Adam sat on an examining table while the doctor looked into his eyes and checked his hand, asking him to make a fist, then squeeze her finger. ‘No sign of concussion. Nothing broken.’
She was wrong about that. It was only a couple of punches, but he’d broken something precious.
‘Have you been drinking? Taken any drugs.’
Did a year’s worth of stored up adrenaline and a raging inferno of dislike count? ‘One beer.’
She held his jaw and turned his head left and right. ‘Attacking or defending?’
‘Does it matter?’ He still wasn’t sorry for putting Felix on the floor. The satisfaction of that would last longer than his bruising.
Peering into his face, she said, ‘You tell me.’
‘Maybe both.’ There were other ways he could’ve handled this. He wasn’t proud of himself. He’d shown a singular lack of foresight in starting a fight at a Christmas party. He could’ve talked to Shelby about it, taken his concern to Stella. He could’ve had it out with Felix using words not fists. ‘I don’t intend to make a habit of it.’
‘Good, because next time, you might not come out of it so lightly.’ She prodded his brow and he winced. ‘Only needs a few stiches,’ she said. ‘Must hurt like a bad decision.’
What hurt was losing a job he loved and having that jeopardise the new life he’d built for himself during his year in Sydney, including patching things up with Scott and coming to terms with the fact there was no need for him be the tug of war rope between his brother and their parents.
It was only a superficial wound.
It might not be easy, but he’d find another job. He’d continue to enjoy the city and all it had to offer. His parents would eventually come around and if they didn’t, he was cool with that.
What really hurt was how he’d lost his chance with Shelby.
She was like no one he’d ever met and someone he felt he knew, all at the same time. That didn’t make any sense because what he did know about her wasn’t even a hundred lines on a spreadsheet. He didn’t know what her favourite things to do were, or what she dreamed about, or how she wanted her life to turn out, and that was an incredible failing. There was no formula for why he was so drawn to her. But it was a fact that his days were brighter if they’d shared a smile across the office, that filling her water jug gave him a buzz, and being near enough to touch her was a welcome tension, an aching kind of satisfaction.
‘Sit very still. We want these to be neat so you don’t scar.’
He’d managed to scar Shelby with his actions and for that he was heavy with regret. She was too smart and too sensible to want anything to do with him that she didn’t see as a job responsibility now. He’d had a million chances to try to make something of their connection, and yet he’d never even asked her to walk out together to grab lunch.
He thought about putting his hands to her spikey hair, hauling her close, and kissing her so softly he transformed that ache he had into something they could share.
But they’d never even shared coffee.
It wasn’t just that office romances were bad news, it wasn’t that Dave and Christina had proven what a pain in the rear they were to everyone, or that for Shelby the decision to start something at work was complicated by her role. It was his old failing come to haunt him like the ghost of Christmas past.
A lifetime of not causing trouble, of not taking sides, of looking for the easy way instead of going hard after what he wanted and standing his ground. As a kid that had been his role. To be the brother who was easy to get along with, who didn’t want for anything other than what came about with no effort. He was long overdue to start thinking like an adult, to own his ambition and build the life he wanted like Scott had. If he didn’t start going after what he aspired to, it would always be like this: lost chances and unnecessary compromises, precious things broken.
He didn’t try for Shelby’s heart because he understood how devastating losing it would feel, and now the best thing he could do was apologise and get the hell out of her way before he disappointed her further.
The doc finished up, prescribed ice, paracetamol and peace on earth. He thanked her, wished her a happy Christmas and used the bathroom to clean himself up as best he could. Shelby would be waiting because she’d see it as her job to make sure he was all right. The least he could do was look like he wasn’t dying a little inside.
There was nothing to be done for his shirt, but he washed the blood from his hair and left it loose to dry. It might finally be time to shave, to get a haircut, to get a new tattoo to go with what he’d learned from throwing punches. Something to remind him to use his brain to strike out instead of his fists.
Last person he expected to see among the sick and festively sorry in the waiting room was Stella. She shook her head and pointed to the seat in the row opposite where she and Shelby sat. ‘Are you okay?’
He told her he was and sat, giving Shelby a grimace, getting one in return. This was it then. What he’d been waiting for since he squinted down on Felix in stunned amazement at what he’d done.
‘When I said you could break things I didn’t mean you should hit someone. Tell me what happened,’ Stella said.
Shelby would’ve already told her, there was no need to elaborate. ‘I decked Felix. This is my fault.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t like the guy.’
Stella looked at the neon tubing in the ceiling. ‘There are a lot of people I don’t particularly like, but I don’t go around hitting them.’ She waved a hand at him. ‘It’s not like you. What did Felix do to you?’
