my front door our conversation pauses, but I don’t want it to end. It’s been too long without him here; I’m not ready for him to leave. He follows me up the stairs, holds the door for me. I put on Christmas music and as we sit on the sofa, I realise we’ve been holding hands.
I don’t know when it happened, but it feels right. My hand was made to be held by his. It is home.
“So,” I ask my old flame, “what do you want for Christmas?”
He is silent for a moment looking at our clasped hands.
“You. It is all I’ve ever wanted.”
My hand twitches in his. A spasm as it opens and closes, in time with my heart’s door slamming open after years locked tight.
His words are a key, and as I open up everything that was buried within me flows out in a mad rush.
First come the tears I cried during the nights after he left. The pain when he told me I scared him but in a good way. The helplessness that swamped me when I realised that there was nothing that I could do but let him go. And then, as all the detritus of us washes through and out, they clear and carve a route for the future.
“You broke my heart,” I say.
He nods and looks at me pleading, his face tense and sad.
“Do it again and I’ll kill you.”
He looks momentarily confused and then when he understands what I’ve said, he lights up.
I lean forward and within a millimetre of his lips I whisper.
“Merry Christmas.”
The End
I stared at the name on the little slip of paper I’d been given.
Matt Allen.
Just the name of the person that I had to buy a Secret Santa gift for. But it was also the name of the man I’d been fantasising about ever since he’d started working in the office back in October.
Even reading his name made the paper in my hand quiver.
I can still remember the exact moment I first saw him. It was a Monday morning the week before Halloween. I’d sailed in, heading straight to my desk in our offices that were right above a coffee shop in Covent Garden. And there was someone sat in my seat.
I checked my steps and then slowly approached. He had hair like a newly minted penny.
“Hi?” I said, standing behind him.
He swung round in my chair and stood up. He wasn’t tall but his broad shoulders filled out his suit.
“Hello.” His Scottish burr flowed through me like a shot of whisky and went straight to my knees. I quickly leant on the table to keep myself from falling at his feet.
“Matt Allen.” he said, as he stuck out his hand.
Mute, I held mine out and it was engulfed in a solid strong and warm grip. Sparks shot through me and like that, I was a goner.
And now I was his Secret Santa.
“So who have you got?” I had thought his name and he appeared. If only I could extend the magic to making him fall for me.
I quickly crumpled the paper in my fist.
“It is called ‘Secret Santa’, Matt. The clue is in the word ‘secret’.”
“Well I’m very good at keeping secrets.”
Honestly, his smile should be registered as a lethal weapon. When it curled up at the corners like that I felt as if he was holding a loaded gun to my heart, holding it for ransom.
“What do you want for Christmas?” I deflect him as best I could, whilst a little voice inside my head whispered me, me, me.
“Ah, what does every man want for Christmas? A fast car and a fast woman.”
He winked at me and smoothed his tie down over his chest.
“And what about you, Emma? What do you want?”
I wanted to be that fast woman.
But who was I kidding? I was about as fast as a nun in a broken down mini.
“I want to be surprised.” I said, for lack of any sane answer.
“I’m sure you will be, hen.”
He smiled a bit broader and sauntered off.
I smoothed out the Secret Santa paper, his name was still there. Well, the only fast anything I could get him with the ten pound gift limit would be a large family sized bucket from KFC.
“This is a disaster!” I sloshed wine out of my glass as I gesticulated to make my point to Ailsa. It was Saturday afternoon and I had one week before the office party. I needed the alcohol.
“Being Secret Santa of your crush should be an opportunity,” she said whilst mopping up the spillage.
“He is the most gorgeous man in the office, all the PAs are after him. And what am I supposed to get him for a tenner that will make him look at me? It’s pointless, completely pointless.”
I slumped back onto the sofa of our shared flat. The Christmas tree in the corner listed to the left and was smothered in gold tinsel. The lights flashed at me. I felt about as festive as an Easter egg.
“If you want him to notice you then you’re going to have to invest some time and money…” Ailsa raised her eyebrows at me.
Not this again.
“I don’t need a makeover.” I grumbled pulling my baggy grey cardigan around me.
“Sweetie, I love you. And any man would love your wonderful personality, but they are visual creatures. Sometimes you’ve got to give them something to look at first.”
“But…” I wanted to say she was wrong. But there was a reason that I dressed like a nun. My first year out of university, I’d visited a construction site as part of my job as a project manager. Two hours of leering, being called ‘darling’ and then ignored in meetings meant that in my career I had ‘manned up’ and ‘sexed down’.
“But nothing.” Ailsa said.
“Do you think this will work?” I hugged a cushion to my chest, anything to feel more secure.
“Matt Allan will drop his sporran when he sees you.” She ripped the cushion from my arms and dragged me up. “Let’s get shopping.”
The day of the Christmas party dawned.
“Up and at ‘em.” Ailsa shouted in my ear like a drill sergeant.
I burrowed my head under my pillow. I couldn’t do this.
“Look, I’ve laid it out as a project schedule so your project management mind can get round it. Manicure and pedicure at nine thirty am, fake tan at midday, hairdressers at two pm and then back here for dressing and make up. Seven pm leave here, seven thirty pm Matt sees you. Seven thirty one he falls in love. I reckon you’ll be back here by midnight. Twelve oh five you’ll find out what the Scotsman has under his kilt and you’ll be being shagged senseless around twelve ten.”
“I don’t want to.”
It all seemed too much. I was going to do all this and he was going to laugh at me.
“Yes, you do.”
And with Ailsa’s retort, I was unceremoniously pushed off my bed onto the floor.
At 5pm, I was buffed and shined and blow-dried into another person. I stood in the living room, my arms held away from my body. not daring