A Quiet Kind of Thunder(55)
When we break apart he pushes the tip of his nose to my cheek, smiling now. He kisses me again, reaches down and takes my hand. Let’s go, he signs.
We carry on with the day we’d planned – buying presents for the whole Gold family, pausing to kiss on a bench, sharing a crêpe from the Christmas market – but it doesn’t feel the same after the collision. Rhys is a little distant, a slight frown in his eyes, and I’m fluttery with anxiety, jumping at every noise and checking all around me before I cross the street. Still, we don’t talk about it, skating around it like a crack in the road, as if it didn’t happen.
I don’t mention it to anyone else, either. Even Tem, though I’m not sure why not. Maybe I just don’t want to take the shine off the perfection of our relationship, but when she asks how our trip was I tell her it was magical. ‘He got Beats headphones for his older brother,’ I say. ‘Red ones.’
‘Generous,’ she says. ‘I hope he gets you something just as good.’
He does. We don’t exchange Christmas presents until Christmas Eve, which is the compromise both our parents force us into instead of allowing us to see each other on Christmas Day. I work at the kennels until mid-afternoon, and then Rhys picks me up and drives me to his house. He’s bought me a handmade quokka figurine, almost too beautiful to be real, and small enough to fit in my hand. When I pull back the tissue paper to reveal the intricate carvings, I almost cry.
After the presents, we sink into each other and kiss for a while. Let me take this opportunity to say that ‘kiss’ is one of the most inadequate words in the English language. It sounds so innocent and sweet. But we are lying on his bed. His stubble is scraping my chin. My bra is unclasped. His hand is under my shirt, stroking circles on my stomach and sliding, oh so hesitantly, up . . .
Anyway. So we kiss.
I spend the two weeks of the Christmas holidays at Mum’s house. Even though I miss Rita, there’s no better place to spend the season than in a house with an excitable five-year-old. Especially a five-year-old who insists on being called Sleigh Bell all the way through December and who likes to dress up in sparkly costumes.
Tem comes over at 9 a.m. on Christmas Day for hugs, presents and hot apple juice. We huddle together in the garden, watching our breath frost in the air in front of us, until she has to leave to go to Mass.
‘Have fun,’ I say, hugging myself for warmth on my front step as she heads off down the driveway. ‘Say hi to Jesus for me.’
‘I will!’ she sings, spinning on the spot but somehow not breaking her stride.
I wait until she’s out of sight, then head back into the house. Bell has changed into her Cinderella outfit and is singing Christmas songs at the top of her voice. Keir is on the phone to his sister, who is coming over with her family, giving directions. I take the opportunity to go to my bedroom and open up jackbytes, hoping to talk to Rhys, but he’s not online, so I text him instead.
Steffi:
Merry Christmas, Boyfriend.
I like you a lot. xxx
His reply comes about an hour later. I’m sitting in the living room with my family and Keir’s, watching Bell and her cousins open presents.
Rhys:
Merry Christmas, Girlfriend.
I like you even more xxxx
My heart fills and I curl up even tighter in my armchair, hugging myself. I take a quick selfie of my bashful, beaming face and send it to him. When I look up, Mum is smiling at me. I’m so full of happy I smile back.
We eat a lot of food and then go through Christmas traditions like we’re ticking them off a list: a flaming Christmas pudding only the adults eat; charades; an argument over what to watch on TV; Trivial Pursuit; a walk round the block; more arguments about TV; and then, finally, the elongated goodbyes, sleeping children carried to the car and Mum’s gentle sigh of relief as the door closes.
And that’s Christmas over for another year. I take a box of After Eights to my room and snuggle up in bed with my phone, talking to Rhys until everyone else in the house has gone to bed and it’s all quiet and still.
I work at the kennels for the next few days and then spend New Year with Mum, Keir and Bell. Rhys and his family are visiting his grandparents in Wales and Tem is at a house party with Karam and his friends. Though she’d invited me I didn’t seriously consider going, and I don’t think she did either. Instead, I sit on the sofa with a drooping Bell on my lap as the hours pass, waking her with a squeeze when the countdown starts.
‘I stayed up!’ she yells, blinking. ‘Happy New Year!’ And then falls asleep again.
I’m in bed by half past midnight, and asleep by one.
‘You wild child,’ Tem teases me the next day, the two of us lolling on the swings as Davey and Bell run around the playground.
‘I’ve never claimed to be a party animal,’ I retort. ‘And at least I –’I gesture to myself as obnoxiously as possible – ‘am not hungover.’
Tem scowls. ‘Yeah, yeah. Don’t rub it in.’ She stretches, her feet dipping into the woodchips below the swing. ‘I shouldn’t have had so much Prosecco.’
‘Did you have fun, though?’
She nods, but there’s not much fun in her face, to be honest, though I put this down to the hangover rather than a lie. ‘It was great.’
‘Who did you kiss at midnight?’ I’m teasing. It’s obvious who she kissed at midnight.