Page 15 of A Manny for Christmas

‘No, not at all. Just what the doctor ordered. Except, you know, my useless big brother not being able to put me up.’

‘So unhelpful,’ I say, shaking my head in mock exasperation as I scream inwardly. I’m making banal small talk with a man I used to be closer to than I thought it possible to be with any human being. It’s not awful—it’s just plain weird. I’m hit with the irrational urge to ask him something real. Just to see how he’d react.

Have you missed me?

Did you ever think about me?

Ever regret not giving me kids you didn’t want, just so you could keep me?

How many people have you had sex with since me?

Was it better with any of them than it was when we were together?

Jesus Christ, Molly. Pull it together, for God’s sake.

Instead, I aim for polite chitter-chatter after we’ve given our coffee orders to a far-too-tickled Remi. And all the while, I’m busy studying him. Studying the little details I can’t believe time has glossed over.

The tiny scar on his upper lip.

The chicken pox crater on his temple, right by his hairline.

The slight bend in the bridge of his nose from when he broke it playing rugby before I knew him. Its crookedness just adds to his looks, turning what could be prettiness into something more real, more masculine.

His intonations are exactly the same. The way he speaks hasn’t changed at all, despite his having spent the past decade in another hemisphere surrounded, presumably, by people from all over the world. He still sounds just as posh as he used to. The Rutherford boys were so posh, thanks to their years at a fancy boarding school, that their accents bore no trace of the local Derbyshire burr.

It’s like seeing a ghost, really. I’ve thought of him so often over the years, and now, by some weird trick of space and time, he’s here, and he’s the same, but different in a way I can’t put my finger on. I suppose it’s age. Age. Maturity. Experience. Perspective. All these things leave their mark on a person, even when the years have been kind on the physical front.

He must have seen things in his overseas endeavours I can’t even imagine, and yet I’ve had experiences the impact of which he can’t know.

Standing at an altar and promising myself to a man, for better or for worse.

Hearing the first cries of my babies and feeling their skin against mine for the first time.

On the surface, it feels as though we should be the same people we once were, but we can’t be.

As Max sips his scalding Americano carefully, he watches me. I’d forgotten the full power of those eyes (it’s good to know my brain possesses some functions of the self-preservation variety). The Rutherford men’s eyes are of the hazel, crinkly, devastating variety, with the effect of making the lucky person in their gaze feel like they’re the only one who matters on this entire planet.

‘I can’t tell you how great it feels to see you and know that you did it, Mol.’ He sets his cup down, his eyes not leaving mine. ‘You had the family you always wanted. You got the job you always deserved. I’m so happy for you. Really, I am. I’ve always been mentally egging you on, even from afar. I’m so thrilled to see your dreams came true.’

Gosh. That is a spectacularly generous thing to say. It’s also seriously decent of him to omit the glaring fact that my husband fucked off and left us, which he presumably knows all about. I didn’t get the Happy Ever After I told him I wanted and deserved, but he’s right. Two out of three isn’t bad.

‘Thanks.’ I hold up my coffee mug. ‘I appreciate you saying that.’

He shifts in his chair, recrossing his legs at the ankle. ‘It’s the truth. So. Want to tell me what you make of my brother’s hare-brained scheme?’

‘Project Christmas Manny?’ I offer, and he bursts out laughing.

Bloody hell, his laugh is gorgeous. Generous and infectious and sexy as hell. The guy has agedwell. He’s everything he was and more, with a gravitas about him that makes it hard to look away.

Especially from his mouth.

That mouth should come with a hazard sign all on its own.

Particularly if you know what it’s capable of.

‘I have to say, I didn’t have a fucking clue that the termmannyexisted until Evelyn used it yesterday, and I could happily have gone a lot longer without hearing it,’ he says after he’s recovered.

‘No offence, but you really are the last person I could ever see as being a manny,’ I tell him drily.

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