I took his hand. “Can we go home now?”
He pulled out his phone, dialing with his free hand. “Mila? Yes. We have it. The morning. No, the morning. No, I’m sorry, but I need to get Jake home. He bumped his head. Of course. First thing. No, that’s fine. You’re welcome. Goodbye.” He hung up. “I know we could take the stone to her now, but I just want to get home.”
“I bumped my head?”
“Would you rather I said you had diarrhea and crapped yourself?”
I pulled a disgusted face.
“I love that face.” He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “Super-cute.”
“Don’t mock me.”
His next kiss met my lips. Soft as a butterfly landing, that gentle marking of me as his, of his love for me.
“Let’s go home,” he whispered.
Home was along Blauwebeergracht, a stretch of canal close to Keizersgracht. It was our cocoon against the world, now as festive as I could make it. I jingled one of the bells on the wreath attached to our blue door before Dean turned the key.
He laughed softly at me.
The scent of orange, cinnamon, and a lovely warm air met me as we stepped into our home. It smelled like Christmas. The biscuit-colored walls of the hallways were speckled with the lights of my fiber optic villages—Christmas scenes that warmed me cockles, as my dad would say.
The ceiling had glittery chains strewn across it. Everywhere there were decorations, everything that could be jazzed up with some festive sparkle was. I didn’t care about overkill. Christmas and St. Nicholas Day were now my favorite times of year. Louise’s fault. In fact, I was the biggest kid in the house. Once upon a time, Christmas was something to endure, nothing but a stab in the heart that came every year.
Not anymore.
I’d decorated on Monday (December 1st). We hadn’t really had time to decorate in November when the Sinterklaas period had begun. As soon as I’d had the opportunity, I’d taken the bull by the horns and gone wild. I mean, I had to be ready for the St. Nicholas Eve celebrations on the 5th. We were having a party, nothing too big. Some of Lou’s friends, their parents, Sophie and Luuk next door. It was important to have Dutch traditions in the house—namely, the arrival of Sinterklaas, and the present giving on St. Nicholas Eve. That was stage one of Lou’s presents, then the rest would follow when Santa came with more on the 25th. Having two celebrations was cool with me. I loved all of it, savoring every single moment I could. Memory-making was the best.
Saturday the 6th, St. Nicholas Day, it was just us. Dinner and family time. I hoped. We didn’t have days off in our line of work, phone lines always open for those in need. But I could hold onto the hope that maybe we’d get these days to ourselves. We’d had Christmas Day last year, so maybe that was the start of something new. Why couldn’t crime have a day off, get in the festive spirit and not happen for those December days? I didn’t care if that was selfish. When it came to my loved ones, I was the most selfish wanker in the universe.
My pride and joy of all the festive decorations was the tree that stood tall and proud in the living room, done up in a gold theme. Its glow was mega-cozy, real homely. I loved coming home to it, curling up on one of our sofas with my family. The living room was one of my favorite spaces in the house. The walls were painted a soft terracotta, complete with a dark wooden floor and a rug at the foot of the two brown sofas that formed an L-shape in their placement—a perfect space for TV show binging. It was just a soothing place to be after a long day or night.
Thank God the TV still worked, that Hollywood still cranked out the series and movies. Thank God the internet was still up and running for me to stream all these things because we’d lost other stuff over the years since the world had changed.
Microwaves no longer worked, neither did guns of any kind. Firearms had been replaced with wands, complete with extremely strict laws about who could handle one of the deadly sticks of magic. Only council soldiers used wands, as well as PIAs, with a ton of paperwork involved if one had to be pulled out on a perp. We had one. I couldn’t touch it, of course—it was another weapon that pinged away from me. Dean rarely used it. They were too powerful, too bloody scary. There was an underground market for them—resulting in messy murders between rival gangs and all of that nasty stuff. I was surprised Brem hadn’t pulled one out on us.
Planes could no longer fly, either. For some bizarre reason, pods loved planes, helicopters—anything that could fly. Every single piece of aviation equipment looked like it had the measles, locked away in hangers gathering dust and more colorful pods. It was an infection that couldn’t be removed. At all. It was all rail, land, or sea travel nowadays.
My biggest WTF was on the microwaves. I mean, seriously? Why single them out too? Just seemed weirder than the other stuff to me.
Whatever. Such was life. Just meant I couldn’t cheat when cooking.
Me. Cooking. Never failed to amaze me when I stepped in the kitchen and actually made stuff. Yummy stuff. Who knew?
Personal progress to the max.
Sophie, our daughter’s nanny, was asleep on a sofa, her head on the arm, a paperback, and her reading glasses on the floor. Her long blonde hair was tied back with a violet ribbon.
I crouched beside her. “Soph?”
She stirred, her green eyes slowly opening. “Jake?” She yawned and sat up. “Hallo. You’re home. What happened?” Her eyes focused on the shreds in my
