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As the engine cut off outside, she pulled up her holiday playlist, tapped play and plunked her phone into the cereal bowl on the coffee table to help amplify the music. Then, as the first strains of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” performed by John Denver and the Muppets filled the room, she plopped into the armchair and tried to look as nonchalant as possible. Copper, on the other hand, was waiting right at the door, his nose pressed to the crack, his tail wagging.
There were several heavy thuds against the door—was Heath kicking it?—and she scurried over and yanked it open.
Instead of Heath, what she saw was an actual tree in a large black plastic nursery pot. A bushy tree with rounded silvery-green leaves. Not pine needles. “What is that?” The incredulous words flew out of her mouth. “That’s not a Christmas tree! It’s a…a…”
“It’s a gum tree.” Heath hefted the thing higher with a grunt. “Now move aside, luv, so I can set this thing down.”
“It’s not even an evergreen!”
“Beg your pardon?”
“You know what I mean!” Did he though? Were traditions so different in Australia? “It’s not apine-ytree. The smell is all wrong!” She hadn’t realised how much this mattered to her.
“Luv…” The word was more guttural grunt than English. “Move!”
She did as instructed, her mouth gaping. “How are we supposed to decorate a eucalyptus tree?”
Heath didn’t answer, just headed for the front window and put the tree down with a heavy thud. Off centre. “Same as you’d decorate a plastic—” Whatever else Heath had been going to say died in his throat as he straightened and saw for the first time what she’d done in his absence.
Across the French doors, the arched entryway into the kitchen, and above the TV she’d draped glittery golden star garlands, and in each windowpane she’d stuck sparkly cut-outs of pine trees and Santas and reindeer. Spread across the coffee table was a red and green tartan runner, across which more reindeer danced and cavorted among white puff balls of iridescent snow. On the back of the front door, she’d hung a cloth advent calendar, made with numbered pockets of all manner of festive fabrics, and inside which little treats could be stuffed. Lastly, hanging from the metal knobs of the TV console’s cabinets were the stockings—hers and Copper’s both emblazoned with their names in sequins, and a third one which was blank—because she’d carefully picked out the stitches that had fastened Zach’s sequined name to it. Once she’d gone to a craft store, she’d put Heath’s name on it. Assuming he didn’t murder her first. Or throw her out. Or burn everything on his barbecue.
Because the look on his face was… thunderous.
In the silence, Miss Piggy belted out, “Fiiiiiive GOLDEN RINGS!”
“What the hell happened? Did a Christmas glitter bomb go off in here?” Heath’s expression hadn’t lightened at all. She’d definitely gone too far.
She felt sick, her stomach hollowed out, and somehow she’d clutched her hands together and was holding them in front of her heart, a gesture she’d never made in her life. “I’m sorry—I should’ve checked with you first—”
A strangled sound came out of him. “It’s… it’s…” He shot her a sharp look she couldn’t read, but whatever he saw in her face made his eyes go warm in a way she hadn’t seen them do before—which probably wasn’t surprising given she’d known him for not-even-forty-eight hours.
“If you don’t like it, I can take everything down. It can all go back in my suitcase.” Everything she’d used to decorate had come from home. It all packed flat. It could easily go back in. If she folded it right.
“Not like it?” A low laugh rumbled out of him. “It’s tacky as hell!”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Her face went hot and she rushed to the door, to the easiest thing to take down. Before she could snatch at the advent calendar, a big warm hand closed on her upper arm—not hard, just enough pressure to make her stop.
“No. Leave it. It’s fine.” Heath pressed his lips in a straight line as if he were holding back, and then let out a snort. “More than fine. Quite a surprise, though why it would be, given how you showed up on my doorstep…” He barked out a laugh, and this time he kept laughing. It was transformative, revelatory, more full bodied than when they’d laughed over her unruly suitcase. Every tense line of his body eased: the tightness in his shoulders evaporated, his clenched jaw loosened, the furrowed creases of his brow softened. In that moment she realised how much he held himself apart from the world, all the time.
And his laugh…
It was warm and rumbly, andhot dog. A smile looked good on him.
He kept laughing, as if once he’d started he couldn’t stop, and just seeing him like that made her laugh too, until she was laughing at him laughing at her laughing at him, and Copper was barking at both of them.
When they finally stopped, they were both out of breath.
“Owwww…” Lena clutched at her stomach. “I thought I told you laughing hurts!”
“I don’t know when I’ve ever …” Heath’s face went suddenly serious, as if he had remembered when he’d last laughed so much, and something about the memory pained him.
Distraction. The man needed distraction. She didn’t want anything to take away from this moment where he’d finally loosened up. She pointed at the tree. “Is that… the traditional Australian Christmas tree?” It made her giggle again, thinking of households across Australia sporting eucalyptus trees in their living rooms.
“The gum tree? No! It was the best thing Jon had at the nursery, and it seemed important we get something today…”
“You couldn’t just get a different fake tree?”
“No. I don’t do fake.” He said it all serious, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
