Page 41 of His Until Christmas

It’s that complex and this simple.

We just saw babies stare open-mouthed in wonder at streetlight angels then wail at screaming police-car sirens, and that’s what I could do right here in a tourist-trap pub where Mariah Carey hits her high notes. For a second time today, I could wail just like her and those infants.

Reece stops that from happening by nudging my knee under the table. I assume he’s prompting an answer to his food-or-photos question. He actually asks, “Something wrong?”

“Wrong? No, no, no. I’m perfectly fine.” I pull on my coat but I’m not quick enough to reach for my scarf.

Reece knots it again for me, taking his time to straighten each tassel. He’s slow and careful. So is this observation. “You didn’t look okay about whatever you just read on your phone.” He offers me an out. “Want to call it a night?”

“No.” That shoots out so loudly that heads turn, chatter dying like I do inside at sounding this desperate in public.

I get quieter in a hurry.

“Sorry. I just mean, I’m not ready to stop. Unless you’re tired of?—”

“London?” he asks with a wink that reminds me of Calum. His next suggestion comes with all the warmth Patrick injects into our morning three-way cuddles. “How could I be tired with you as a tour guide?” His final comment is pure Reece Trelawney. “Might be therapeutic to keep going. For both of us, I mean, because neither of us have had great experiences with camera-obsessed people, have we? It’s been good to use one tosend a little joy to someone special to you.” He tilts his head, and this sounds careful as well. “To open their window onto the outside world a little wider?”

I nod. That’s exactly what I do every single time I send home photos.

“Did she like what you sent so far?”

I nod again. “She loves them. All of them. Thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for.” His smile is small, but if there’s anyone else in this pub, I don’t see them when he tugs on a tassel and asks, “What’s next on the list, Jack?”

I pull myself together, then show him.

This time, I take him to London’s biggest toy shop, where he doesn’t only snap a pic of me under its red awnings. He also proves that he’s play-centric, and that Christmas can be for big kids as well as little, which he does by asking, “Can we go in?”

Yes, we fucking can.

I hold open the door, then follow someone instantly in their element into a store designed for children. We move from floor to floor where Reece makes verbal wish lists of resources before he stops to explain why he’d buy more superhero action figures for the foundation if money were no object. “Kids don’t ask to be uprooted. It leaves them feeling powerless.”

“So you give them toys to take their mind off it?”

“No. The opposite. We reenact their worst moments together, only with these so they get to be more powerful.” He wiggles an action figure so its cape flutters. “Doesn’t change what happened to them. Just offers a chance to let it all out without feeling helpless. That’s what the team and I do. We face whatever made their families desperate. Reframe that disaster as part of their story, not their final chapter. Play is one superpower to help them do that. Art is another. Storytelling brings both together.”

He sets a caped hero down and selects a less impressive action figure. “I know someone who would love to add more of these to his arsenal.” He points out more figures the newest recruit to his playful team could use as prompts for art projects. “Doctors and nurses. School teachers and construction workers. If our kids can move on, these are their futures now they’re somewhere safer. They can be useful instead of unwanted.”

He pauses by a toy-speedboat reminder of someone I can’t help thinking made Reece feel the same way once his usefulness was over. Then he’s silent for a second time in a section of the store where Christmas ornaments smother the branches of a tall tree.

Maybequietisn’t the right word for him circling this display and selecting bauble after bauble before replacing each one. He’s torn, and that’s a new look on him. One that adds to his creases in a way that makes me pay attention when he says, “Sorry to take so long, Jack.”

“No hurry.” He’s spent plenty of time helping me this evening. I’ve got all the time in the world for him to do a little Christmas shopping.

I kill time by looking through the photos he’s taken for me, and so what if I add the one featuring us both to my lock screen. It’s festive. It also holds all of my attention right up until Reece gives me a little window into his own world away from London. This time, he mentions his family.

“We take it in turns to get an ornament for the family tree every Christmas. Bit of a tradition. For Mum, really. She’s the one who will open it. This year, it’s my turn to choose.”

“That’s nice.”

He’s silent as he cradles a bauble. I’m pretty sure it’s made from plastic, not from anything more fragile, but him holding it like it might shatter means I can’t help asking a nosy question.

“Isn’t it?”

Apparently not.

He’s got shoulders broad enough to carry the whole foundation whenever Rex is on banking business. I don’t like seeing them bow like this. Maybe that’s why I get busy talking.

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