Page 37 of She's A Hot Christmas Mess

CHAPTER ELEVEN

NISHA

Istarted cooking myChristmas ham at 3 am.

It took me long enough to extract myself from beneath Ford, this time sliding on my elf tights and back into my familiar jacket. The scent of him seemed imprinted on me after we made love again, like darkened mornings replaced with a glittering darkness of Christmas promises.

A promise I broke when I stepped outside his door at the Plaza and let it close behind me, leaving my key in the things he bought me on the bedside table.

Doubling down on my dose of guilt, I stepped out of the Plaza to hail a cab in the longest, heaviest walk I had ever taken. My legs trembled as I curled on the stained back seat of the yellow taxi, staring through slightly smoky tinted windows as the city lights merged to a stream of Christmas colours and glitter.

My apartment building was quiet when I got home, and, after sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at my hands for more than an hour, I got up and started to prepare everything for breakfast the next morning.

Thankfully, for me, preparing for Christmas usually took me the night before to prep, and I had sleepless hours to fill. Usually I lost myself in mixing the sauces, prepping the ham and slicing it into neat diamonds and matching the cherries to each space. But this time, every movement was robotic.

Ford promised things all too easy that couldn’t possibly come true and I couldn't bear that. Actually, my heart couldn't bear any of it. Because in two or three days time he would leave, and I would never see him again.

For my heart’s sake I couldn’t have that door left open every time I thought of his stupid, muscular pecs with his alpaca's face tattooed there. And the only way to avoid feeling was to end it on my own terms. No surprises for me. And so I wound my arms around myself and sipped the red wine that had sat on my counter for however long. I hadn't been saving it, I just never had the time or the energy to drink anything but water.

Now, exhaustion no longer slammed into me the way it did on a daily basis last year, as a Band-Aid fix for the hollow spaces etched inside me.

And every single one of those hollow spaces was filled with the same thing:.

A void of Ford Millham scented nothingness.

I didn't know if the wine helped or not, but I continued cooking until my apartment smelled like Christmas. By the time that first neighbors arrived at seven am, my small table and counters were full of heaped platters. The ham was decorated with perfect diamonds and glace cherries. Mountains of candied oranges and steamed vegetables, honey baby carrots, and green filled the others to create a feast, worthy of the king of our building.

"You’ve done me proud, Nisha." Jeremiah sniffed appreciatively at the collection of plates displayed as he waddled with in a slightly limp his right side.

"Did you fall? Did you get up another ladder, Jeremih?" I threw a hand on my hip and popped it out.

"Don't give me sass, girl. It's Christmas."

"All the more reason for it." I gave him a giant hug until he wheezed faintly. "Merry Christmas Jeremiah." I reached around my fridge for the small collection of presents there and collected a smallbox.

"I knew she was going to pop the question," he joked to the small collection of neighbours filing in behind him.

"You still haven't told me how you fell off that ladder,” I called,l heading back to the kitchen for the giant ham and the knife I sharpened earlier.

"It was only the second rum, and the other window needed fixing." Jeremih glared at me. “You tricked me.” He unwrapped his present. “Which is a...” He turned the black silicon rectangle around and looked up at me in desperation.

I grinned. "It's a reading light. See?" I showed him how to work the flexible silicon and touched the back of the light, where a small bulb glowed. "It's not too heavy, which means you can use it with your paper. No more ladders for a while though.”

Jeremiah was still for a moment.

"If it's not right, I'll swap for something else," I worried.

Jeremian wrapped his arms around me, and I was engulfed in cinnamon and cigar.

"Thank you," Jeremiah said meekly.

At the other end of the table, someone started humming ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog’.

Unable to take any additional doses of emotion, I counted my stack of plates, and grabbed two, handing them out. Denise took one with a grin and a quickmerry Christmas, bitch."Help yourself. I made enough for the army, and I don't expect anyone to fall asleep until midday."

A hard rap on the door roused me out of my ham-induced haze.I popped a glace cherry into my mouth as my door cracked on its hinges.

“Jeremiah, could you help whoever that was? Sally's missing. And Mr Andrews from the top floor. I'll go check on him in a minute if he doesn't come down."

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