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“I like this song,” I tell him after a while.
“Me too,” he agrees before continuing with his humming as time stands still around us. When he stoops down and places a kiss on my mouth, it’s not a quick kiss; it’s one of his sultry knee weakeners. It starts slow but burns into something consuming. I’m lacking oxygen when he pulls away. “Do you forget to breathe when we kiss?” His grin is beautiful, bashful, teasing at the edges and it makes him glow.
“Sometimes.” I shrug.
He chuckles and reels me back in, planting a kiss on the top of my head. “I don’t know how I got you, Amber French, but I’m so glad I did.”
He doesn’t know how he got me. Is he mad? I’d follow him anywhere, further than the outer edges of the galaxy where only him and I exist.
“I don’t know how I got you either.”
“Magic?” He kisses me again and with my eyes closed, I run my hand under his jumper, concentrating on the feel of his muscles quivering under my fingers and the warmth of his skin against mine. I think he’s copying me because I feel the touch of his fingers against the back of my neck, but then something cool falls under the neckline of my dress.
“What?” I pull away and look, not sure what to expect.
Beneath my dress, nestled just above the cleft of my cleavage is a beautiful locket, heavy and antique looking. “Freddy, what’s this?”
“Your birthday present.” He smiles proudly after his words, and the gentle burr of his voice sounds like warm honey. I reach for the chain and tug it out of my dress. The locket lays heavy in my palm.
“It’s beautiful.” And it really is. Oval in shape and engraved with flowers, it looks old. Really old.
‘It was my gran’s. It passed to my mum and then eventually it passed to me.”
I register his words, but their meaning is lost on me for a moment until I slowly understand what he has said. “Freddy, have you lost your mum?” I’m making it sound like he lost her at Tesco, but I don’t know how else to say it. It is becoming clear to me that there are so many things we haven’t talked about over the last few weeks.
“It was a long time ago—seven years.”
‘And is that why the paperwork isn’t done in the garage?” I glance over at the desk he’s hidden beneath a white sheet.
"One of the many reasons, yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
He shrugs in response, his dark blues pulling me under as I search his face and try to show him with my own eyes just what I feel for him. It’s still unnameable, but whatever it is, it’s vast and all encompassing.
"Why are you telling me now and giving me this?”
His flash of a grin is back and his eyes glow as he grabs my hand and spins me out and then back into his arms. “Well, Amber French. Don’t tell anyone, but I think maybe I’m going to fall in love with you.”
Silently, on the inside I unravel to a complete stop. My heart stops beating, my brain stops thinking, my limbs stop moving. I just stop. I’m nothing but air and dust spinning in a mechanic’s garage.
That unnameable emotion simmering just under the surface of my being starts to take form, growing stronger by the second. I tiptoe and land a soft kiss on his lips. I tease the edge of his mouth with my tongue, pulling his body closer towards me until he’s fit around me perfectly, then I lean in and whisper in his ear. “Let me know when you’re sure, because I think maybe I’m going to fall in love with you too.”
Hungrily, Freddy grabs for me, his usual delicacy vanishing in the moment. He crushes us together, lifting me up so I can tangle my legs tight around his waist. His mouth is hot and demanding on mine, his fingers digging into my thighs. I break from his lips so I can kiss along his throat, savouring the scratch of faint stubble against my skin and the smell of his aftershave.
Then gradually he releases his hold, sliding my body down his until my feet reach the floor. My trip down his body assures me he most definitely does want me. Definitely.
When I am in a more appropriate — although less exciting — position, he leans his head down and rests it against my forehead. “I can wait a while longer for you, Amber French.” I think he may be talking to himself; his voice is so low.
I know I’ll wait for him as long as it takes.
It’s a silent trip home, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I’m thinking of him maybe falling in love with me. I’m thinking of his dad and the obvious effect losing his wife has had on him. I’m wondering why I didn’t know about any of that. What sort of village is this? But most of all, I’m clutching his locket tight in one hand, and his hand in my other as the car turns down the silent and dark lanes.
When he pulls up outside my house, he gets out of the car and opens my door, ever the gentleman. I’m beginning to realise this goes far deeper than car doors and polite manners.
“Thank you,” I say again, still clutching my locket.
“Merry Christmas, Amber French.” He leans in swiftly and plants a short kiss on my lips.
“Merry Christmas, Freddy Bale,” I whisper back.
Upstairs in my room, I open the locket and see that inside there is a picture of us taken that first day back in the snow when he said he thought we could be something. The picture is blurry and low grade from the camera phone he’s snapped us with. I don’t care. The memory will sit for all eternity protected by its engraved silver casing.
It’s as I sit in the dark, willing the two days of Christmas to be over, I understand we could be not just something, buteverything.
