Lindsey Kelk 5-Book 'I Heart...' Collection (135 page)

‘Hello? Angela?’

‘In here.’

Alex walked into the living room and dropped his bag on the floor, frozen with fear.

‘What happened?’

I glanced around helplessly. I was surrounded by piles of wrapping paper, reams and reams of ribbon, tape, scissors, metallic markers and gift cards. Various hats, scarves, bottles of perfume, sweaters and boxes of reindeer-shaped chocolates punctuated the shit tip. Somewhere, my laptop was hidden, playing ‘Now That’s What I Call Christmas’. I couldn’t find it, so I couldn’t turn it off. Christmas had got the best of me. I’d been beaten. Trying not to cry, I desperately kicked at a long, black box, trying to shove it under the settee without attracting Alex’s attention. I’d had a very long and involved conversation with the man in the guitar shop who had shown me a beautiful vintage sky-blue Fender that had a fantastic something I couldn’t even remember and an awesome black flying V that was bedazzled with a Batman logo. The Fender was expensive. The Batman guitar was very expensive but the strap doubled as a utility belt. It had been a tough choice.

‘What’s in the box?’

I promptly burst into tears.

Alex skipped over the sofa in one leap with a devil-may-care level of concern for Converse on cushion covers and dropped down to the floor to hold me tightly.

‘I was wrapping,’ I explained tearfully. ‘But I lost the scissors and then the tape dispenser ran out and I was out shopping for hours and my feet hurt and I’m so, so tired.’

‘This is why people kill themselves at Christmas,’ he said, rocking me gently and wiping away my tears. ‘You idiot.’

He sounded and smelled and looked just like himself again. Which made me cry more. ‘I love Christmas,’ I sniffed.

‘It’s an abusive relationship,’ Alex said. ‘You need to walk away.’

‘It only does this to me because it loves me,’ I argued. Sitting there, cradled in his arms, the smell of cold air still on his coat, made everything better. If only everything was so easy. Wrapping handbags was too hard. ‘What time is it?’

‘A little before midnight?’ He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check. ‘How long have you been doing this?’

‘Some time?’ It was all I was prepared to commit to. ‘You’re going to have to go in the bedroom while I wrap yours.’

I looked up, giving him my serious face. Somewhat compromised by streaks of mascara and a bright red nose, but still, it was serious.

‘Mine?’ He started scanning the love song to consumerism on the living-room floor. ‘Something here is for me?’

Suddenly someone wasn’t quite so anti-Christmas.

‘Yes, and you’re not allowed to see it.’ I pushed him away. ‘If you see your presents before Christmas day, baby Jesus cries.’

‘We’ve established I don’t do religion?’ He scooted up onto the sofa and kicked off his shoes. ‘And neither do you.’

‘I like to hedge my bets in December.’ I peeled off a layer of jumper until I was down to my T-shirt and knickers. Wrapping presents wasn’t nearly as fun as I’d remembered. I’d lost my jeans during a fit over trying to fit my dad’s bong into a packing tube. I’d thought it hilarious when I was passing the smoke shop in the East Village, but now it was safely wrapped up and addressed, I was worried I was just giving him ideas. Hopefully he’d be satisfied with his packet of Peeps.

Somehow we’d fallen right back into our happy place. Me having a neurotic meltdown on the floor, Alex passed out on the sofa with a seasonal addition of Mariah Carey. But that didn’t mean we didn’t need to talk.

‘Have you got my Christmas present yet?’

We needed to talk about something very important.

‘Baby Jesus doesn’t want me to tell you,’ he said with closed eyes.

I looked around at all my shopping splendour and rubbed my eyes dry. If there was a baby Jesus, he would use all of his magical powers to help me look half-decent right now.

‘So, you had fun last night?’ And please let my voice not be quite so squeaky. And please let him bring up the wedding nonsense first. All my resolve had gone out the window when he’d walked in on me crying, trying to wrap a scarf and mitten set without readily available sticky tape.

‘Yeah,’ he replied without moving. ‘The wolf pack fell apart a little so I just played some cards. Checked out the venue at Cosmopolitan. We might play a show there.’

‘Did you talk to Jeff?’

Alex blew out a long breath. ‘Yeah.’

‘Is he OK?’

‘He’s fine.’

