Page 62 of A Winter Wish

“Is it that ridiculous?”

Lexie frowned at him. “She would have said.”

“OK.”

She was learning that Theo often said “OK” when he disagreed completely. She supposed her mum could have a date. She must have had dates since her dad left. And she was pretty sure there had been a time when she’d been close to bringing a guy home to meet Lexie, in her teenage years, but Lexie had never given her mum’s dating life a huge amount of thought—she’d always presumed that she was just happy being single, after what Richard had put her through.

She was lost in her own thoughts as she continued clearing up some of the mess they’d made—and belatedly realized that Theo was doing the same. Maybe he didn’t want to come back to a dump later. She cleared her throat as she put the mugs into the dishwasher, feeling the need to fill the silence. “So what do you usually do at Christmas?”

He poured the last dregs of the mulled wine out of the pan and down the sink. “Work, mostly. I go on the trips quite often, which is fun.”

“You weren’t working last year,” Lexie pointed out. He’d been there when she’d tried to sneak into the office on Christmas morning—coming down from his flat.

“I wasn’t abroad, but I was still working.”

“Oh.”

He smiled at her. “Feeling sorry for me now, are we? Don’t be—Ange invited me round for Christmas dinner in the afternoon, so I had the full Christmas experience.”

She could imagine that of Ange. Though if he’d told her that on the day itself, she wouldn’t have had to feel momentarily guilty, leaving him in the office.

“You don’t ever go home to your parents or anything?” she asked as she finished loading the dishwasher. She knew he didn’t get on brilliantly with them, but still. And yes, OK, maybe she was trying to dig a little deeper there.

“My parents were never really big on it. We went to church when I was a kid, but I think out of a sense of obligation—my parents weren’t overly religious. But the rest was just awkward.”

“Because it’s an ‘overly chaotic and hyperactive celebration’?” Lexie asked, remembering.

He shot her a glance. “Yeah, that’s about the sum of it. Although Mum wanted to do Christmas as it should be done. But for her that meant it was all calm, and that we were seen to be this, like, I don’t know, perfect little family with a well-behaved, grateful child or whatever. So she’d host everyone for Christmas Eve drinks and serve these incredibly posh canapés that I hated—and generally she tried to encourage other parents to leave their kids behind, but those that were there were supposed to be dressed up in suits. Like a ten-year-old in a suit munching on a goat cheese canapé for Christmas—the whole thing was a little ridiculous.” His voice was wry, like he was making a joke, but Lexie couldn’t help but wonder what was beneath that. “Anyway,” he continued, “the day itself was always painful. Like sitting there and opening our one present each—mine was always something to do with school—and then having this meal that my mum had slaved over while my dad read quietly in the living room by the fire, drinking sherry.”

“My mum likes sherry,” Lexie said—because she wasn’t really sure what else to say.

“Well, there’s something we have in common—parents who like sherry.”

She laughed a little, and he gave her another of those glances as he got out a dishwasher tablet from beneath the sink.

“I spent the past few Christmases—before this last one—with your dad, actually.”

She wasn’t sure what to say other than “Oh.” She wondered if he’d leave it there, and realized she didn’t want him to. “What did you do?”

“Well, three Christmases ago we were in Edinburgh—for work, on the trip there, which always does pretty well as a lot of people want to hang around for Hogmanay.”

OK, for work. That made it a bit easier to hear—given all the times she remembered wanting to spend Christmas with her dad, and him not being there.

“I actually think he could have gone on the trip himself, but we’d had a rough couple of years with the business, and I think he knew I didn’t really have anywhere to spend Christmas, so he got me to come along.” He smiled a little at the memory. “Then the year before last we were in Vienna—we were there for a recce—for the trip that’s going to be running this year. We had to postpone it once we realized how ill Richard was.”

“Right,” she said, thinking she ought to show she was following.

“And Richard flew Rachel out too—not on the company, but she was having a bit of a hard time, so…”

He’d flown Rachel out to Vienna, for Christmas, because she was having a hard time. How had he been that good a father to her, and completely absent for Lexie? It was also after he’d left Jody, wasn’t it? So apparently he hadn’t abandoned Rachel when he left Jody, the way he’d done with Lexie.

Lexie realized Theo was watching her carefully, as if wondering how she was taking all this, and she tried to school her face. “So what did you do, on Christmas Day itself?” she asked him.

“We actually got a bit carried away on Christmas Eve, which is the big celebration over there—Richard had found this amazing family restaurant that was open on the day. No idea how he found it, to be honest, because it was very much geared toward the locals, but it was amazing. The traditional Christmas food in Vienna leaves something to be desired—it’s all about breadcrumbs. But these guys managed to merge the traditional and the modern and the food was incredible. And there was so much wine—Rachel ended up almost passing out on the table and we had to practically carry her home.” His brow furrowed a little, while Lexie felt a pang at the family scenario he was describing—with her dad and her sister. “Which in hindsight was a little irresponsible of us, given Rachel must have been like, what, nineteen or something?”

“She’s twenty-two now,” Lexie said, her voice quieter than she’d meant it to be. But at least she knew that.

“Right. Well, anyway. On Christmas Day itself we wandered around the city—Rachel had been hoping for snow but there was none. It was still so beautiful, though, and we were trying to figure out where we could take clients for the day itself, for those people who didn’t want to be alone, and it became sort of, I don’t know, like a game.” He shook his head, clearly thinking about it; then his voice changed a little. “It was just before he found out he was ill, I think. I mean, I can’t know that for sure, since he never told me, but I think it must have been before he…” He broke off, clearing his throat, and seemed to force lightness back to his voice. “Anyway, it was a lot more fun than Christmas with my parents. What about you? You spend it with your mum usually?”