Page 27 of Forever Ink

Magnus caught me looking over at Simon and chuckled. “Å leve på luft og kjærlighet.” At my confused look he spoke again. “You two are living on air and love.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Mouse went over to his dad and whispered in his ear. Magnus gave a thumbs up and then went back to cut out Christmas decorations for the table the way Alice had told him to do it. She had quite a Christmas production line going and sat at the end of the table like a proud teacher.

Leaving them to it, Mouse and I continued to dress the tree. The lights took us a little bit—we had to work out which lights were causing the others not to work—but we got it sorted out, and soon the tree started to look amazing. I had only faint memories of celebrating Christmas when Mum was alive and having a tree at grandad’s farm. He loved Christmas, a sentiment my dad and stepmother did not share. But I wasn’t going to let myself get melancholy thinking about them. Tomorrow Grandad would arrive, and I couldn’t wait for him to be here.

Warm arms encircled my waist and Simon’s lips pressed against my cheek. “It looks perfect.” I looked at the tree and smiled. All it needed was the baubles that the others had been working on, but they would have to let the glitter and paint dry on them. Magnus announced they would go on the tree tonight after dinner, when we would have cake and glögg.

“Do you really like it?”

“Love it, baby bear. This is our first Christmas together and I don’t know about you, but it kind of feels special.” Simon hugged me against him. Thankfully he didn’t see the secretive smile I wore.

He didn’t know how special I hoped to make this Christmas.

Chapter 13

SIMON

Dad had cooked his roast lamb in the old wood oven, and I swore it always tasted better than using the new fancy cooker. Roast potatoes and pumpkin and a big bowl of steaming brussel sprouts had my stomach growling.

Rhys piled his plate with potatoes and pumpkin, but studiously avoided the brussel sprouts. Catching my eye. He smiled. “I’m not eating anything that tastes like farts.”

The whole table erupted into laughter.

“Your mother used to call them green balls of putrefying death and it was only Sy and I who would ever eat them,” Dad answered, wiping his eyes.

I looked over the table towards Mouse, wondering how the mention of Mum was going down. He was sitting between Alice and Callum, and it was interesting how right that looked. Maybe my boy was onto something there.

It turned out I needn’t have worried at the mention of Mum. He smiled softly and grinned over at Dad, letting out a soft laugh. “The problem was she was a shocking cook, the three of us had to learn in self-defence.”

“Oh god, remember when she tried to make Christmas pudding? It caught fire, then when she threw it outside it broke one of the flagstones.”

Rhys giggled alongside me, his warm body pressed against my side. “Makes my béchamel incident not seem too bad.”

Mouse heard Rhys and his eyes grew large, a shit-eating grin splitting his face. “What happened?”

Rhys affected a prim tone. “All I will say is the pan was a loss. Even a jackhammer wouldn’t be able to save it.”

Callum spoke up, shaking his head. “You got no place to tease him, Mouse. Remember the cookie disaster of last week?”

Mouse looked at Alice and they both grinned. “We were experimenting,” they said in unison.

“Kit-Kat Toblerone cookies, and you forgot to space them out—or the fact they were even in the oven until the house smelt like a fire in a chocolate factory.” Callum shot me a wink, “To be fair though they did taste bloody good even burnt.”

Doc looked over at me with a bemused face. “How on earth none of you have ended up in the clinic with either food poisoning or burns astounds me, but I am frankly thankful.”

I pulled Rhys tighter and brushed a kiss over his curls, catching my dad’s eye. I saw him smile—a real bright smile, the sort my mum used to pull out of him—and realised that this Christmas was healing more things than I thought.

The evening moved on at a lazy pace. I found myself just sitting back and enjoying it cuddling Rhys on the sofa.

“Dad,” Alice piped up from her spot on the rug, “Mouse and I want to play Exploding Kittens.’’ The game debate had been going on for twenty minutes with Rhys ducking out, saying it was all too much work to play a board game. Doc and Callum were steadfast in their desire to play Trivial Pursuit.

Callum turned from where he was rummaging through the bookshelf to give his daughter and Mouse a suspicious look. “You want to play what now?”

I buried my face in Rhys’s hair to stop from laughing outright at Callum’s shocked face.

“Exploding Kittens.”

“That sounds unpleasant,” Doc drawled.

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