“It’s amazing. I’m not sure about the cheese though. Is that an English thing?”
Lucy thought about it and realised she didn’t know. She’d just always had it that way and, ever since she was an adult, with a glass or two of sherry. “Hmm, not sure.”
“And, just asking, but is there alcohol in this?”
“Oh, loads. Mum practically empties an entire bottle of sherry into it in the month leading up to Christmas.” She had a realisation and her head spun towards Will just as he glanced at her, then down to the cake. “Oh, bollocks. You’re driving.”
“I was just thinking that.”
“Sorry, I should have realised. No cake for you, I’m afraid.” She took the cake off his leg, noting how taut his thigh was beneath his jeans, and wrapped it up in the napkin. “At least not until we get there.”
“It’s really good, though. You’ve definitely changed my mind.”
She smiled to herself as she took another bite. Looking out the window, she went back to her “snowed-in alone with Will” fantasy, which now included a boozy Christmas cake.
Chapter 6
Jules
“Here you go, sweetheart,” said her dad as he manoeuvred his SUV between two others. Denver airport was mayhem this time of year.
“Thanks again for driving me. You didn’t have to. I could have Ubered.”
“Jules, this may come as a huge surprise, but I’m going to miss you, sweetheart, and this way I got to spend a little more time with you.”
Jules wondered if she was imagining the sheen of tears in her dad’s eyes. He made a gruff man-sound and climbed out to retrieve her luggage from the trunk. Jules took a deep breath as a wave of melancholy washed over her. Yes, she was a grown woman with a job and her own place and a life, but this was the first time she’d be spending Christmas away from her family, from her dad.
The sound of the trunk slamming shut brought her back to the present. She gathered her carry-on bag and her satchel from the footwell and braced herself for the blast of cold.
Her dad was waiting on the pavement for her, stamping the way he did when it was close to freezing outside. She felt a pang of guilt—not just that her dad was standing outside in a snowstorm guarding her luggage, but that she was abandoning him—and her mother, her brother, her stepdad, and her aunt’s whole family—at Christmas. A gust of wind whipped her honey-blonde hair into her face, and it felt like a slap.
This is why I’m going to Australia where it’s hot.
“Bye, Dad,” she said, throwing her arms around her dad’s broad shoulders.
“Bye, sweetheart.” He enveloped her in a tight hug. “Text when you land, so I know you’re safe.”
“I will.”
Her dad’s hugs were the stuff of dreams, but there was no putting it off any longer or they’d both get frostbite. It was time to go. Jules stepped out of the hug and grinned at her dad. “See you next year!” She grabbed the handle of her luggage and jogged off towards the terminal door, the sound of her dad’s laughter catching on another gust of wind.
*
Denver-LA-Melbourne—as flights went, it was an easy journey. Even the two-hour layover at LAX wasn’t as bad as she had expected. Maybe the tacky piped holiday music and even tackier tinsel, Christmas lights, and gaudy Santas had worked their magic. People were actually smiling.
Or maybe, five days before Christmas, everyone was just in the holiday spirit. Everyone but her. On the short flight between Denver and LA, she had convinced herself she was doing the wrong thing.
She should have stayed and had the loud, chaotic Christmas that her screwed-up, but lovable family had every year. Or, at the very least, she should have waited and welcomed Lucy. She loved Lucy. Lucy was the sort of person who, just by being around her, made Jules’s spirit soar.
She should have stayed for her dad.
She knew, on the surface at least, that everything was amicable and her parents still shared some weird kind of love—just that it was platonic now. She knew he got along with her stepdad, Joe, and that he could handle himself among the brash familial love that Aunt Jackie and her family would bring to the holidays.
And yet …
Jules also knew she was her dad’s biggest ally, that when the family dinners and games of Cards Against Humanity or Trivial Pursuit got too rowdy, she could catch his eye across the table and they’d share a moment of calm, just with a look. Those moments were a sort of “time out” from their maelstrom of family life, shared by two introverts who loved everyone there, but longed for a breath of quiet and stillness.
She knew her brother, Will, would do his best. He was under strict instructions to look out for their dad—and for Lucy—but he didn’t see the world quite the way Jules did, and she was worried he would neglect his duties.
Why, oh why, am I going all the way to Australia for the holidays? she’d asked herself, just as the plane touched the tarmac in LA.
But she knew why. Sometimes, getting on a plane was the only way to shake yourself out of a rut—a rut that you had created and that was slowly eating you up.
*
While she waited for her luggage to pop out of the shoot in Melbourne, Jules peeled off as many layers as she could—coat, sweater, and long-sleeved T-shirt—and stuffed them into her carry-on, still wearing a tank and her jeans. She was also still in her boots, but her flip-flops were packed, and there was no way she was going through the rigmarole of swapping them out at baggage claim.
Her luggage arrived and she cleared customs, then followed signs through the terminal to the Sky Bus. Ash had offered to pick
