‘I forgot about you, Simon, of course you’d wonder what’s going on.’ She spoke softly to her pet, rubbing his ear to calm him while he growled at Olivier. ‘You’ve done a very good job protecting the house, but it’s okay. Nothing bad going on here.’ She turned to Olivier. ‘I’ll just settle him back down in Nan’s room and make sure she knows everything’s fine if he woke her. Won’t be a minute.’
He nodded and when she disappeared down the hall, decided to get the tree to her room by himself. It was only a few more stairs and the hallway. He stretched his arms to get a grip of the pole at the centre, both top and bottom, and heard a quiet ripping noise as his shirt objected. He carried on to her room, assuming she was still in the second largest as he was in his maman’s house. He pushed the door open gently with his foot and set the tree down in the only space large enough to fit it, opposite her bed.
He’d never actually been in her room before, despite years of them sharing a wall, listening to each other’s music, taking turns to play their favourite tracks of the moment, and occasionally leaning out of the windows to call across to each other and organise meeting up. His curiosity was screaming at him to turn on the light and look around but really he should leave and go wait for her in the hall. Although, he didn’t want to set Simon off again. Part of him was a little disappointed the dog hadn’t remembered him, but of course, it had been a long time and Olivier had been invading his home with a seven-foot tree.
Between the warmth of the centrally heated house and the effort of carrying the tree across Brighton, he was burning up. He unbuttoned his coat and shrugged it off.
‘That’s Simon all settled – oh no! Your shirt.’ Ashleigh came into the room behind him, her voice still pitched low and her hand touched his back, one finger grazing the skin that shouldn’t have been exposed, sending goose bumps down his spine.
‘Ah. That must have been the ripping noise I heard.’ He twisted his head to see the damage and her face was right there, blue eyes glittering up at him in the darkness, the sweet scent of red wine and apricots reaching him. He swallowed and stepped back slightly so as not to crowd her. ‘That will teach me to put on a shirt I haven’t worn since my early twenties.’
She bit her lip and crossed to her bed, pulling her coat and hat off, her fair hair floating up slightly from the static before she smoothed it down. She flicked on a lamp beside it and picked up a caddy full of thread and needles and buttons, rifling through it. ‘I’ll fix it for you.’
‘There’s no need, Ashleigh, it’s obviously too small. I’ll have to donate it.’
‘Then it still needs to be mended.’ She pulled out a reel of white thread and sat down on her bed.
‘Now? Is it wise to wield a needle after a night drinking?’
‘It’s a tiny tear. I could sew that up in my sleep. Take it off. It’ll take me five minutes tops.’
Take it off.‘You’re not worried about your grandmere walking in and jumping to conclusions?’ He couldn’t help delaying for some reason. It was only his shirt – it wasn’t like she was asking him to do a striptease for her – but he hadn’t taken his clothes off in front of a woman since his divorce.
She paused and looked up at him, a light pink flush stealing over her cheekbones. ‘No. She won’t care about that. The Christmas tree on the other hand…’
Of course her grandmere would not be worried. Ashleigh was a grown woman; she must have had boyfriends stay over with her. That thought didn’t really help but he forced himself to start unbuttoning his shirt. They were not teenagers anymore, getting overexcited about a little bit of skin on show, were they?
‘So, Christine is still not a fan of Christmas then?’ He tried to distract himself as he slipped the shirt off and handed it to Ashleigh.
‘No. She’s not.’ Her eyes danced quickly over him before she refocused on the shirt, spreading it out on the bed in front of her and starting to pin it across the rip with quick, experienced fingers.
‘To be honest, I never thought you cared for Christmas much either.’
‘I suppose I didn’t after my parents divorced. Santa and parents who stayed together were all part of a fairy tale that no longer existed for me.’
‘And now?’
‘Now…’ She measured a length of thread and snipped it with a small pair of scissors. ‘Now, I’m thinking maybe adults should be allowed a bit of magic too.’
He smiled. ‘I suppose the difference for adults is, we have to figure out how to make the magic for ourselves.’
She looked up at him again, the soft light making her skin glow like petals in the sunlight, blue eyes bright and intense. The moment stretched and he forgot that he was half undressed and self-conscious about it, that he was tired and a bit drunk, that he was jaded from divorce and unsure what to do next with his career. That he’d spent years away from Ashleigh. It all disappeared and instead he remembered this feeling that she’d always provoked in him; of really, truly being seen and heard, past the words he said and the smile he showed everyone.
Her eyelashes lowered and she turned back to the job at hand. He could have feigned interest in the Christmas tree beside him, or browsing her bookshelf while he waited but he watched her instead. Saw her turn that intensity on his shirt, threading a thin needle and concentrating on the tiny stitches drawing the material back together again as though it had never even happened.
