‘Nothi—’
‘And you’re smiling! You never smile at eight-thirty in the morning.’ She takes hold of my shoulders, turns me round to face her and peers at me, looking for clues. ‘What’s with the spring in your step?’
‘You know that guy? James from the shop opposite?’ I try to sound casual as I shrug myself out of her grip and we start walking up the hill.
She’s not buying my casualness. ‘Oh, just that gorgeous guy you happen to think might be a nutcracker come to life …’
I pull my scarf further up my face so it covers my mouth, muffling my words. ‘He kind of came home with me last night.’
She grabs my arm, pulls me to a stop and looks all around, straining to see past the corner of my street. ‘Where is he?’
‘He left early.’
Stace narrows her eyes. ‘He didn’t leave when you woke up, did he? Literally a dream guy in all senses of the word?’
‘No, he left before I woke up. He was—’
‘A one-night stand!’ She shouts loud enough to attract the attention of a smart business-suited father and well-dressed mother packing their two impressionable young children into the back of the frightfully posh car in their driveway. They give us a suitably dirty look.
‘Nia Maddison!’ Stacey ignores them and carries on at a normal volume. ‘That’s not like you! Have you been at the festive spirit or what?’
‘It wasn’t like that. He was hurt and tired and I wouldn’t let him drive … He even did the washing up, Stace.’
‘What’s that? A euphemism? A kinky sex position?’
‘No, the actual washing up. With one hand.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t sleep with him? Because Simon only does actual washing up in exchange for sexual favours.’
‘No, he’s just that much of a gent.’
‘Like the kind you wished for?’
‘No. Well, maybe. But it’s ridiculous. He couldn’t be.’
‘He couldn’t be a Christmas decoration come to life or he couldn’t be an actual real-life man who just happens to have some prince-like qualities and isn’t as much of a wanker as the other guys you’ve dated in recent years?’
‘He hates my favourite time of year, Stace. He’s no prince,’ I mumble as she slots her arm through mine and makes me fill her in with as much info as possible in the five-minute walk to Nutcracker Lane.
‘His car’s gone,’ I say the instant the car park comes into view.
‘Did you expect it not to be?’ She pushes herself up on tiptoes to follow my gaze to the empty space under the lamppost.
‘No. I don’t know. I guess he’d go home to shower and change. I was just hoping …’ I can’t finish the sentence. What was I hoping? That he’d be there so I didn’t have to wait a moment longer to see him? ‘I just want to know he’s okay. He wasn’t in good shape last night.’
‘Hmm.’ She sounds like she isn’t sure which one of us I’m trying to convince either.
***
‘Nia, you’re blocking customers’ view of the goods – will you come away from that flipping window?’
I jump when Stacey barks at me for not the first time this morning. ‘It’s half past ten and he isn’t in yet. Where is he?’
‘I don’t know, but maybe if you stop watching his shop for three seconds, he’ll turn up.’
I tidy the same display stand of Stacey’s earrings that I’ve tidied approximately seventy times so far this morning. Turning each backing card of tiny resin holly-leaf earrings so each point of the holly faces the exact same way. I should be working – using every opportunity when the shop’s not busy to be out the back, painting as much stock as possible to give us the most chance of outselling the other shops, but the fact James hasn’t come into work yet is at the forefront of my mind and I can’t concentrate on anything else.
‘What does it matter if he doesn’t open up anyway?’ Stacey says after she’s served a customer buying a glittery hand-painted set of standing snowmen ornaments. ‘It’s a good thing because we might get some of his customers. Why are you so worried?’
‘Because he’s …’ I trail off as a customer comes through the door and says good morning to us both. It’s another sentence I can’t finish anyway.
‘Can you man the till while I replace the two necklaces that have sold from the mannequin busts in the window?’
I give James’s dark shop another look like something might’ve changed in the 0.02 seconds since I last looked. Whoever would’ve thought I’d miss a Macarena-ing Santa?
Stacey disappears into the back and the woman who just came in asks me about the custom ‘Christmas with the …’ wall plaques I make and how many letters can be fitted into the family name and says she’ll talk it over with her husband and retreats, unlikely to ever be seen again.
‘Do you prefer the—’ Stacey comes back onto the shop floor with three necklaces in her hands and stops in her tracks, her eyes fixed on the door. ‘What the …’
I follow her gaze to where a man who is clearly James is hovering in the doorway with his left arm still in the sling, a poinsettia in a pot under his good arm, a cardboard tray containing three takeaway coffees in the same hand, and a brown paper bag over his head. There are eye holes cut out, a hole for his mouth, and two bright red circular cheeks drawn on in the brightest marker pen.
The surprise at his appearance couples with the relief of finally seeing him and I burst into such maniacal, unhinged laughter that a customer goes to come in but quickly reconsiders.
‘What are you doing?’ I say when I can breathe again. ‘Other than trying to break the other arm by walking around with that on your head?’
‘Trying to frighten people half to death?’ Stacey asks. ‘I thought we were about to be robbed!’
‘Ah, sorry.’ James apologises to her. ‘I hadn’t