‘Nothing. I just don’t like the guy, don’t rate him, don’t trust him, don’t want to know him.’
‘Adam, you’re an asset to LuxLife, but not if you can’t tell me the truth. Why did you do something totally out of character?’
‘I know it was the wrong thing to do. I’ll apologise to Felix, and if you want, to the whole staff. I’m sorry you have to deal with this. Decking him wasn’t the answer.’
‘I’m not sure what the question was?’ Stella said.
He glanced from Stella to Shelby and the concern on her face made him want to skip the paracetamol and take his licks without relief. ‘It’s not my place to say.’
With her elbows resting on her knees, Stella leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll deck you, and I take boxing classes, so I know how to hit. We can take this discussion from casualty to police lock up if you like.’
She’d do it. She was pocket sized and never made threats she couldn’t deliver on. He had no doubt she could do him harm if she really wanted to. Still, it made him smile. She was fighting for him and he didn’t deserve that consideration.
‘It doesn’t matter what the question is, violence isn’t the answer,’ he said.
Stella eye-rolled and slumped against the seat back. She didn’t need to be here. All she had to say was ‘don’t come back Monday’.
‘Did you do it for me?’
He’d been so focused on Stella, Shelby’s words shocked a pained sound out of him.
‘Oh, Adam. You did it for me. Oh no,’ she said.
Shelby knew, and that just made things worse. It wasn’t her fault he’d lost control and he needed to make sure Stella understood that.
Stella’s glare bounced between them. ‘Somebody tell me what this all means, before I get my tinsel in a tangle.’
There was no one event, it was the build-up over the year, but the tipping point was the way Felix humiliated Shelby before Christmas with his crass comments, singling her out for unwarranted attention in front of an unsuspecting audience. Adam had cleared out, so Shelby didn’t know he was witness to that humiliation, but he couldn’t let the fire it lit in him go out and tonight was gasoline.
‘I’ve watched Felix make Shelby’s life difficult all year. He puts her down, he makes sexist jokes, he dumps on her, he insults and humiliates her. I couldn’t take it anymore.’
‘So you punched him?’
‘Felix had it coming.’ He didn’t spend nights and weekends plotting to take Felix down; he’d have been smarter about it if he had, chosen a more appropriate time and place for one thing before he knocked the guy’s Santa hat off and put him on the ground.
He’d watched Felix holding court, life of the party, commenting to his inner circle about what people were wearing, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he made a snarky remark about Shelby being a worrier princess, and he’d simply decided then and there. Enough. It had to stop.
‘There are no excuses. It was wrong, and I take full responsibility. Shelby certainly didn’t prompt me. She had no knowledge I was going to do this.’
Stella stood, slapping her hands down on her thighs in exasperation. ‘I’m jetlagged. I missed our Christmas party. I’ve just discovered Felix is a worse arse than I thought he was. We’re supposed to be a no bullshit business. It’s our busiest week of the year. I don’t need this. I’m going for a walk to think. Neither of you move.’
They watched her stalk through the front doors into the warmth of the night and disappear between a couple of smokers and two ambos taking a coffee break.
‘Maybe she won’t come back,’ he said, eyes still on the door.
‘She has to come back, she left her bag,’ Shelby said.
Getting sacked was proving to be a lot more complicated than he expected. ‘She could phone it in.’
‘She never phones it in. And you didn’t either. You decked Felix for me.’
He could tell her he didn’t do it specifically for her but because of how she and others were treated. He could toggle together some broader explanation so she didn’t feel bad about it, but he couldn’t have the last few things he said to Shelby be a lie.
‘You deserve a better boss and you can’t reason with a bully.’
‘Oh jingle bells,’ Shelby’s hands went to her head as if she was trying to hold her thoughts in place. ‘You really did do it for me.’
He nodded, watching her closely, wanting this to be a very different conversation, not one where she felt only disgust. If there was a way to soothe the concern from her face, to take the tension from her hands, stop the agitated jiggle of her leg, the rapid tapping heel, he would do it without a care for his own wellbeing.
But he was the reason for all those things.
‘Hitting a man isn’t like putting fruit in my water jug,’ she said.
He made himself hold eye-contact. She deserved that honesty. ‘No, it’s not like that.’
‘It’s not like helping me realise I was too sick to be at work.’
He looked down at the scuffed floor, and then back up to her face again. Only Shelby could give him absolution. ‘No.’
‘It’s not the same as saving me from birthday embarrassment.’
‘It’s more like handing you a new reason to be embarrassed.’
‘I’m not embarrassed.’
