Page 110 of Kiss Me at Christmas
“People often mistake my flamboyance for narcissism.It’s a useful tool, people drop their guard under the presumption that I am a brick wall, when in fact I am a keen observer of the human condition.” He winked at her and tapped his nose.
“Blimey,” she said.
“We have hours before the hordes arrive for practice, and I don’t believe you want to spend the intervening time with nothing but your own thoughts for company.”
That was probably true.
“And I have heard tell that the café offers a festive pancake stack, which I am most interested to sample.” He tapped his forefinger to his lips thoughtfully. “Surely you won’t make me eat alone?”
She smiled at him, grateful.
“Thanks, Gideon.”
He flapped his cape over one shoulder and put an arm around her. “Now, my dear, riddle me this, have I yet regaled you with tales from my time at a little theater you may have heard of called Shakespeare’s Globe?”
“No,” she said warily, as they left the theater.
“Then you are in for a treat!”
Harriet had spent most of Sunday lying on the sofa in her sitting room alternating between watching holiday movies and reading; some might call it moping. James hadn’t called her, but neither had she called him. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true; he had phoned her twice on Saturday and left messages, both of which she had ignored—he had asked her to spend less time beholden to her phone, after all—but by Sunday he seemed to have got the message and for the first time in years, she wished her phone weren’t so quiet. She was sad that theirspark hadn’t had the chance to become a flame, but she reasoned that it was better to know where she stood now rather than later.
James might not have been her favorite person right then, but she was grateful that he had made her decorate her home for Christmas. Her festive space would keep her warm now that it seemed likely that James would not. Really, she should thank him; he and his dreadful boss had helped her to see the value of self-care…and it looked like now she’d have plenty of time to practice it.
“Explain it to me again,” Maisy asked. Her phone was propped up on a dressing table while she packed her suitcase, ready for when she and Savannah’s family drove up to their cabin in the mountains for Christmas. She kept wandering back and forth across the screen while she talked. “He wouldn’t stay because his daughter was upset and you wanted him to stay, and then he called you and you didn’t respond.”
“I mean, yes, that’s the nutshell version, but it isn’t the whole nut tree. What about your fleece hoodie? A mountain cabin sounds cold to me.”
Harriet was eating a bowl of vegetable noodles that she had made from scratch, and it felt like a big win for her personal growth. She watched Maisy pull her fleece out of a hamper and add it to her pile.
“But you like him. I mean, you must really like him to have told me about him, you’re normally well cagey about your boyfriends.”
“I’m not cagey, I’m selective.”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Maisy, flinging a pair of bed socks over her shoulder. “My point is, if everybody decided not to get together with the person they fancy onthe chance that one day that person might let them down, then nobody would ever get together with anybody.”
“You have managed to both overdramatize and oversimplify the situation in one fell swoop. Don’t forget to pack gloves and a hat.”
On another pass by the dressing table, with several pairs of knickers scrunched up into balls in her hand, Maisy stopped and bent to the phone screen. “Love is all about taking risks, isn’t it?”
“Who mentioned love?”
“All right, then, falling in ‘like’ is all about taking a risk because nobody knows what the future is, do they?”
“That’s a calculated risk, based on there being no obvious glaring red flags. And James is currently waving a big red flag at me. At any given moment Lyra or Morgan could break a nail, and he’ll go scuttling off to Scotland with an emergency emery board.”
“Now who’s overdramatizing? Striped scarf or checked scarf?”
“Striped.”
“The thing is, Mum, she’s his daughter and he put her first. Isn’t that exactly what you would do with me?”
“Yes, of course. But this was different. If the situation had been reversed and I knew that you were perfectly fine aside from being a bit upset then I would have talked you through it until you felt better; I wouldn’t have driven a hundred miles to help you blow your nose.”
“But that’s because you know me. You know how I tick; you know what I need when I need it because you’re my mum and you’ve always been there. James is a proper novice. He barely knows his daughter—for all he knows, she could’ve been having a full-on meltdown.”
Harriet slurped up a noodle as she both marveled at her daughter’s emotional intelligence and wished she weren’t quite so perceptive.
“Okay, you make a good point.”
