Also, he saved my arse once when a couple of drunk geezers came in and tried to hold me up at closing. One of the bastards had just thrown a full pint in my face—glass and all—when Raf showed up and kicked him right in the bullocks.
The wind rattles the door. Someone scurries by beyond the plate glass windows. In the corner, the fire sputters in the wood-burner. “It’s cold.”
“All the better,” he says with a grin. “I’m raking it in today.” He wiggles his fingers before diving back into his meal with the sort of gusto I’ve not felt in ages. For anything, really. Well, that’s not entirely true. I was pretty fucking motivated this morning when it came to putting my annoying little neighbor in her place. Although I wouldn’t call it gusto so much as pure irritation.
Raf finishes up. I clear his plate, pull out the bûche de Noël I bought from the little chocolate place on the square. It’s a hazelnut log, frosted with dark chocolate and decorated with little marzipan and meringue mushrooms.
“Ah, non, c’est trop, Colin. J’peux pas.” He tries to refuse, but I shove the box at him anyway.
“C’est Noël, Raf. Go on. I won’t eat it. Don’t make me throw it in the bin.”
The look he gives me is grudging and embarrassed.
“You suddenly celebrate Christmas now?” he asks.
I grunt, watching as he opens the box and eyes the frosted yule log with hunger and excitement and an edge of resignation that I feel to my toes.
The pastry, he decides, is for later. Now, while the occasional tourist or other straggler is still about, he’s got work to do. Chestnuts to roast and sell.
I walk him to the door and hand him a hot coffee—in a thick porcelain mug—laced with Irish whiskey. He accepts it, shaking his head like I’ve annoyed him, then turns to go. “Close up and go home, Colin.” He looks at the blustery square, though I feel his side-eye. “You look like hell.” Outside, he turns and flashes me a grin before stomping over to where he’s stashed his still-smoking grill.
Shaking my head, I watch him go, wishing I felt the kind of lightness he carries inside him.
Another hard gust of wind rattles the windows, this time bringing with it a spatter of rain.
Yes, I should go. No point staying here in weather like this, on a night like this.
FuckingChristmas.
Quickly, now that I’ve made my decision, I close the damper on the fireplace insert, turn out the lights, grab the money bag and my coat and, after some hesitation, a full bottle of whisky, then head out into the cold.
CHAPTERTHREE
Jules
“I’m fine, Nana. I promise.”
“But, Sugar, you’re all alone.”
“I’m not alone!” I insist. “I’m in a building full of people.” I’m not sure this is strictly true, given how quiet it’s been all evening. Enora, my friend and sixth floor neighbor, took off for her boyfriend’s parents’ alpine ski lodge last night. Laurent, whose ground floor antique shop is usually aglow with old-fashioned lighting and the cozychug chugof tiny trains, left to stay with his sister in Alsace and, when I rolled in exhausted from work earlier, the whole place just felt silent as a tomb. Still, empty, lifeless. Even Le Grump seems to have taken off for the holidays given how quiet he’s been all night. At least I can laugh freely now.
Somehow, the thought doesn’t pep me up like it should.
“You should’ve come home.” Nana works hard to be heard over the sloppily merry sounds of a dozen retirees caroling under the influence of one too many heavily-laced veg nogs. They’re just getting started. It’s lunchtime on the West Coast.
“Too expensive.” Which is only part of it, but Nana knows how I feel about where I grew up.
“I’d have helped out,” she yells and then, seemingly as one, the entire vocal power of the Bellingham Bells golden age gay and lesbian choir pitches in with theirYeahs!andMe, toosandIt’s not too late, honeys, but it is too late.
And the thing I’ve never quite admitted to Nana or to the rest of my family is that I don’t ever want to go back there. Visits—even short ones—take too much out of me, every time.
“I know, Nana,” I tell her with a smile. “By the time I made it to you, I’d have had to turn around anyway.”
“Don’t they give you time off in that place?”
I sigh, sinking back onto the soft sofa. “Yes. I told you. This is France. I’d get five weeks if I had a permanent contract.”
“Five! Good lord. And they couldn’t have—”
