Chapter Seven
Five days to Christmas
Mel wakes to the feeling of falling. Too late, she realizes why and lets out a yelp as she only just manages to put her hands out to stop herself face-planting against the wooden bedroom floor.
Apparently, she’d edged even farther over to her side of the bed in the middle of the night, until there was no bed left.
“Mel?” The door to the bedroom opens, and Finn’s anxious voice fills the space. “You okay?”
She jumps up, brushing her hair off her face.
“Fine. Just, ah…” But, right now, her brain seems too distracted to come up with an explanation as to how she has managed to quite literally fall out of the bed—because Finn is standing there with just a towel around his waist. And okay, fine, she’s seen him naked plenty of times before—but is it her, or is he packing more muscle than usual?
Flipping houses is physical work, she supposes—especially given Finn insists on doing it all himself.
But, still, it doesn’t seem fair that he’s standing there right in front of her, all long and lean and—
She’s staring. What the hell is she doing?
She should not be staring at him. She should not be allowing herself to drink in his near nakedness, as if it is something she has been craving.
She quickly turns from him, though she doesn’t miss the slight quirk of his mouth, a sure sign that he’s amused.
She bends to pick up the pillow that fell off the bed with her.
When she puts it back on the mattress, she sees a line of pillows, right down the middle.
At some point during the night, Finn had clearly decided to take her literally.
“Mel?” She doesn’t look at him, and he sighs. When she glances back at him, he’s running a hand over his face. “This isn’t going to work, is it?” His voice is barely more than a murmur, but it feels like he’s shouting at her.
She frowns. “Has someone said something?”
He hesitates. “No. But us, together…” He gestures at the space between them. “I should never have suggested it.”
“No,” Mel says shortly. “But you did.” And she never should have agreed. But she did.
Finn rakes a hand through his wet hair. “They’re going to find out.”
“No they’re not,” she says, feeling a rush of frustration. It was his bloody idea in the first place—why is he making her talk him into it?
“Maybe I should tell them the truth,” Finn continues, as if he hasn’t heard her. “I could drop you at the station this morning.”
She feels heat flood her cheeks. First he begs her to come, then he wants to discard her? No fucking way. “We are not doing that,” she hisses. “How do you think leaving in the middle of the holiday will make me look?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s going to make me look worse than you.”
“No, Finn. We’re not telling them. You wanted me here? Well, tough shit, because you’ve got me. So deal with it.” She grabs her washbag from her suitcase. “It’s five days. We can manage five bloody days.” And it’s her who has to do the managing, isn’t it? It’s his plan, for fuck’s sake.
Finn watches her as she strides toward him, and he only moves out of the way when she opens the door practically on top of him.
“Get dressed,” she snaps. “We’ve got a Christmas agenda to keep to, remember?”
He heaves in a breath. “Fine.”
“Fine.” And, feeling fully self-righteous in her anger, she slams the door behind her.
—
Susan is making pancakes with Freya when Mel gets downstairs.
There’s an assortment of bowls with different batter—chocolate chip, blueberry, and plain—on the counter, and Freya is standing on a stool, peering down into the saucepan.
Susan places her hand over Freya’s carefully on the handle, and together they flip it—just about catching it again.
Kristen is watching them beadily from the sidelines, like she’s about to lurch forward at any second, but Susan and Freya both laugh as Susan pokes the pancake fully back into the pan.
Mel can’t help smiling, too, watching them—until she sees Finn over at the table, cup of coffee in front of him.
He tries to catch her eye, but she ignores him—still annoyed about their earlier conversation.
Hattie comes in from the back garden, phone in hand, shivering dramatically as she shuts the door.
“Dylan says he’s looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow,” she announces to the room at large.
She pulls her coat tighter around her Christmas pajamas.
“And, also, it’s fu—” She cuts off when she sees Freya adding another pancake to the plate and clears her throat.
“It is really rather cold outside—I hope whatever you have planned for today is indoors, Mum.”