Of course he was. Jenny was at home, sobbing into the box set of Game of Thrones, dodging Sigge’s calls and inhaling Häagen-Dazs. Jeff was probably two doors away from me, snuggling with his fiancée and pretending everything was A-OK. I picked up a NARS gift set and started wrapping with righteous indignation. Righteous indignation gave much sharper corners.

‘This is going to be a lot quicker if you just say it.’ Alex rubbed a hand over his face before turning to look at me. ‘Whatever it is you’re thinking.’

‘I wasn’t thinking anything.’ Lies also made baby Jesus cry.

‘He didn’t mention Jenny, if that’s what you wanted to ask,’ he said. ‘He mentioned Shannon. A whole bunch of times. But no mention of Jenny.’

If I ever met a woman who claimed to understand what went on inside men’s tiny minds, I would punch her in the face for lying. How was it even possible that Jeff hadn’t mentioned Jenny? There was a whole chain of he-knew-I-knew-he-knew-that-Alex-knew-that-Jeff-knew-that-we-all-knew-about-everything, and it was blowing every fuse in my brain. Were men that capable of pretending difficult things hadn’t happened that they just erased the entire event?

‘So what do you talk about?’ I asked. ‘For four whole days, what do men talk about?’

Alex groaned and gave me his sleepy eyes. ‘Sports. Music. Ass. Can we go to bed?’

‘How could a girl resist a seduction like that?’ I didn’t make a move to get up.

‘We can talk about kittens and rainbows and ribbons if that helps?’

‘Alexander Reid.’ His name wasn’t actually Alexander, but I found it useful to extend it when I was giving him a telling-off. The more we didn’t talk about what had happened between us two nights before, the more it was a Thing. ‘Don’t make me beat you up.’

‘So you don’t want to run down to City Hall and get married?’

I turned sharply towards the sofa. He was still laid flat out on his back, head back, eyes closed.

‘I think they’re probably closed.’ I was careful with my tone. This was my in. Gently, gently catchee hipster. Or something. ‘Look, I know I went about everything the wrong way—’

‘You think?’ He cut me off before I got to my fabulous apology.

‘Yes, I do – that’s why I’m trying to apologize.’ I gave him a moment to jump in, but this time he kept schtum. ‘It was a stupid idea. I was stupid. Everything about it – stupid.’

Still no reaction.

‘And I’m so, so sorry. I never meant to –’ gulp – ‘hurt you.’

This was probably the worst time in the world for Cliff Richard, but I still couldn’t find my laptop, so the scariest silence of my life was filled by ‘Mistletoe and Wine’, like it or not.

‘What makes you think I was –’ Alex echoed my pause – ‘hurt?’

Well, I wasn’t expecting that. ‘Um, you weren’t?’

‘Yes, I was.’

Oh good. We were playing games. My favourite.

‘I freaked out. You actually scared me,’ he continued.

Not really any better.

‘All that shit you started coming out with,’ he went on. ‘I mean, what was that?’

I took my hair out of the attractive on-top-of-the-head-and-out-of-the-way ponytail I was working and fingered the ends. It was getting long again.

‘I didn’t mean it,’ I said. I was going to get it right this time. And I was not going to mention the post office. ‘Of course marriage is a big deal. A huge deal. Epic. I knew it was a bad idea when I was saying it, that’s why I didn’t suggest it before. That’s why I was trying everything else.’

‘So you don’t want to get married?’ Alex said slowly. ‘You’d rather go back to the UK?’

‘No! Of course not.’

Alex sat up. ‘No, you don’t want to get married? Or no, you don’t want to go back to London?’

I stared at him staring at me. How had I managed to talk myself into this corner again? ‘It wasn’t even my idea.’ In the dictionary, there was a picture underneath the word ‘exasperated’ and that picture was of me. ‘I just didn’t know what else to do and I panicked. I don’t want to leave.’

I don’t want to leave you, the voice in my head reminded me. I really was bad at this.

‘Let me guess – it was Jenny’s idea?’ Alex leaned back against the sofa and laughed. His socks didn’t match. ‘It’s maybe dumb enough. Just.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked. Why didn’t his socks match? The laundrette always bundled them together. They always bundled mine together.

