’s pitch black out there now. It makes him want to light candles and curl up in a blanket fort.
What a weird fucking day. So many thoughts have been racing – and continue to race – around his head that this brief pause means he finally notices he’s got a cracking headache.
He presses the warm cup against it, hoping the heat will ease the tension, but it is quickly too hot.
He almost spills the cup all over himself as he thrusts it away and back to the table.
Everything is officially Too Much.
‘This is a cute little place you’ve got here.’ Nash has re-entered the living area, presumably on the hunt for his freshly made mug of tea.
He sits down next to Christopher and the three-seater couch suddenly feels a lot smaller, not least because Nash is spread out all over it, legs apart and head back.
Make yourself at home, Christopher thinks sourly, and then feels immediately guilty for not being charitable about it all.
No wonder he has a headache.
Christopher blinks a few times, and realises Nash is staring at him with intense concentration. ‘Yes?’ he asks nervously.
‘What did you do to your head?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You’ve got a big pink mark on it.’
‘Oh Christ.’ Christopher feels the skin with the back of his hand. Hot but not burned, at least. ‘Occupational hazard.’
‘Extreme-sports version of making tea, was it?’
‘Something like that.’
Christopher normally likes silence, but unearned silence with a stranger is far from companionable.
He feels as if he should be entertaining Nash, but Christ, he’s tired.
He doesn’t trust his slightly burned brain to not come out with absolute nonsense.
The wind rattles the windows again, as if to highlight how much ‘not speaking’ is going on inside.
It could be worse. He could have fallen and maybe broken a leg and be being forced to watch Frozen 2 with multiple children.
But even if it could be worse, it doesn’t make it not annoying. To Christopher’s growing irritation, whenever Nash takes a sip of tea, he follows it by breathing out with an ahh.
Every single time.
Be charitable. Be nice. Calm down, Christopher repeats to himself over and over again. And then . . .
‘Are all British places so little?’ Nash asks. He does this so airily, which somehow makes it seem all the more annoying.
Unstoppable irritation bubbles under Christopher’s skin. ‘It might not be the biggest, but it’s the right size for me,’ he replies, coldly.
At this, Nash does that raised-eyebrow-smirking thing again.
Realising what he’s just said, Christopher splutters. ‘That’s not what I mean. It’s small but perfectly formed.’
This sends Nash’s eyebrows right up into his stupidly perfect hair, a laugh rumbling in his chest.
How? How did he make it worse?
All Christopher can do is grab his too-hot cup of tea and take a huge sip. He winces with the heat, but it’s a relief from the constant hum of stress under his skin.
‘I’m just razzing you,’ says Nash with a lazy smile.
Christopher can’t decide what is more mortifying – how obviously embarrassed he is, or how clearly aware of that Nash is.
‘What I was trying to say,’ Christopher says, a little too conscious of his words, ‘is that that there’s enough space for me for now in this flat, and yes, I suppose our buildings are much smaller over here.’
‘Do you have a spare room too? Like an office?’
‘Yes, but it’s rather full. I didn’t have time to unpack everything when I moved here. I really had to just focus on getting the bakery up and running.’
The spare room really is a dumping ground.
If he’s honest with himself, he has no idea what half the stuff is.
There are boxes that haven’t been opened or thought about, plus all his home baking equipment because the flat’s kitchen is way too small for it.
It’s not as if he needs it with a professional bakery downstairs, but he can’t bear to get rid of it all.
The only thing he really did unpack was all the cookbooks. There’s a lifetime’s worth of them in here. Once they were boxed up, he did have some regrets about not culling them, but it was too late at that point.
The thing is, he hadn’t thought of his move as downsizing, because it’s not as if his London flat was big. It’s just, somehow, this flat is even smaller.
He’s been waiting for a free weekend to sort it, but there’s not been a spare moment where he’s had the energy to sit upright, never mind unpack a room of boxes, or even a single one.
And so, the spare room remains full of stuff.
‘Wait, if that’s full of stuff, and I’m sleeping in the bed . . . where are you going to sleep?’
Christopher looks down at the couch. ‘Here,’ he says, trying to sound casual.
‘Oh.’
‘It’s fine. Honestly. It’s just for one night and then we’ll get everything sorted out.’
‘Are you sure? It’s a pretty small couch. And you’re . . . you know.’
‘What?’
‘Extremely tall.’
‘I’m not extremely tall. I’m just tall.’
Nash ‘hmms’ in disagreement.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Christopher says, hoping to close the matter.
The flat might be small, but surely they can keep out of each other’s hair, at least for just one night.
How hard can it be?
As if in answer, Nash knocks back the last of his tea so that his cup is nearly vertical over his head, followed by one very long ahhhhhh.
Despite all the fantasies and dreams, Christopher realises that Nash Nadeau might just be the most annoying man he has ever met.