The thing about being used to sleeping both with and next to someone is that it’s damn hard to go to sleep when you’re all alone in the bed. The sex I could do without for a week, but the absence of Christian’s warm presence next to me… that was harder to bear.

Why did Dad have to become all domestic and shit and want to spend Christmas with me now? And not just me, but Anna and Christian as well—and Christian was just in the next room, camped out on the sofa in Dad’s office instead of in bed with me.

Because Dad didn’t know about us. Neither did Anna. And I had no idea what would happen when they did find out. But as the holiday dragged on and I spent my nights alone, I was increasingly starting not to care.

Not that I thought my dad had any right to be informed of my love life, but I also wanted to be able to sleep in the same bed as my boyfriend.

“Don’t worry about it,” Christian told me on Christmas Eve, squeezing my knee under the table. “We’ll be home soon.”

Which would definitely be nice, except at dinner that evening Anna started asking questions. Questions it was damn hard to answer while keeping our relationship a secret.

“I’m guessing you’re staying on Svalbard, Andreas? Since you’ve been there so long. Over a year now…” She piled food on her plate as she spoke.

“Yeah. I like my job, so I’m not about to leave it anytime soon.” And now my leg was back to normal, I could actually do my job. The summer months had been horrible, as I’d either had to stay cooped up at home or inside the office at work.

I could feed the dogs, but it had taken twice as long as usual. I could help put their gear on, but I couldn’t train them or go out with tourists. Summer was our busiest season—and I’d been incapacitated. That had certainly been a blow.

“That’s nice.” Anna smiled and handed the deep dish with potatoes over to Dad. “Have you started looking at a place of your own to live, then?”

And there it was. The dreaded question. “Not really.”

“It’s convenient for him to live with me,” Christian shot in, taking the potatoes from Dad. “We work together so it only makes sense we carpool.”

“But don’t you want your house to yourself soon?” Her question was likely meant in the best possible way, but it annoyed me to no end. “What if you meet someone?” And that annoyed me even more.

Christian chuckled. “That’s not very likely. We’re always at work, after all. Besides, I’ve got space. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Anna didn’t seem to want to drop the subject. “It’s not impossible to meet someone just because you work a lot. Or because you live on Svalbard.”

Christian grinned wryly. “It’s not all that likely either. Just drop it, Anna.”

I cut meat away from the bone with vigour, fist clenching tight around the knife. Why did she have to ask questions like that? What was it to her anyway? Sure, Christian was her brother and all, but since when was it her job to tell us how to live our lives? If we wanted to live together, if that was easier for us, so fucking what?

I wasn’t all that hungry anymore, but it was better to be busy eating than just sit around doing nothing.

“All I’m saying is—”

“Anna!” Christian cut her off gruffly. “Right now we’re happy with the current living arrangements. If that changes in the future, then okay, but for now this is what makes the best sense for us.”

“Yes, sure, but—”

“There’s no but. We spend all day together at work. We go out to eat dinner with our co-workers most days. What does it matter that at the end of the day we head back to the same house to sleep?”

Well, at least he hadn’t said same bed, which had been the case for the last half a year.

Anna subsided, but she didn’t seem all that happy about it. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“Exactly,” Christian said with finality—and that was the end of that. For dinner, anyway.

Christian and I did clean-up as Anna had made all the food—and bullied Dad into helping her set the table. Usually, years ago, when I’d still used to celebrate Christmas with Dad, we’d had a simple dinner and just taken plates directly from the cabinet and brought it all with us into the living room to spend the evening on the sofa.

“Well, that was a mess,” I murmured as I rinsed off the plates and put them in the dishwasher. “Should we tell them?”

“I’m fine either way,” he said, shrugging lightly as he carried plates over to the counter for me to rinse. “It’s all up to you, really.”

Why yes it was. Christian had already told me this, after all. I was the one who didn’t think Dad—or Anna for that matter—had any business knowing about my love life. That was how Dad and I had always operated. I’d never known his girlfriends through the years—except Anna now. He’d never met mine.

And here I was, now in a relationship with a guy who was not only ten years older than me but Anna’s brother. I couldn’t see Dad taking that well in any sort of scenario I managed to cook up in my head.

“Whatever you want, Andreas,” he assured me, clapping me on the back. “It’s your Dad.”

“It’s your sister,” I mumbled gruffly.

