Page 30 of His Until Christmas

“Family?”

He nods. “It isn’t a good time of year for everyone. I get it. Had a few really shitty ones of my own when I was younger, andeven now I get uneasy before going back to spend it at home, so I understand how it isn’t a happy time for everyone. If a big family gathering was a line in the sand, I wouldn’t push any friend to cross it. But Valentin didn’t think twice about stamping across my own line in the sand.”

“Which was?”

He huffs out a long breath that sends sprinkles flying, but I don’t feel a single urge to tidy our table. Those sprinkles can stay right where they landed. I’m too busy soaking up the sweetness he next shows me.

“You know how I feel about the foundation kids? How Rex does too?”

I do. They’re both peas out of the same soft-hearted pod, so I’m surprised how firmly he says this.

“I told Valentin he couldn’t film any of the children the foundation fished out of the water.” This is even firmer. “That hemustn’trecord them, especially mid-therapy session. I do most of that outdoors. That’s where kids can really let go, and that’s where he recorded them without me knowing. I told him to delete the footage, and he argued. Turned it around to me being selfish. If I wanted him to break into documentary making, I’d let him film more, not less. Besides, he’d only videoed a bit of play and what did that matter?”

I don’t like this frown on him. It’s everything I’ve seen already. Reece is bruised and confused all over again. Most of all, he’s disappointed.

With himself.

I hear it after he inhales slowly, then admits, “I can’t help thinking I projected the idea of Valentin being a friend, you know? Friends want the best for each other. He didn’t want that for me or the foundation.”

“He only wanted the best for himself?”

Reece shrugs again, uneasy. “I’m sure he had his reasons. People always do. But once I realised, I told him his rescue series was sunk and I haven’t seen him since. Months later, my lifeboat capsized, and I saw something else much more clearly.” He scrubs his face. “Had a hell of a weekend, Jack.”

“You capsizedthisweekend?”

“Lifeboats do that.” He shrugs. “They’re designed to roll with the waves and then right themselves. That’s what the foundation boat did just fine. It bobbed to the surface like always. I didn’t.” He huffs out a huge breath, grey all over again like first thing this morning, and I can’t ignore it.

I don’t know which of us moves first. Or if this hug counts as lines crossed. It feels pretty mutual.

And needed.

“I went overboard,” he huffs against my shoulder. “Got snagged between rocks. Thought I wasn’t going to make it back.”

“To the surface?”

Reece gives me a final squeeze before letting me go. I see him shake his head again, although he doesn’t huff out a huge breath this time.

“No, Jack.”

He sighs this so gently.

“To you.”

8

That confession travels allthe way back to Kensington with us.

I hearto youabove the rumble and hiss of double-decker buses, a bass line thrumming below Christmas music as we pass more department stores with festive windows. I don’t stop beside a single one to take a selfie. Instead, I march to the beat of two words, and by the time I unlock the door to a tall, white townhouse, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who hears them as a second heartbeat.

Reece shrugs out of his coat and my scarf, then stands in the same spot where mistletoe once hung. Nothing spins above his head to invite me to kiss all of his hurt better. Because that’s what I heard several times during the last part of our conversation: Being usedhadhurt him. He’d been blind to it, at first. He can’t have been deaf to it if his expression as he repeated what Valentin told him about being scruffy was a measure.

I can’t count how often I’ve told Rex that his hair is a disaster or that he looks as if he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. It’s probably as many times as Rex has grumbledand then gifted me stationery from tax havens. Both are proof of caring. Of how we complement each other, but here’s the real truth about Rex in his untidiest moments. Those scruffy days are when I know he’s doing what Heligans are born for.

Now Reece stands where he encouraged me to spin—to play—and isn’t that his own real calling?

Reece has been bruised by someone superficial who doesn’t value his work, and now I can’t stop thinking about what could have bruised him long before I ever knew him. Something about going home each December also left an uneasy mark on him, which is hard to believe when the Trelawney family are Christmas-card perfect.

I don’t know why the idea of him having shitty holidays as a kid seems worse to me than a narcissist abusing his good nature with a camera. Maybe it’s due to having a run-in with a camera-wielding narcissist of my own. Only good things have come my way since I put Lito Dixon’s bullshit behind me. I’d tell Reece that if he was done unloading.

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