Page 88 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

Jake lays me on the mattress like I’m precious and rare rather than sturdy bone and flesh that’s as greedy for him as he is for me. He locks his fingers between mine, sweeping our arms up in an overhead arc. Then he links my palms together, pressing gently down on my wrists to tell me to stay put. He works his way down my body, tracing my outline with his hands, skimming his mouth down my middle. And then, he does the same on the way back up.

We take each other’s mouths in a leisurely, searching kiss, tasting tongues and sharing breath. Exploring, even though we’ve mapped the terrain of each other’s bodies hundreds of times over. There are ways Jake knows my landscape even more intimately than I do. And I, his.

I shift sideways beneath him, signaling movement. He responds on instinct rather than obedience, rolling me over him like we’ve choreographed it in body language. He’s hard and straining up towards me when I straddle his hips, taking his exquisite length inside me with a sinuous swirl of my hips. Heads thrown back—mine to the ceiling, his to the pillow—we exhale together, savoring this first moment of union like it truly is the first time. In this light, his eyes are kaleidoscopic old copper, bright brown, and amber etched with green.

This will never not be sacred.

We make love. Decadent. More than simple sensation. We’re celebrating each other. My body beckons the man beneath me, this human I love with cosmic magnitude. I ride him like a gentle wave, slowly flexing and flowing around him. Amber light from the fire spills over my convexities and concavities, and Jake traces all of me with reverent hands and hungry eyes. I feel powerful in my complexity. I feel beautiful. I am beautiful.

We move together like a single fluid organism, sinuous and slow, giving and taking in equal measure. There’s no room for silence here. I moan and sigh on every exhale, and we go for so long, I lose my voice. But I’m already saying everything to him I could ever want him to know, without the need for a single spoken word. I’m inviting him to meet me in the place where only I can take him, and only he can take me. Jake’s hands are hot at my waist, his fingers locked into the ripple and bend of muscles alongside my spine.

Inevitable tension builds in the deepest, hungriest part of me, shimmering outwards. Jake moves a hand to my heart now, his long fingers spread between my breasts. I stack my palms over his, and I begin to rock faster. Jake’s back bends like a bow, his hands slide down to grip my thighs. My invitation becomes a demand for him to meet me at the top.

When he does, we fall together.

* * *

It’s December first. The main reason we’ve arrived this week is to help Helena decorate for the festive season. Jake has been worried about his mom for a while, being alone with such a big property to manage in the countryside. Miles is close by, but he’s already overcommitted and overworked, relentlessly busy with his veterinary practice. I know Helena well enough by now to know that she’d never ask him for help, anyway. I’m sure she tells him she’s “quite well, thank you,” whenever he offers, too.

We arrived mid-afternoon yesterday. I vaguely noticed there weren’t any cars parked in front of the house, but I was too tired for it to spark my typical eager curiosity. When Jake and I walk to the house late this morning, Helena’s car still isn’t here. Jake sees the confusion in my expression and says, “She’s with Nan in London today,” and it puts my mind at ease.

Jake puts the kettle on, and we open the curtains all over the house to let in the silvery winter sunshine. He gets a fire going in the living room where we’ll make our base of operations, and I put classic Christmas records on the player in the hall.

We chatter at each other in that easy way we have now, unhurried and unworried about what we’ll say, how we’ll say it, or whether we need to say anything at all.

Jake lifts the lid of a cardboard box printed all over with Christmas trees. The scents of clove and cinnamon, wrapping paper, and the faint whiff of musty attic mildew cling to the treasures inside. “There will be a note in one of these boxes,” he says. “We always pack everything away on January second—it’s a family tradition. Last bit of fun of the festive season. Whoever finds the previous year’s note gets to write and hide the one the following year. Then Mum keeps them in her scrapbook.”

“That’s so lovely. Who wrote last year’s?”

“Mum herself, I think.” He gives me a playful, sensual grin. “Can’t be sure, though. I was … ah, elsewhere on January second.”

We spent those first three days of the new year in my little bed in Queens.

A sprig of dried and crumbly mistletoe comes out of one of the boxes. I imagine all the kisses that have been exchanged beneath it. Kisses upon tiny baby noses and children’s cheeks. Lovers, friends, even strangers.

We make a good team, distributing treasured decorations to each of the rooms they’ll live in for the duration of the month. In a big red box with frayed corners, I find a scrapbook that Helena has kept for more than thirty years. There’s a square of every bit of wrapping paper the family has ever used on Christmas Day, the oldest ones faded and yellowed. On last year’s page, there’s a clipping from the birthday wrapping paper covered in dinosaurs that they used to wrap gifts for me. I trace a hand over it through the clear protective sheet.

There’s also a summary of all the practical details of each Christmas—the menu, who was there, and the guests they brought. It makes tears well in my eyes when I see my name on the entry from last year. Evie McClane here from America. Birthday girl! Already hoping we see her next year.

The lesson is this: everything about the festive season is meant to be savored. Nothing is inconsequential.

Needless to say, I’m beyond thrilled to have an excuse to start a new sort of journal of my own.

At the bottom of this box, I find the hidden note. As I unfold it, I recognize Helena’s lush, flowy script right away.

He loves her, even if neither of them knows it yet.

* * *

Later that night in the cottage, we’re wrapped in luscious white robes sharing mulled wine when Jake pulls out a small gift-wrapped box from the cabinet under his bedside table. It’s flat and rectangular. Small. He gives it to me without a word. Just a gentle, hopeful smile on his beautiful face.

I set my wine aside and slowly peel away the paper, then I hold the box in both hands to lift off the lid.

My heart pounds so fiercely, I think I can taste it on my tongue.

It’s a key.

“Jake … wh—”