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ing the same. If I’d known you were bringing company, love, I would have peeled more potatoes. You are stopping, I hope?’ She’s looking past Caitlin to me and...and I swallow.
Stopping? Hell, no.
There are more footsteps on the gravel.
‘Marlene, did you tell Max to put the tree—’ The male voice stops as he comes into view, a tall man, greying hair at the temples, wearing suit trousers with a shirt and jumper even though he’s nowhere near an office. Her father, definitely. His eyes narrow as he takes us both in and I immediately feel like a randy teenager caught in the act. And Jesus, if my cheeks don’t flush a little.
‘Hello, love, who’s your friend?’ he asks.
‘Mum, Dad, this is Jackson.’
‘Mr and Mrs Carey.’ I duck my head a little as I look to them both with a nod and a smile that I hope is innocent and in no way mortified. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Get yourself out here, lad. No good sitting in the car and keeping us all waiting.’ Lad? When have I ever been called lad? And what the hell do I do now?
‘It’s a good job you brought an extra pair of hands, Cait, love. Think your mum has outdone herself with the new decorations this year.’
You don’t have a choice. You’re going to get out of the car and join them.
Cait gives me another apologetic look and this time it’s a full-on grimace. ‘I’m sorry; you don’t have to.’
She’s letting you off. Take it.
But as I look into her eyes I can’t do it; I can’t make up a reason to leave. I don’t want to. Except we’ve just been caught snogging in the car, which means there’s going to be some explaining to do. Friends with benefits isn’t going to cut it with her folks. Shit.
I clear my throat. ‘It’s fine; it’ll be...fun?’
I say it with a mixture of apprehension and humour, and her eyes sparkle back at me, her mouthed ‘Thank you’ worth every bit of discomfort.
She turns and opens her door. I do the same, the expression out of the frying pan and into the fire dancing through my brain.
Time to get my festive on...
Not awkward...not awkward at all.
* * *
I’m not sure who’s more uncomfortable, me for putting Jackson in this situation and having to masquerade as a bona fide couple. Or Jackson for playing the role perfectly while being assaulted by all that is Christmas. And when I say assaulted, I mean assaulted. Right now, Annie, my eight-year-old niece via brother number two, is hanging tinsel around him like he’s the tree, while four-year-old Jake climbs on his back so he can hang baubles on the higher branches.
‘Annie, you do know that the tree is this way and not—’
‘Granny Marlene doesn’t want the tinsel in here this year.’ She folds her arms and looks up at me as she lays down the Carey law, her blonde ponytail swinging behind her. ‘It’s only to go on the one in the living room.’
‘You have more than one tree?’ Jackson looks at me, his cheeks flushed as he angles Jake just so and has his face squished by the boy’s palm as Jake uses it as an anchor point to lean further into the tree.
I try not to laugh. ‘Yup.’
‘We have five, to be precise,’ Annie states precociously, and it’s all I can do to smile at Jackson and nod.
‘And is the plan to decorate them all today?’
‘Yup.’ It’s Jake who pipes up now, settling back onto his shoulders. ‘Can you pass me the robin now, Jackson?’
‘I see now why you have a whole day dedicated to it,’ he mumbles, bending down, careful not to dislodge Jake as he digs in the box of unwrapped decorations. ‘This one?’
Jake grabs it. ‘Thank you.’
As much as I’m uncomfortable, I’m also loving it. In a heart-warming, send-your-soul-to-mush kind of a way. Which I know is bad. Bad for the barriers I need to keep in place around my heart, bad for what the future has in store—just bad. But watching Jackson surrounded by my family, giving him an inkling of what Christmas can be like with a family such as mine, it feels...special. A gift almost.
