Page 2 of Christmas Ever After
Jorge reluctantly puts his little mirror away and turns towards me with a frown that suggests I’m inconveniencing him by being here. He’s lovely in the bakery. Friendly and chatty, and he always makes me feel like I’m his best customer, although to be fair, I probablyamhis best customer. But out here, it’s like he’s been possessed by the narcissistic ghost of a vain catwalk model.
He turns towards me. This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for. Nerves flood my body and my knees feel unsteady and shaky, and it’s not just because of the wobbly stool I’m balancing on.
I’ve pictured this moment so many times. I’ve imagined all the ways our first kiss might go, but I’m still unprepared for the moment to actually arrive. It’s going to be perfect. Ithasto be perfect.
He turns towards me and opens his mouth and…
I gag. His breath is bad enough that it makes me take an involuntary step backwards and sway precariously on the stool again. My eyes start watering and it’snotfrom the wind chill. ‘What the heck did you have for breakfast? Overnight onions? Three-week-old garlic?’ The words slip out before I realise I’ve spoken. I would never usually say something so bold to Jorge, but his breath has catapulted me right out of the fantasy about our perfect first kiss.
‘Monster Munch,’ he says with a grin. ‘Pickled onion and roast beef flavour. I like to mix the two together and playMonster Munch roulette; you never know which one you’re going to get!’
‘Who eats crisps before 10a.m.? You’re a baker! Don’t you bake something delicious and healthy for breakfast?’
‘Nah. Living my best life.’
‘Monster Munch constitutes your best life?’
After spending the past twenty minutes trying to engage with him,nowhe chooses to grin at me with a nod, clearly not detecting the sarcasm in my question. I fully support most breakfast choices, but… Monster Munch? Really? In all the times and all the ways I imagined my first kiss with Jorge, Monster Munch breath never entered my fantasies.
Nothing hasevermade someone more unattractive than pickled onion crisp breath and there’s no way I’m going through with this. ‘I’m not kissing him.’
‘What?’ Jorge’s face has gone red and his pout has turned into a sneer.
‘What?’ Mitch echoes and looks at his watch. ‘Franca, it is 09.57 and fifty-five seconds. The livestream is starting in literallytwominutes! Whatever hang-ups you’ve got, get over themnow!’
‘I am not kissing someone with breath like that!’ I didn’t mean it to come out so loudly, but the band are about to start playing and the noise of their instruments tuning up is drowning me out, and I’ve just accidentally announced it to the entire street. I can see the eyes of our fellow shopkeepers go wide, and the gathered crowd of onlookers start giggling.
I didn’t mean to embarrass him, but Jorge’s face has gone from red to purple and his hands are curled into fists.
‘Yeah, well, as if I’d kissyou, Mariah Scary!’ He steps off his stool and stalks away, leaving me standing alone under the Christmas Ever After archway, with the camera about to start rolling.
Mitch is shout-whispering furiously at Jorge. ‘Get back up therenow!’
‘Hell, no! I’m not going to let Windswept McScruffy insult me like that! Forget it!’
I try to finger-comb my hair. My usual level of self-consciousness is bubbling into overflow because I’ve just embarrassed my crush in the most public way possible. I should have said it more quietly, although if he’d had the decency to speak to me at any of the other times I tried to initiate conversation, I would have got an earlier whiff and this could’ve been sorted out with plenty of time to spare.
Mitch has gone from whisper-shouting to not even trying to hide his frustration. ‘Well, this is a fine mess, isn’t it? What am I supposed to do n—’ Before he can finish the ‘now’, his eyes fall to a figure walking past and light up immediately. ‘Raff! The perfect fit!’
I follow his gaze to the dark-haired, hoodie-wearing man on his way to his shop.
No. No, no, no, no, no,no. Not Raphael Dardenne.Anyonebut Raphael Dardenne. Literally, anyone. I would kiss someone with Monster Munch breath over him any day. Hell, I would kiss apacketof Monster Munch before I’d kiss him. It would be a privilege to kiss someone who’s been eating pickled onion flavour crisps rather than get within a ten-foot range of Raphael Dardenne.
He’s the owner of the ridiculous ‘matchmaking’ snow globe shop, Love Is All A-Round. Peddler of the complete lie that their snow globes magically move if you hold one with your soulmate. A con-artist who makes the rest of us on Christmas Ever After look bad. Raphael Dardenne is the most awkward, annoying, difficult person to ever work on Ever After Street, and he and I are in direct competition with each other this year.
Thankfully, he walks on, ignoring Mitch. There’s no way he’d get involved or do anything to help. The only thing Raphael Dardenne is interested in is doing everything he can to mess things up for those of us who will still be here next year, unlike him when he finally gets evicted in January, with a bit of luck.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say to Jorge, trying to appeal to his better nature. ‘Please come back. Christmas Ever After deserves your cheekbones on its advertising materials.’
At first I think it’s working, but then Jorge’s eyes flit between Mitch, who is waving frantically to get Raphael’s attention, and the man who’s steadfastly trying to ignore him, and me. Everyone knows how much Raphael and I hate each other, and I can see the cogs turning in Jorge’s mind. The perfect punishment for insulting him. He folds his arms and stands his ground with a petulant nod.
Raphael has ignored Mitch’s shouting but, far from being deterred, Mitch has now physically accosted him and hauled him onto the scene, shouting a frantic explanation while trying to drag his hoodie off and make him more presentable. ‘Live! One minute! You, up there! Mistletoe! Kiss! Smile!’
If Mitch was young enough to lift Raphael, I think he’d have picked him up and deposited him on the stool next to mine, although after a bit of shoving, cajoling and threatening, before either of us have worked out what’s happening, Raphael is standing on the stool opposite mine, wearing a crumpled but festively red T-shirt with mussed-up hair and a confused look on his nefarious face.
He looks around in bewilderment until his eyes fall on me and he recoils so quickly that he wobbles on the stool and nearly falls right back off it. ‘You’ve got to be joking! I’m not kissingthat!’
I gasp in annoyance. ‘I’m not kissingthateither, you weaselly little con-artist!’