“Yeah, well. If she doesn’t take it well, it’s nothing much I can do about it, is there? It’s not like we see a lot of each other. Or talk much.”

“You still talk more than Dad and I do,” I pointed out drily.

He moved his head a little, thinking. “Maybe so, but it’s not like we’re that close. We talk because it’s only the two of us left. Mum and Dad are dead, after all, and Anna’s kids have moved out of the country.”

“Anna has kids?” This I didn’t know.

He smiled slightly. “Two. A boy and a girl. Well, a man and a woman, I suppose. He’s living down in Thailand with his Thai wife and my niece lives in Spain.”

“Huh.” I put the last plate in the dishwasher and started scrubbing the pans. “It’s been two years since I met her and I had no idea.”

He chuckled. “You talk less with her than with your dad. Besides, I don’t think Anna has much contact with them anymore except birthdays and holidays.”

What a lovely, tight-knit family we have. Speaking of… “I thought I’d go visit Mum’s grave before we have desert and open presents.” Presents were something Anna had insisted on, I could’ve just as well have done without them. Dad and I only used to exchange one each back when I was a kid and from the year I’d come of age we’d dropped it entirely. “Want to come with?”

“Sure.” Christian grabbed a dish towel and started wiping off the pan I’d just finished. I started in on the second as he put it away and waited patiently for the next one.

“We’re heading out for a bit!” I called to Dad as we walked past the living room to the hallway.

“Where are you going?” Anna asked, looking over the sofa at us curiously.

“Cemetary,” was all I answered, already in the hall by now and pulling my jacket on.

It rained outside. So much for a white Christmas. If we’d stayed on Svalbard we would’ve not just had a white Christmas, but a white December. A white half a year, mostly, as the snow only melted in the summer.

“I miss home,” Christian said, huddling in his own jacket as we walked down the street.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Next year we’re spending Christmas at home. I still haven’t celebrated Christmas with you on Svalbard. Last year I celebrated with Varg.”

“Just the two of us next year?” He gave a small smile. “I like the sound of that. Unless Anna insists they join us.”

I gave a laugh. “I doubt she’ll get Dad to leave Oslo for Svalbard.” If they were even together that long. Then again, she’d stayed with him for two years, so why not another one? Clearly, she saw something in my strict, cold, grumpy old Dad that I didn’t see.

Christian laughed. “Johan is—he doesn’t say much, that’s for sure. Mostly he glowers. I’m not sure he likes me.”

“That’s Dad’s usual face. He always looks like that.” I didn’t think Dad didn’t like Christian—they had had a conversation during dinner last night about Christian’s work on Svalbard and what exactly it entailed to run such a business. Dad wouldn’t have got involved in such a conversation if he didn’t like him.

The wind was cold and blew the rain all around, mostly straight in our faces. It was horrid—but at the same time it was better than being inside the flat with a silent-as-the-grave Dad and Anna who asked lots of questions.

The cemetery wasn’t that far away, so in fifteen minutes we were there, walking through the dark plot looking for Mum’s stone.

“Here she is.” The stone itself was nice, all dark and shiny with gold writing. But other than that, Mum’s grave didn’t look all that appealing. No flowers or grave lights or wreaths like many of the other graves had. Dad wasn’t much of a flowery guy and neither was I.

If the weather cleared up before we headed home, I’d buy a wreath to tie to the stone though. Just to do something for her.

“How’d she die?” Christian asked in a low voice.

“Cancer.” When I was way too young. It had been Dad and me, all alone, ever since. “What about your parents?”

“One from cancer and one from a heart attack.” Christian came up to stand beside me, looking down at the elegant, gold writing. “Cancer’s a pretty common way of dying, isn’t it?”

“I guess, yeah.” I’d been ten when Mum died and honestly… I couldn’t remember much from back then. Bits and pieces here and there, like how she used to read to me before bed or how she baked the most awesome cakes.

A pretty heavy gust of wind blew some ice-cold rain in my face and I shuddered. “Walk back?” I asked Christian.

“Mmm.”

We walked home faster than we had to the cemetary, simply because the weather was turning even worse. I wondered what Varg was doing now, as he’d been whisked away by Jonathan so the two of them could spend Christmas Eve all alone together. I sure hope they make up and figure their shit out. They hadn’t been on steady ground lately.