Page 24 of Five Gold Rings

‘I didn’t want to say. I think the pyjamas have taken it next level,’ he replies, my head resting by his collarbone. I close my eyes. It’s a good place to be. I realise, though, I may have held the hug a fraction too long. There’s a time limit for hugs, isn’t there, before it gets weird? I sit back and take a long swig of my wine.

‘So, what are we watching?’ he asks, grappling with the remote.

I try to laugh away the awkwardness. ‘Something without romance. I don’t want glowing people with good hair telling each other they’re in love under snow and fairy lights. I want violence. Preferably something with guns.’

Joe nods and flicks through the channels. ‘I think you’re onto an untapped genre there. Christmas revenge horror. Gotcha…Die Hardfeels like a good choice.’

‘I love this! Guns and Bruce Willis in a vest… Nakatomi for the win…’

He seems amused by my detailed knowledge of the film, pulling back the lid on a raspberry trifle.

‘Hang on, let me get some bowls,’ he says, looking around the table.

‘No need. There are two spoons there. Less washing up. Plus, this feels like a better way to overcome my heartbreak, eating it straight out of the bowl…’

‘Well, if it will soothe your fragile soul then who am I to get in the way of that? You’re not the sort who scrapes off all the custard and just leaves me with the fruit though?’ he asks, holding his spoon up, waiting to dive in.

‘No,’ I say, moving next to him on the sofa, the trifle in between us like a dessert baby. ‘And if I didn’t say this before, Joe, thank you for making this day a bit better,’ I mumble.

‘My pleasure,’ he replies. He clinks his spoon against mine.

After that, I don’t remember much more. I ate a couple of spoonfuls of trifle. I remember Bruce Willis arriving just in time for a Christmas party and falling asleep to the sound of gunfire, parties and angry Germans.

Christmas Eve

Joe

‘Joe! Oi! Oi! Wake up, wake up…’

I open one eye to see Gabriel sitting on our coffee table, a mug of coffee in hand, poking a finger into my shoulder.

‘What on earth are you wearing?’ he asks me, looking down at my Christmas pyjamas. ‘You look so fucking festive.’ I feel this is a running theme for my attire of choice in the past twenty-four hours. He chuckles and I sit up, rubbing my eyes and taking the coffee from his hands. Gabriel seems to have got in straight from work having done a night shift at the hospital, a lanyard still around his neck. I can see there is much explaining needed from my end.

‘We need a new sofa. This one is very lumpy,’ I tell him.

‘There’s a naked girl in the bath,’ he tells me, his eyes wide. ‘I assumed it was you in there, so I went to have a wee and then turned around and there she was…’

‘You saw her naked?’ I exclaim.

‘I saw boobs.’

‘That’s Eve…’

His eyes widen. ‘THE EVE!’ he almost shouts.

I flap my hands around, encouraging him to keep his voice down.

‘I only saw the tops of the boobs, maybe like a flash of nipple. She was very understanding. What on earth? You slept with Eve?’ Gabriel says, stamping his feet around the place. The problem with Gabriel is that he also drinks so many energy drinks, he literally has wings. ‘This is good news!’

I flap my hands around to try and calm him down. ‘No, it’s far more complicated than that. She found out her shitface boyfriend was cheating on her yesterday.’

‘What? How? That’s awful.’

‘She found him in the act. Anyway, she needed a place to crash and we’re headed out today, too… To do some work Christmas thing.’

‘But you’re a glorified stripper – she’s going to go stripping with you?’

‘I am not a stripper,’ I retort, slightly insulted. ‘The other jewellery-based job… there’s a whole side story. I jumped out of an ice sculpture, a kid called me a bell-end, I ate a whole family-sized trifle because she fell asleep, and we both rescued some lost rings for Caspar & Sons that we need to deliver today. I said I would do it with her.’

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