Not what he expected her to say. He stood to move across the aisle to her, needing to hear her say it again, in case concussion had set in, and the doors whooshed open and Stella came through them like a shooting star guiding the world to a new religion.
This was it.
He stopped himself from touching Shelby’s shoulder, from reaching for her hand and imagining her fingers threaded through his. ‘I’m sorry for this mess. You deserve everything you want, and I hope you get it.’
Shelby stood too, a stricken look on her lovely face as Stella pointed at the row of chairs and said, ‘Sit down, both of you.’
They had to be causing a scene, drama for casualty’s curious, but Adam didn’t care. His head was thumping and his hand ached. Whatever they’d used to numb his brow would start wearing off soon.
‘You,’ said Stella, pointing to Shelby and making her start. ‘Make it a priority to hire more women. From now on everyone on the management team, including me, gets reviewed by the people they manage. And you start reporting directly to me.’
‘What about—’
Stella ignored Shelby and turned to Adam. It was finally all over now. ‘You.’ She pointed the finger of joblessness in January at him. ‘First thing Monday morning I want a public apology at a staff meeting. You need to explain yourself, admit blame and tap dance all over what a crap thing you did. And it better be good.’
He shook his sore head, glanced at Shelby and shared her shock. ‘I don’t—’
Stella pulled the handle of her wheely bag up with a snap. ‘Merry Christmas. Here’s your present. Felix is out. He’s decided to spend more time with his family. Shelby you’re the new HR director. Adam, if you ever raise a hand, a foot, a knee, an elbow, an inappropriate scarred eyebrow at someone, you are out the door without a reference so fast you won’t have time to get your tongue around another word. I’m taking a risk on you and you’d better pay off. Questions? No? Good. I’m out of here. See you both Monday.’
For the second time, they watched Stella leave. She ploughed through the electronic doors at full speed without a backwards glance. He had questions. They queued in his throat, pushing and shoving to get access to his lips. He still had a job. He still had a chance. He was the luckiest guy in the world and he wasn’t going to waste any more time not going after what he wanted, and doing it right.
Shelby stared at him, both hands to her cheeks. ‘Congratulations,’ he said, moving to sit beside her.
‘You too,’ she said and then laughed. ‘I mean…’ She shook her head, earrings spinning. ‘I don’t know what I mean. I just got a promotion for Christmas. It’s like getting a puppy. And you got a second chance. But next time you want to stand up for me, we talk about it first and no fists ever, okay?’
‘Not when there is any other way.’ With his good hand he reached for hers and she took it, letting him fold her palm inside his. His second chance came with an enormous year-end bonus he was going to bank immediately.
They spoke together using the same words, their bodies angled towards each other, knees grazing. ‘Would you—?’
Smiling at her hurt a little. In his cheek. At his brow. In his heart. ‘You go first.’ If she’d let him, he’d always stand up for her and put her first.
‘Would you like to come to my Christmas day orphan’s lunch? I should’ve asked you earlier. I’ve wanted to for months now. You probably have plans with friends, so I get it if you can’t come, but I wanted to ask, and I thought I’d blown my chance, and I don’t care that we work together, still work together. Oh Adam, I’m so glad we still work together.’
He’d never heard Shelby babble, or get breathless. He could feel the nervous tremor through her palm.
‘I’d really like it if you’d come. It’s nothing formal and it wouldn’t matter that you don’t know anyone but me, and—’
‘I’d love to.’
The grin she gave him was everything Christmas should be. Hope and joy and peace and goodwill, the promise of love that could make the world a better place.
She squeezed his hand. ‘You would? That’s fantastic. I’m so pleased. It doesn’t have to mean anything, just way too much food and a gut ache.’
The true ache was further up his chest and it was anything but unpleasant. ‘What if I want it to mean more?’
She looked down at their hands. What if she did? ‘What were you going to ask me?’ she said.
There was a first time for everything and Christmas was the best time to reach for love. He’d decked a man tonight. Learning Santa was real and taking a sleigh ride to the north pole care of Rudolph would’ve stunned him less. It was easy to ask for what he wanted.
‘Would you let me kiss you?’
She took her hand away, lowered her eyes, and he swallowed his disappointment, only to have it switch to astonishment when she put her hand gently to the side of his face and pushed his hair back, fingers tangling in it before going to the back of his neck and holding him, still and warm and gentle and right.
‘It’s the season to be jolly,’ she said, smiling as she leaned in.
And as their lips touched, bells rang, angels chorused, brolgas danced, boomers bounced, that damn partridge was firmly up the pear tree, and all Adam’s Christmas wishes came at once.