Susan gives her a twinkling smile from behind the stove and taps her nose, while Kristen brings the first batch of pancakes over to the dining table. Mark puts down the newspaper he’s been reading and smacks his lips theatrically.
“These smell delicious, Freya-bean,” he says. “Looks like we have an aspiring chef on our hands.”
“What does ‘aspiring’ mean?” Freya asks Susan.
Susan runs a hand over Freya’s red hair. “Brilliant,” she says, earning a toothy grin from Freya.
Susan and Freya bring over the rest of the pancakes, while Mel makes herself useful, finding cutlery and plates and helping Kristen to lay the table.
She’s feeling a little on edge, wondering, like Hattie, apparently, what the first activity on Susan’s Christmas agenda is.
She has her own to-do list of things she needs to get done at work, preferably before the new year, and she’s slightly dreading a whole day of playing happy couples with Finn—who she is still studiously ignoring.
They all sit around the table, Freya climbing into Kristen’s lap to eat her pancakes from there. Mel sits opposite them, deliberately keeping Mark between her and Finn. Freya peeks up at Mel, but when Mel smiles at her she turns her face into Kristen’s chest.
Kristen pats Freya’s back. “Don’t be silly. You remember Auntie Mel, don’t you?”
Auntie Mel. Something twists inside her, hearing it, and she tries to hide it by gulping down some coffee.
Freya peeks out at Mel, but gives no confirmation as to whether she does, in fact, remember.
She feels Finn looking at her, too, and distracts herself by getting out her phone, while pancakes are handed around.
There’s a WhatsApp from Amanda: Lillian wants to see more designs like the fireworks earrings before the call.
Mel’s heart does a funny little jolt. She’d added them to the Christmas catalogue that Amanda had sent to the agent without really thinking.
It had been one of the only designs that was actually hers in the catalogue, inspired by her very first pair of earrings, the ones she’d worn on New Year’s Eve when she’d met Finn for the first time.
It was only because he’d turned up at her flat, reminding her of their history—it must have leaked into her subconscious somehow.
Does she definitely want a similar pair out in the world, to be worn, no doubt, by hundreds of other people to a New Year’s party, where they might be kissed by a random stranger?
She doesn’t really have a choice now, does she?
What Lillian Hart wants, Lillian Hart gets.
The only issue is time. Can she bail on whatever activity they are supposed to be doing today?
Probably not. Besides, she’s not even sure she has it in her to work up a few more similar designs—she hasn’t done it properly in years.
No, it’s better if one of her designers does it and she can improve if need be.
Can you get Jodie on the case? All to be run by me in the first instance.
Will do.
She looks up to see Mark has slid a blueberry pancake onto her plate, and smiles at him in thanks.
“Oh, I forgot the juice,” Susan says, setting down her fork.
“I’ll get it,” Kristen says immediately, nudging Freya to get her off her lap.
Susan waves a hand as she gets to her feet. “Don’t worry, love. I know where it is.”
She can hear Finn and Mark talking on her right. “I’m just saying,” Mark is insisting, “if you had a more efficient way to work out profit margins before you bought the house, then…”
Mel looks down at her phone again—it seems the safer option. Priya has sent a message, in response to the voice note Mel left her this morning, in between showering and coming downstairs.
Christmas activities? Like wreath-making?
Maybe it’ll be fun! I doubt she’ll send you and Finn off on your own somewhere—it’ll be stuff you can all do together.
Maybe it’ll be a good thing—keep you busy?
Even if this whole thing is still ridiculous—and I PROMISE that’s the last time I’m going to point that out.
If you need to get out of anything, message me and I’ll ring you with some kind of cross-continental emergency.
And, in other news, I’m contemplating giving up cricket already.
It’s even worse than when we tried to take up tennis in Year 8. Keep me posted! Xx
She feels the corners of her mouth pulling into a smile. God, she misses Priya.
