Holly's mum gave him an appalled expression. 'Sod that. Drinking games!' Shuffling over to a cupboard, she pulled open a door to reveal shelves packed with no end of snacks, bottles, packs of cards and tea towels, like an overstuffed sock draw, and yanked out a garment covered in turquoise sequins.
'This is the drinking jacket. Put it on love,' she didn't give him much of a choice, shoving his arms into it. She ran her hands over his broad shoulders. 'Nice fit,' she said approvingly.
Holly clutched her head with her hands. 'Oh, Mum!'
Noel hid a smile. Holly looked adorable. Exasperated, but adorable.
'Don't worry, handsome,' Tina put her hands on her hips, 'if you drink too much we'll stuff you in a cab. Or there's a spare room you can stop in.'
'That's really kind but like I said, I can't intrude on you, with tomorrow being what it is.'
'Nonsense, we have guests all the time,' she marched over to a table and picked up a bottle of whiskey.
Sorry, Holly mouthed at him. 'Mum, Noel probably has other plans.'
As she said it, giving him an out, something strange happened. The panic started receding.
'Pffttt, if that was the case he'd be there already. You listen to your old mum. He wants to stay. You're going to have to be careful though love,' she told Holly, 'after taking those tablets. Don't go trying to be drinking champion like you usually do.'
Holly rolled her eyes. Great, now Noel was probably going to think she had a problem with alcohol.
'Are you staying, Noel?' Tina peered up at him. 'It'll give you a chance to relax. You look too uptight for a youngster.' She pinched his cheek and patted it, turning away, assuming she'd convinced him. 'Right everyone,' clapping her hands to get people's attention, 'let's get started. Form the circle.' Obediently, people stopped their conversations. Someone switched off the TV, and they all lowered themselves to sit down cross-legged on the floor, even an old lady with pink tinted hair who looked about a hundred, who rubbed her hands gleefully. 'Bring out the port!'
Holly signalled frantically behind her Mum's back, 'Go now, quickly,' she whispered, 'escape while you can.'
'I don't know,' he drawled, 'it kind of sounds like fun.' It did. Plus there was still the matter of the sheer black tights and flirty black dress. He wasn't ready to give that up yet. And Matt probably wasn't expecting him to come back now anyway, it was too late, but he could easily text his friend to let him know where he was.
'But…I really didn't think it would be your thing. You don't like Christmas.'
'It's not Christmas yet, and it's just a drinking game. It would also be rude to leave when your Mum is so obviously keen for me to stay.'
'Huh, if you're not careful she'll have us married off by New Year,' she muttered.
'What?' he dipped his head toward her.
'What?' she echoed innocently.
'Come on you two,' Tina called across the room, 'I've made space for you to sit together,' Holly let out an audible groan at her mum's match-making, 'and we need Noel to start it off. He's wearing the drinking jacket.'
'Okay, stay.' She looked up at him, and he fought a mad urge to stroke her hair. 'I'm warning you though,' she said, looking serious, blue eyes wide, 'about my Aunt, the one in the dark blue twin set. She uses the mistletoe.' She pointed to a sprig above the kitchen door. 'Don't let her catch you under it.'
'I'll be careful,' he said solemnly, taking her hand and leading her across the room. Tensing, she looked down at their joined hands. He let go quickly. Maybe he had it wrong, perhaps she didn't want him there and she'd only stopped him leaving out of gratitude for helping her. Settling on the floor, Noel ignored the thought, slowly relaxing as Tina explained the rules of the game, a version of Fizz Buzz, where any number divisible by three was replaced by fizz and any number divisible by five replaced by buzz, and players took it in turns round the circle to say a number, fizz or buzz, counting upwards from one to a hundred.
At the beginning of each round everyone had one drink. Players only had three seconds per turn.
'Three seconds? Is that it?' he turned to Holly, who was biting the inside of her cheeks.
'You were the one who decided to stay,' she shrugged, eyes twinkling.
'So where does the drinking jacket come in then?' he asked.
'Every time one of us gets it wrong, you have to have a drink. Every time you get it wrong, you nominate someone else to have a drink. After the first round of one hundred, you pass the jacket to someone else.'
'Wait,' he said suspiciously, 'if I have to drink every time someone gets it wrong, the odds are against me. Aren't I going to get drunk pretty quickly?'
Holly's dad smiled sloppily, raising his glass of whiskey in a toast. Noel realised they'd all been drinking for a while, it was just that his appearance with their daughter had sobered her parents up rapidly.
'I'm going to regret this aren't I?' Noel asked Holly mournfully.
'Shut up and have your first drink,' she ordered, fanning her face and standing up to scramble out of her tights, before sinking down again. 'That's better. I was getting hot.'
'You're telling me,' he said under his breath, eyeing the generous length of bare legs on display, and casually readjusting his jeans. 'Okay,' he said, 'let's start then. Cheers,' holding his shot glass aloft then throwing back the contents.
'Wait!' Holly said, grabbing hold of his arm. 'Mum forgot to tell you, when you nominate someone to have a drink, you can include Pudding too.'
'What?' staring at her, amazed. 'What were in those tablets I gave you?'
'He likes the taste of straight coke,' she ignored his dig, 'so we let him join in.'
On cue, the chocolate Lab appeared next to Noel, eye-balling him fiercely.
Noel had never known any family quite like them. 'All right, fine,' he put his hands up, palms out like he was being held up. 'This is getting more surreal by the minute.'
Holly laid her head on his shoulder, gazing up at him and fluttering her eyelashes. 'But it's also getting more fun, right?'
Grinning, he nodded. 'Right.'
Two in the morning found them sitting outside on a frozen wooden bench, an inch of snow crunching underfoot, giving the night a fairytale feeling. Despite her mum's protestations, Holly had proved herself Champion again, and was giggly as a consequence. After Fizz, Buzz they'd drunk creamy Baileys over ice, played monopoly, Pictionary and charades, and at one point Holly had laughed so hard that rum and coke had shot out of her nose. She'd put on a funny Christmas jumper as they'd left the back room, and now she shivered, huddling into his side.
'It's a shame about the jumper,' he remarked, studying it, praying his eyes didn't cross.
'Yeah, I'm sorry I had to ruin your fun by reminding you of what day it is,' she hiccupped.
'It's not that. I was just sad to see the sexy dress covered up.'
'Oh.' Her eyes brightened, 'Oh, do you like it? I designed it.'
'You did?'
'Yeah,' she paused, eyes sliding closed, then jerking upright. 'After the injury, when they said my knee wasn't healing right, that it would never be the same again and I couldn't skate professionally any more … well, it was bad. For a while at least.'
'So what did you do?' he wrapped an arm around her shoulders for warmth.
'Felt sorry for myself then realised I had to make other plans. So I studied design at college and decided to set my own company up designing and selling figure-skating dresses. It's something I know about, what's comfortable and what isn't, what emphasises and what distracts.' She raced straight on into her next thought. 'Noel?'
'Yes?'
'You don't like Christmas because