Page 21 of It Happened on Christmas Eve
Shaking his head forlornly, Mitch steps aside.
I push open the door to the bar area and before I walk away, I turn back and look him up and down. ‘Mitch Birch is the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.’
I watch his face fall while he considers his stupid name, and feel a bloom of happiness inside my chest. Mitch is a dick. He was always a dick and I was so blinded by emotion that didn’t see it until right now. This feels like closure. It’s a miracle. A Christmas miracle!
Before Mitch can gather a response to my statement, I march back out into the pub and up to his fiancée.
‘Can I help you?’ she asks, tilting her head to one side. I stand there for a second, I’m about to tell her about Mitch coming on to me just now. But it’s Christmas Eve. He already wrecked Christmas for me last year. I don’t want to be the one to wreck it for her. Mitch says she works in the hair salon next door. I’ll go in the New Year and tell her then.
‘I, uh, like your coat,’ I say instead. ‘I just thought I’d tell you.’
She looks down at her perfectly ordinary black woollen coat. ‘Um, thanks!’ she says with a smile. ‘It’s from River Island!’
‘Cool! Bye!’ I spin on my heel and hurry over to Adam, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Ellie and Jim are snogging up against the wall by the bar. Oh jeez. Well there’s a topic of conversation for us to start with when we hang out.
At the table I neck the last of my drink, wiping my mouth with my hand. ‘We have to go now,’ I say. I grab Adam’s wheelchair before he can protest and, zooming through the crowd of revellers, we exit into the dark, snowy night.
Chapter Twelve
Christmas Eve 9:05 p.m.
It’s almost like a blizzard outside which means that pushing Adam’s wheelchair, plus the bags, plus the Christmas tree, plus the crutches through large piles of snow, leaves me so breathless that I can barely talk the whole way back to Adam’s house. I manage to puff out a brief version of what happened in the corridor with Mitch, to which Adam cheers and laughs, especially when I tell him what I told Mitch about his dumb name.
We finally,finallyreach Elgin Crescent and Adam’s flat. There are few steps up the to the big red front door, so I first help Adam up and onto his crutches and then support him until we open the door and he is safely in the hallway. By the time I’ve carried the tree and the shopping bags up, I’m all sweaty and gross, despite the freezing weather.
Inside the townhouse, I head into the living room to say goodbye to Adam and notice that it has definitely not been decorated by Marcy. Her usual soft and elegant muted style is not apparent here but the room is still gorgeous with high stark white walls, large colourful abstract art hanging above an original black fire place and a massive blue sofa placed haphazardly on a red Persian rug.
‘You want a drink?’ Adam calls from the kitchen. I head in to the small, neat kitchen to find him leaning on a crutch with one hand and using the other to pull a bottle of beer out of the fridge.
‘No more alcohol for me,’ I say, still feeling the effects of all the vodka I drank in the pub, not to mention the adrenaline from my encounter with Mitch and the odd sense of jubilation it gave me. ‘I should probably head off anyway,’ I say with with a self conscious wave. ‘Got to get those noodles, you know?’
‘Ah yes. Your noodles.’
We stare at each other for a second and I notice a little glisten of melting snow on his curls and his stubble. I have a strong urge to touch it.
Yes. Definitely no more alcohol.
Adam reaches his hand out for my hand. I jump at his touch, feeling a funny feeling where funny feelings have not occurred for rather a long time. About a year, in fact.
‘You’re bloody freezing,’ he says, squeezing my hand a little. ‘At least a warm drink before you go? Hot chocolate?’
I peek at my watch. A hot chocolate does sound lovely and Tesco will still be open in twenty minutes. And, I don’t know, going home alone to my flat somehow doesn’t seem quite as urgent as it did this morning.
‘Sure.’ I smile. ‘Thanks. Can you manage?’
Adam grimaces as he wobbles slightly on his crutches. ‘I might need a little help.’
I pull off my snow covered puffa jacket and, following Adam’s directions for where everything is, I start to make the hot chocolate, boiling the milk in a pan and spooning the hot chocolate powder into a couple of big handmade blue mugs. Adam switches on a little vintage looking radio. It’s playing Christmas songs.
‘Shit, shall I turn it onto another station?’ he asks.
‘No. No, it’s alright,’ I say. Michael Bublé croons away and I find it charming, rather than annoying. Was Michael Bublé’s voice always this melty? Why am I only just noticing it now?
‘You forgot the squirty cream,’ Adam points out.
‘You have squirty cream? In your house, like generally?’ I goggle.
Adam goggles too. ‘You don’t? Hot chocolate is rubbish without squirty cream.’
