It had sounded like a simple request when Philippa had whispered it to him on his way out the door that morning. Pick up five chocolate oranges on his way home. How hard could that be?
Seven supermarkets and three corner shops later, Jake had his answer. Very.
Wham! blared out of the speakers of the last disappointing shop, singing about last Christmas, and Jake slammed the door behind him to get away from it. He’d finally escaped the ever present reminder of what he’d done last December, in the form of Molly Mackenzie and her robin pyjamas. He didn’t need George Michael reminding him that he was an awful person.
Okay. Christmas was just going to have to be Christmas without chocolate oranges. He was almost certain that the Mackenzie family would get over it. One day.
Either way, he’d stalled long enough. He’d dragged his meeting out so long his clients had felt obliged to offer him five cups of tea, then he’d swung by the office to see if he could clear up some issues with a colleague, only to discover he wasn’t in. It was Christmas Eve, his secretary had told Jake, with faint censure in her eyes. He was home with his family.
The where you should be went unspoken.
So, he was on his way back to the closest thing he had, anyway. With Toblerones instead of oranges, because they had the Christmassy packets with snow on the peaks. Best he could do.
The Mackenzie driveway was already full when he arrived, as was the street immediately outside, so Jake found himself parking around the corner in a hidden alley. As he approached the front door it opened before he even had a chance to knock.
“Jakey!” A woman with a bright purple streak in her dark hair launched herself into his arms without warning. “It’s been forever!”
It had been, by Jake’s estimation, almost exactly a year. The only time they ever tended to see each other was Christmas Eve. “Hello, Lara,” he said, disentangling himself from Molly’s best friend. “How’s the mulled wine?”
“Scrummy.” She flashed him a grin. “As is Molly today, in that little kilt of hers…”
Jake suppressed a groan. Of course Molly had told Lara. And so of course she was going to use it to make his life hell.
Fantastic.
“Who else is here?” he asked, making his way through towards the kitchen.
“Everybody!” Lara said, voice vibrating with glee and festive cheer.
“Great.” Just what he needed today.
Christmas Eve at the Mackenzies’ tended to be quite the event – another reason he usually showed up later, if he could. Last year, Molly and Lara had joined him and Tim in the pub after hours of mulled wine with various relatives and friends.
It had been a late start, last Christmas Day.
Still, last Christmas was the last time he’d been able to look at Molly without her knowing how he felt about her. Without seeing the glint in her eye that told him he could have what he wanted – or at least, what she thought he wanted.
She was wrong. But there was no way he was explaining why to her.
Molly had her new life now, the one she’d been talking about for years – and it was down in London. The last thing he wanted was to jeopardise that for her by starting something together when he’d always be two hundred miles away.
No, actually, the last thing he wanted was to finally get one perfect night with her – then watch her go back to her regularly scheduled existence without another thought for him. To have to endure next Christmas, and the one after that, hearing about her new boyfriend or her brilliant life that he wasn’t a part of.
Or, even worse, have that night found out and lose any access to the only family he had at all.
“Jake, you’re back! Lovely.” Philippa patted his arm, leaving a small smudge of flour on his jacket sleeve, then lowered her voice. “Did you manage to get the… things we discussed?”
He shook his head, and handed her the carrier bag full of Toblerone. “Not a sign of one, I’m afraid. But I got the next best thing.”
Philippa peered into the bag. “They’ll have to do, I suppose. I just can’t believe I forgot to buy them sooner! Thank you, anyway.” Dory appeared from the lounge, and Philippa shoved the bag behind her back, eyes suddenly wide. “Lara, why don’t you come through and grab a plate of mince pies to offer round in the lounge. I’ve got a new batch of mulled wine mincemeat ones…” Keeping the bag of Toblerone out of sight at all times, she bustled back towards the kitchen, Lara and Jake following.
“What’s with all the mince pies this year?” Lara whispered as they both were handed plates of pastry topped treats.
“No idea,” Jake murmured back. “But there’s been a hell of a lot of them.”
“The ones with the pastry stars on the top are the mulled wine mincemeat ones, and the lattice topped ones are apple and cinnamon mincemeat.” Philippa pointed to each plate in turn, then ushered them back through towards the lounge.
Jake wondered if he might be allowed to take off his coat at some point. It was kind of hot inside.
“I know Mummy Phil is always a bit… manic about Christmas,” Lara said, picking off a pastry star and eating it. “But does she seem a little excessive even for her to you this year?”
“I went to ten different shops looking for chocolate oranges for her this afternoon,” Jake admitted. “She was very clear about their importance.”
“Weird.” She took a bite of the mulled wine mince pie. “As are these.”
The lounge was packed with people, all with mulled wine glasses in hand. Molly looked up from where she sat on a floor cushion, surrounded by a few other friends that Jake vaguely recognised. She smiled up at him, and he gripped his plate of mince pies a little tighter. It was all very well telling himself that one night with her would be worse than never having her at all, but how was he supposed to keep on believing that when she smiled that way?
She’d pinned her gorgeous auburn hair away from her face, intricate braids holding it out of her way, save a few loose waves around the front that made her eyes look wider and greener, somehow. Her slender legs were crossed, the tiny red and black skirt she was wearing riding up enough to give him a great look at them through thick black tights.
Lara was wrong. She didn’t look scrummy. She looked irresistible. Which was going to be a problem.
“You’re back,” she said, smiling up at him. “How was your meeting?”
Meeting. There had been a meeting, somewhere before the chocolate orange fiasco. “Um, long. And tedious.” Mostly because he’d stayed long enough to let the clients change their minds about what they wanted another dozen times. If he hadn’t been avoiding Molly, he’d have been in and out in under an hour.
“Have a seat.” Molly gestured to the cushion beside him, and Jake took a step back instinctively.
“I have to hand these round for your mum,” he explained, even though Lara had happily plonked herself down on the arm of the sofa and was eating her way through her plate of mince pies. She caught him looking at her mid mouthful.
“They grow on you,” she explained, which wasn’t really the point.
Dory and Lucas were on the other sofa, talking with old family friends Jake recognised vaguely but couldn’t name. Glen was in his armchair, chatting with one of his taxi buddies. Everybody already had a plate with a mince pie on it.
“Seriously, what is with the mince pies this year?” He hadn’t meant the comment to be heard, but Glen’s smile showed it had been.
“You know my Philippa,” Glen said. “She likes Christmas to be perfect.”
“Best day of the year,” Dory agreed. “Every year.”
“And this year… well. She has more reason than ever to make it memorable,” Glen continued.
“What reasons?” Molly asked, a frown line appearing between her brows.
“All her children home with her, to start with.” Glen reached for another mince pie from Jake’s plate. “And all of them scattering to the four winds on January second. She wants to make this year somet
hing special.”
“Christmas is always special here,” Jake said. His eye caught on the star he’d hung on the Christmas tree. Maybe he needed to stop feeling like an outsider, and just be grateful he’d been let in at all.
On January second, Dory and Lucas would go back to New York. Molly would catch the train to London, and Tim would head off to Switzerland to start his new job. With none of them at home, Jake would have no reason to stop by for Sunday lunch, or even just a cup of tea if he was passing.
They might not even all come home for Christmas next year at all. Which meant there’d be no place for him, either.
He’d spent so much time worrying about being forced out of the family for sleeping with Molly, it hadn’t even occurred to him that with Tim moving away now too, there might not be a place for him anyway. Oh, he was sure he’d still stop by with a courtesy Christmas card and a bottle of wine or something, sometime over Christmas week. Have a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie before he headed home on his own.