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Somehow, his accent made the word sound worse. “Yep.”

He huffed and disappeared once again. “Men are pigs.”

She smiled. “You’re a man.”

“Some men are pigs.”

Her grin widened. “It was fine, really. He gave me the perfect out of a relationship I never should have been in. He was more of a way to…”

“Pass the time?” Liam offered.

“As horrible as that makes me sound, yes.”

“It doesn’t make you sound horrible. It makes you sound human.” He grunted, then wiggled his way from beneath the tree. “There. That should do it.”

Claire cautiously released her hold of the tree. When it remained upright, she beamed. “Perfect.”

“Mum will love this.”

“You think she’ll be up to decorating tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.” He stretched out his arm to reveal his watch on his wrist. “We ought to be getting ready soon. Though we should probably eat before we go.”

“Oh, I know this great place to eat pizza—”

“Don’t,” Liam cut her off, holding up a finger in the air. “Don’t you dare.”

She laughed, and his eyes brightened with that smile she’d grown to lov—slightly tolerate.

Instead of eating out again that night, Liam suggested spaghetti at home, so the two of them whipped up the simple meal together, hanging a few garlands around the house as the noodles boiled before sitting down across from each other at the table.

Their conversation consisted of flowers, photographs, and the sites around London before they cleaned up and made to get ready for the ballet.

Halfway down the hallway, however, Claire paused. “Oh, the tree needs to be watered.”

“I can see to that.”

But she was already backing up into the kitchen. “No, that’s alright. You go on ahead. I’ll do it.”

His footsteps shuffled down the hallway as Claire found a plastic pitcher and filled it up with water, making her way to the tree before sidling under it as a few drops spilled.

After an annoying struggle, Claire awkwardly emptied the pitcher into the stand, then moved to pull back. Somehow, however, the pitcher handle hooked onto the end of one of the screws and refused to budge.

She grunted, struggling to get it loosened, but the pitcher held fast. Squinting to see the culprit of her grief, she noted a piece of metal jutting forth at the end of the screw, so she tried to push the pitcher around the hooked edge.

Unable to move far enough to unsnag the handle, she shuffled farther beneath the tree, holding onto the branches for more leverage. In her movement, she somehow managed to forget her grip was on a freewheeling tree instead of something sturdier. She tugged hard once again, finally unhooking the pitcher just as the tree teetered forward.

“No, no, no,” she swiftly repeated as soon as she caught sight of the tree’s movement, but the pine toppled forward without any regard to her pleading.

Dropping the pitcher, she covered her face with her hands, bracing until the pointed needles fell across her body, and she yelped.

* * *

Liam paused in buttoning up his white dress shirt. Had he imagined that shout? Or had something happened to Claire?

He strained to hear further, but silence met his ears. Unable to appease his worry, he left his room, noting Claire’s door and the bathroom door still ajar. She hadn’t come upstairs, then. Was she still watering the tree?

He moved down the stairs quietly, hoping to hear any clue as to what had happened, but no further sound came. Only when he rounded the corner did he finally see what had occurred. Claire was on her back, her hands covering her face, her shoulders shaking—was she crying or laughing?—and beside her, lay the tree.