She tunes back in to the room to hear Kristen saying to Freya, “That’ll be fun, won’t it?” Mel catches sight of Mark’s skeptical expression and wonders what, exactly, is going to be fun. Damn it—she should have been listening.
“But what will we do until then?” Freya asks, sticking her thumb into her mouth.
Mel can’t help feeling the tiniest bit sorry for her—she remembers what it’s like, growing up as an only child.
Adult company is just not the same when you’re a kid—and adults have a habit of forgetting how lonely it can sometimes be as an only child, no matter how brilliant those adults are.
“What about coloring?” Kristen asks. “Do you want to bring your coloring book in here? The one with all the sea creatures?”
“I love sea creatures,” Mel says, smiling at Freya. Freya looks up at Mel from under her eyelashes—and Mel decides to take that as an improvement. “Especially dolphins,” Mel continues. “Dolphins are my favorite.”
She gets a tiny smile at that, and Freya removes her thumb long enough to say, “Mine too. And whales. And turtles.”
“Turtles are great,” Mel agrees.
“So shall we say aim to leave in around an hour?” Susan asks.
Leave for what? Mel wonders. She glances around the table, looking for clues, and Finn catches her eye. She swears she sees a knowing glint in his eye.
“How about if I sit in the café with you to help judge instead, Mum?” Mark asks, folding up his copy of the Financial Times .
Kristen huffs out an impatient breath. “Mark, it’s not that big a deal. Just do this for your mother, will you?”
Mark half laughs, raises his hands. “Whoa. Okay, K.” He sounds a bit taken aback and Mel is too—she doesn’t think she’s ever seen Kristen snap at him in front of them.
“Thank you, Kristen,” Susan says. “I’m going to shower. I’ll see you all in an hour, pronto.”
There’s the scraping of chair legs as everyone gets to their feet.
Mel isn’t quite out the way in time before Finn comes around her side of the table and swings an arm around her, plastering her to his side.
In front of his family, she has no choice but to bear it.
She can smell toothpaste, his aftershave, a faint charcoal scent, like he might have stoked the fire this morning.
“What do you reckon, sugarplum?” he asks, squeezing her shoulder and looking down at her.
This has got to be the first time ever he has used a nickname like that, and she just about resists the urge to scowl.
They are not the nickname sorts. His eyes find hers, and she recognizes the challenge in them.
“A scavenger hunt will be fun, won’t it? ”
A scavenger hunt? How the hell did she miss that? What, exactly, does that involve—finding things around the house? Presumably not, given they’ve been instructed to be ready to leave the house.
She smiles in an over-the-top way. “You bet, honeybee.”
Finn’s lip quirks, but she notices too late that her voice is perhaps a touch too sarcastic.
She feels Hattie’s glance as the rest of the family leave the kitchen, reaches up to lay her hand over Finn’s to try to cover up the error.
His gaze flickers there and for a moment they stand like that, quiet between them.
When his family are all out of the kitchen, she shoves him away. She couldn’t actually move him, given how much stronger he is, but he steps away immediately.
She pulls a hand through her hair. “A scavenger hunt?” she repeats.
A smile plays around his lips as he shakes his head. “I knew you weren’t listening.”
She narrows her eyes. “A mind reader now, are you? That’s new.”
He shakes his head. “Only with you, Mel.”
She snorts, derisive. He’d proved, hadn’t he, just how wrong that statement is. “So she wants us to, like, find stuff?”
“Yep. It’s Christmas-themed and everything.
And you want to know the best part?” He leans in, close enough that she has to tilt her head up to look at him, so that her eyes have to travel over the mouth that is just a little crooked.
“We’re on the same team.” She wonders if he is doing it deliberately, challenging her with his eyes like that.
Probably. Maybe he’s trying to get her back for shouting at him earlier.
“Of course we are,” she mutters. Well, maybe that’s a good thing. If they’re on a team just the two of them, they don’t have to talk to each other, do they?
“Ready?” He gestures toward the kitchen door. She squares her shoulders like she’s readying for battle, nods. All right, then. Game on.