‘Oh, James, I’m sorry.’ Do not go and hug him. I repeat the words in my head. Do not go and hug him. He seems uncomfortable talking about it, but I’m not ready for him to stop yet. ‘You found messages?’
‘He phoned the house by mistake. I answered, he covered it well and I didn’t think anything of it, quite normal for a colleague to phone another colleague especially when they worked so closely and “travelled for work” so often. She was always on her mobile and was ridiculously protective of it, and in the scramble to get the house phone off me, she’d left it unlocked on the sofa. I wasn’t going to look or anything, I was working on my laptop, and as I was sitting there, a text message from him flashed up on the screen with a string of swearwords and “I didn’t mean James to answer. That was close!” I couldn’t ignore that.
‘By the time she came back in, I’d read hundreds of text messages going back years between them. The kind of messages and photos you don’t send a colleague. For me, that relationship was it. We were going to get married, have children, and go on cruises in our retirement. For her, I was just an acceptable substitute until the guy she really wanted left his wife.’
The reindeer antlers jingle with every movement, the happy sound the complete opposite of how flat and quiet his voice is, and I can’t hold back anymore. I’ve practically pureed the dried fruit I was meant to be stirring gently, and I shove it onto the unit and march across to him.
‘What are you—’
I cut him off by leaning up to get my arms around his neck and pulling him down carefully until I can kiss his cheek. ‘I’m so sorry, James.’ I hold his cheek against my face for far too long a moment. ‘You deserved better than that.’
It’s a bit awkward and a bit uncomfortable because I’m at his side rather than front-facing, and there’s no physical way he can hug me back, but I feel him exhale and relax and when I open my eyes, his are closed.
‘Is this hurting?’ I murmur.
‘No, but my icing’s dribbling.’
I burst out a laugh mixed with a dash of mild hysteria and let go of him, not missing the groan as he stands back upright.
I force myself to step away because no gingerbread is going to get iced and no Christmas cake is going to be made if I hug him for as long as I want to.
I watch him as he shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. ‘How long ago?’
‘Four years … well, closer to five now. I moved out and got a little flat because it was all I could afford until we sold the house, but that took a couple of years and I’m still in that “temporary” flat.’
‘With your boxes still not unpacked?’
‘Exactly. No wonder I keep coming over here.’
‘Ah, so it’s nothing to do with the biscuit selection tins and tubs of chocolate then?’
‘Add in the homecooked food and freshly baked gingerbread …’ He laughs but it trails off. ‘No. Honestly, Nee, it’s nothing to do with anything edible.’
This man should come with a health warning. I’m having so many hot flushes with him around that I’ve started to wonder if the menopause has come on fifteen years early.
I have no idea how to respond to that so I concentrate intently on spooning glacé cherries into a bowl and only realise when the bowl is overfull that weighing them out is actually a key part of the process. This will be the cherriest Christmas cake ever.
‘Okay, my turn.’ James goes back to icing scalloped roof tiles onto the gingerbread house. ‘Now you’ve got to tell me about you. You’re the most caring, sweet, funny, and beautiful person I’ve ever met, and I can’t believe you’re not seeing anyone. I’m still expecting a husband to pop out of the woodwork any second. How on earth are you still single? What’s going on?’
‘Waiting for Prince Charming?’ I try to make a joke of it but he raises both eyebrows and I know I’ve got to carry on, even though his words make me feel like I’m going to choke on my own teeth. ‘Cheating. There’s been a lot of it in my life too.’
‘Really?’ I can feel his eyes on me, burning into my back until I force myself to turn around and look at him and he gives me a sympathetic smile.
‘Yeah. I was with someone for nearly six years and I thought that was it too, until I caught him with someone else. It was so unexpected. I trusted him wholeheartedly. Cheating was something that had never even crossed my mind. After that, I could never really trust anyone. Eventually Stacey set me up with someone else. It lasted a few months, but he cheated too, and since then I’ve kind of kept men at arm’s length and never let anyone get close enough to hurt me. I’ve dated here and there when Stacey’s nagging has driven me mad, but nothing that’s ever been more than a couple of dates, and every single one of them has ended with cheating too. One started messaging his other girlfriend while we were having coffee, one ghosted me for a bit and then posted an engagement announcement on Facebook, and one texted me a message meant for his other woman on the day before Nutcracker Lane opened.’
‘Oh, wow. God, that’s so bad.’
‘It’s okay. Since the first guy, it hasn’t mattered. I push people away. I don’t let anyone in or let myself get serious with
