‘I have a food baby,’ Johnnie complained from where he lay on the floor in front of the fireplace. Georgie the pug snuffled beside him.
‘I said you didn’t have to finish the whole nut roast on your own,’ Gee said, sprawled out on his sofa.
The food debris had been cleared and they were in the living room. Emma curled up on the corner of her sofa. Her laptop was open on the table. Not that she needed it, she’d handed over media monitoring duties to Max half an hour ago. He’d call her if there were any issues. It had been tempting to spill the truth. Who knew that when you got truthful it ran away with you, made you euphoric? But she’d stopped herself, she couldn’t do much if she got herself fired before she’d done any damage. The pap shots were now out in the world, all the stories had been written and approved before the Christmas break. Journalists like Don Warton merely waiting for the photos to accompany the narrative she’d dictated.
How had she never seen this for what it was?
‘Okay, I feel like you two still have some making up to do.’ Johnny struggled to get himself up off the floor.
‘Are you sure you’re okay to go home?’ Emma asked.
‘Who said anything about going home?’ He looked confused. ‘I’m going upstairs to the spare room. Don’t make too much noise with the make-up sex.’ He leered as he picked up Georgie and shuffled out.
Strangely the silence he left wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should’ve been. It was more relaxed than it had been in days.
‘I swear to god, one day I will end him.’ Gee muttered with his arm over his eyes.
‘No, you won’t,’ she replied. ‘You’ll have no one to mother.’ She yawned.
‘I’ll end you…’ He took his arm off his eyes and turned his head as he said it with a smile.
‘Hey, not before presents.’ She couldn’t help but smile back as she felt the most relaxed she’d done in days. Even with unemployment looming over her like the ghost of Christmas Future.
‘Presents? More like a piece of a coal,’ he joked. ‘Okay, I’ll be Christmas elf.’
Presents, crap. Suddenly her inspired and heartfelt present that she’d thought up yesterday didn’t seem so inspired anymore. It had the potential of destroying the little equilibrium they’d attained. Hopefully the other gift that she’d bought would make up for it if it fell flat.
‘Sure. Do you want more wine?’ she asked as he got up and went to get the last presents from under the tree.
‘Yeah.’
She poured them both a glass of red wine, the liquid shining dark and deep with the twinkle of the fairy lights behind it.
‘Here.’ He passed over a two large, gift-wrapped boxes. The paper was a repeating pattern with a cat wearing a Christmas pudding hat pulled over its eyes.
She raised her eyebrow at him.
‘It was cute, okay.’ He grumbled as he sat back down with the two packages she had wrapped for him. One, a small red damask paper wrapped present, and the other a gold envelope. They both looked flimsy compared to what he was giving her.
She couldn’t help but smile at his embarrassed frown.
‘Go on then,’ he said, gesturing to her to open the presents.
Carefully, she unpicked the tape from one end trying to not rip the paper. Cats in pudding hats had Gee written all over it. The moody boyband bad boy with a marshmallow centre. She wanted to save it, hide it in her drawer and look at it to remind her of him. Because she knew he wouldn’t have used the paper on anyone else’s presents.
She pushed the paper back and a plain white box was revealed. She lifted it from her lap and shook it.
‘Stop mucking around,’ he grumbled, his arms folded across his chest.
She wiggled the top open, smiling and pushed apart the gold tissue paper from the top. Her hand brushed against velvet. Soft and giving, the colour was ruby red. Its glow rivalled the wine they were drinking. And she knew what it was, she had felt that glow when she’d spun in front of a mirror wearing it. On her lap was the red velvet trouser suit that she’d tried on for the Christmas party. The suit for a rock star, not a PR person. And she was neither.
‘But…’ She couldn’t stop stroking it.
‘You looked so happy wearing it, so free. You…’ He coughed. ‘Like you could do anything, absolutely anything, not just what you had written down in your file. I wanted to see you look like that again.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. He knew, he always got what she was about. He knew that any freedom of choice scared her, that she had to shackle it. Put everything into calm boxes. But this… this was him telling her to let go. Did that mean he’d be there to catch her if she fell? Was this a promise that it wasn’t too late?
