Page 12 of Stuck With My Christmas Crush

Jason has collected the bowls and taken them to the kitchen.

“All set?” he says holding out a raincoat for me.

“Sure.”

Rocko jumps down from the chair and wags his tail.

“You stay here, boy.” Jason smooshes Rocko’s face between his hands then strokes the animal’s enormous head.

“I have some tools in the truck. But I won’t know what to do until I look under the hood.”

“Are you a mechanic?”

“Engineer. It’s about the same thing. I usually work on really big engines. That’s about the only difference.”

Outside, Jason pulls his hood over his head against the horizontal sleet and dashes to the gate to open it up. I climb into the cab of the Chevy and Jason joins me soon after. In the short time of being outside our raincoats are slick with water.

“I hope Bertie hasn’t blown away in the storm.”

“Bertie?”

“My car. His name is Bertie the Beetle.”

“Of course it is.” Jason laughs then starts the Chevy and reverses out of the gate.

It only takes a few minutes to drive down the narrow lane that seemed to go on forever when I was walking up it earlier. Bertie is, thankfully, still there waiting, forlorn and broken, at the side of the road.

“Okay. You pop the hood, and I’ll have a look,” Jason says reaching for a toolbox behind the driver’s seat.

I don’t want to get out of the warm dry cab, but Jason is already at the front of Bertie waiting for me to unlock the door and pop the hood. I take a deep breath then make adash for my car, get the key in the lock, and open the door. I throw myself onto the driver’s seat.

Inside Bertie smells of musty damp mixed with strawberry hair product. Every surface is sprinkled with pink glitter. I pull the rain jacket hood over my head and join Jason at the engine. He looks serious and wipes his oily hands on a rag.

“We’ll try the jumper cables,” Jason shouts above the din of the lashing rain. “But I’m sorry to say that it’s maybe something more than a dead battery.”

I stand to one side as Jason attaches the red and black cables to the battery points in Bertie’s engine, then he opens the hood of the Chevy and clips them on in there too. His progress is hampered by sideways rain that blows in bucketloads. I think I’ll need another hot shower and a change of clothes after this episode, and I’ve only been standing out here for a few minutes. Jason jumps into the driver’s seat and starts up the Chevy. He pumps the accelerator which makes the engine roar.

“Hey, Charlie. You’re getting soaked again. Hop in, out of the rain.”

Jason’s sensible suggestion clicks me out of my mental fog, and I scurry round to the passenger door of the Chevy, open it, and hop inside.

“This storm is getting worse,” says Jason as he turns on the radio which is playing the Christmas classic, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’. “We should get a weather update soon.”

“I love this one!” I can’t help singing along and dancing in my seat. I expect Jason to join in with the chorus, but he just stares at me.

“Come on, Jason. Sing it with feeling, ‘All I want for Christmas is you!’” I belt out the lyrics at the top of my lungs as if I am possessed by the spirit of Mariah Carey. Jason blinks and sighs patiently. I feel self-conscious and stop singing. “Alright. Well, maybe not this particular Christmas song but the next one? We’ll see, huh?”

The next song is Boney M, ‘Mary’s Boychild’.

“Ah, no. This one’s not one of my favorites.” Jason fixes me with an accusatory stare as if I am the ax murderer. I shrug and stare back. “What?”

“Here we are, at the side of the road, in a storm, and you’re singing along to Christmas songs?”

“Yeah. Tis the season to be jolly, falalalalah-lala-la-lah. Where’s your Christmas spirit?” Jason blows out another long sigh. “Alright. What’s your favorite song, then?”

“I don’t have a favorite. They’re all garbage.” He shakes his head. “I don’t really like Christmas. At all.”

I gasp. “Don’t like Christmas?” And I’m about to follow up with, “What is wrong with you?” but I remember my manners, and that Jason is rescuing me, so I smile and say, “Did you have a bad Christmas experience growing up?”

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