‘No worries,’ he said, coughing again. She couldn’t tell if he was blushing, his back was to the tree and the lights had him in shadow.
‘You open yours now, the red one,’ she said, saving the second box. She needed for him to open that one. To show she understood.
‘Okay.’ He was just as careful with the wrapping as she’d been. It was very unlike his usual frenzied ripping, leaving bits of paper that she’d still be picking up weeks later.
Maybe she shouldn’t have done this. No, she had to, it was what she needed to do. Her heart was racing, she wiped her now sweaty hands on her jeans not wanting to ruin the velvet suit.
He opened the box, reached in and pulled out a mask.
It was a red felt mask with a sparkle of sequins at the corner of the eyes. It was the one she’d worn at Halloween. The one she should’ve taken off before making their kiss real. It was too late for that but maybe it wasn’t too late for her to make him understand.
‘Ems?’ He asked, cradling it in his hands.
‘I wanted you to have the last mask I have. I wanted you to look after it because I’m never going to need a mask again. I promise I’ll stop hiding behind them. Because I know it made me hard and…’ She swallowed back the tears she could feel welling up. ‘…not careful with people. I was too busy hiding to see anyone else. So, the mask is my promise to you, the promise I’ll do better.’
She wanted to look away. If he didn’t get what she was trying to say then she wasn’t sure how she could tell him any better that she was trying to change.
He met her eyes, holding the mask in his hand as if it were precious.
‘Thank you. That means a lot.’ He smiled sadly. ‘But…’
Bugger. There was always a ‘but’.
‘It can’t be just words, Ems.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’
She wouldn’t tell him about her new plan, because if he knew there was any plan he’d probably throw a fit.
They broke their staring and reached in synchrony for their glasses.
‘Are you going to open the last one?’ he said after they’d both taken such large mouthfuls they’d drained half the glass.
Emma repeated the careful unwrapping, and the heckling she’d usually get from him was absent as he watched her in silence. It wasn’t as comfortable as before, it felt fragile, like any wrong word could break them.
The box was long, brown and had the Gucci name printed on it. Only he would wrap something from Gucci in paper with cats in hats on it.
‘What did you do, Knightley?’ she asked with a grin.
‘I’m not sure what you mean, Woodhouse.’ He smiled back.
Maybe he was re-using one of his boxes from the shirt he’d bought, she thought. It seemed too big and deep for that, though.
Carefully she took off the lid. The first thing she saw was the Gucci logo tissue paper. So not a reused box. It was almost too pretty to move, she thought, as she folded that back.
Oh. Wow.
Burnished burgundy leather, not marred by fingerprints. The boots were nestled in an explosion of tissue paper. She could see the gold and red dragons chasing their way across the instep. The gold buckle at the top twinkled at her. She reached towards them but didn’t want to touch them, to mar their perfection.
They looked even more glorious than they had in the shop.
‘Gee, you shouldn’t have.’ She knew it was the typical Christmas present unwrapping words but she meant it. What had she done to deserve these?
‘We’re family, Emma. Families have disagreements but we know what each other needs. Even if some of us forget or get in our own way.’ He raised his eyebrows, she blushed. ‘And I knew how much you loved these boots, even if you couldn’t say it so…’ He made a gesture as if to say, ‘and there you go.’
She wasn’t going to cry on the most perfect boots she’d ever seen.
She wasn’t. Quickly she put the lid back on the box, hiding them away so when the salty water fell it hit the box and rolled off. Nothing to blemish the leather.
‘Just open the envelope,’ she said while she still could.
She heard the rip of paper.
‘Oh, you beauty.’ Gee whispered. ‘Woodhouse, you genius.’
She looked up to see him grinning at her affectionately.
‘Oh, come here,’ he said, getting up, pushing the box off her knee as if he didn’t care.
She squawked and tried to save it. But he pulled her over, his arm round her shoulder, and held her to his side.
‘Tickets to ComicCon, and a meet and greet with Tyler Hoechlin, Dylan O’Brien and Austen Wentworth. I bloody love you.’ He kissed her temple hard.
A hug and a kiss. A friend’s kiss but a kiss all the same.
It was more than she had expected.