‘Ahh, come on, Angela,’ he sighed. ‘Don’t make me say it. I know she’s your friend, but that girl does nothing but cause trouble. She’s a disaster. Whatever she tells you to do, you should just do the opposite.’

‘So we’re going to talk about Jenny instead of talking about us?’ Cliff was getting right on my tits. Where was that laptop? ‘Jenny is not the problem. But for the record, she is not a disaster. If this is about Jeff, I think you’ll find he’s the fuck-up there.’

Another excellent use of the term ‘fuck-up’. I liked that it was a verb and a noun.

‘He’s the one who came to her. He’s the one who suggested they get married.’ I was really on a roll. The little sensible and so often ignored voice in my mind tried to remind me we were supposed to be talking about us, but I couldn’t help myself. I was genuinely very pissed off at Jeff. ‘And then he was the one who freaked out the next day and asked her to pretend it never happened. You can’t do that. Just because you’ve got cold feet, you can’t mess around with someone who loves you. You can’t mess about with someone’s emotions because it suits you.’

Alex narrowed his eyes. ‘What, like you did?’

Colour me stunned. I felt all the blood drain out of my face and my heart started to pound. ‘What?’

‘You can’t sit there and kick Jeff’s ass for taking advantage of someone who “loves him”.’ A very unwelcome use of air quotes was injected into the conversation. ‘When you thought it was a good idea to ask me to marry you, to marry you, Angela, just to get a visa so you can stay here and keep getting into bullshit adventures with your dumb-shit girlfriend.’

‘Is that what you think?’ I stood up. I wasn’t sure why. ‘Honestly?’

‘That’s what you said.’ He placed a lot of emphasis on the end of the sentence. In all honesty I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said, but I was fairly certain I wouldn’t have mentioned bullshit adventures with my dumb-shit girlfriend. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have a dumb-shit girlfriend. I did, however, have a dumb-shit boyfriend. ‘Call me crazy,’ he said, ‘but all I have to go on are the things you say to me. I’m not a mind reader.’

And wasn’t that just half the problem? Men and women really were a different species. Jenny and I were legitimately telepathic, whether it was a life-altering crisis or just knowing when the other wanted ice cream. But Alex was just going on the actual words that had come out of my mouth? Bloody hell. No wonder he was confused.

‘Can we just leave Jenny out of it for a minute?’ I said, trying not to stand on an iPod Nano while making my point. It was not easy. ‘Let me explain.’

‘No, we can’t,’ Alex replied, standing up without nearly as much concern for the Christmas presents. He definitely trod on at least two Bloomingdale’s Big Brown Bags. ‘Because she’s an asshole. And she makes you an asshole.’

‘I’m an asshole now?’ Fantastic. I was shouting. I was mad. We were officially having a row and I was no longer in control of my mouth in any way. ‘Well thank God we didn’t get married.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ he shouted back and stalked into the kitchen. ‘You know, all the way home on the plane I was thinking, maybe I can just pretend it didn’t happen. Maybe I can just go on with the plan, but you know what, I can’t. I won’t be used. I’m not having this shit again.’

He opened and slammed a couple of kitchen cabinets before turning around and looking at me with an expression I had never seen before and never wanted to see again. He looked sad. He looked angry. He looked like there was nothing I could say that would change his mind. He looked heartbroken.

‘Again?’ I was too angry to cry but too scared to be angry. I really needed to see him smile. To see anything but that face. ‘Used? Alex, this is getting out of hand. Can we calm down?’

‘It got out of hand already.’ His shoulders dropped and he turned to walk into the bathroom. ‘I don’t want to talk to you right now. I can’t talk to you right now.’

The door shut hard and loud then I heard the lock click and the water run. In a complete state of shock, I stood in the middle of Christmageddon, listening to ‘Last Christmas’ and trying not to cry. I picked up the house phone and pressed the speed-dial.

Jenny answered on the first ring.

‘What’s up?’ she asked through a mouthful of something.

‘I need to come over,’ I whispered. I didn’t trust my voice with any volume. ‘Now.’

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, immediately alert. ‘Should I come get you?’

‘I’ll get a cab,’ I replied, never taking my eyes off the bathroom door.

‘Angie, are you OK?’ Jenny repeated. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know.’ I felt my eyes tear up and my voice wobbled. ‘But it’s not OK. I’m on my way.’

Hanging up, I spotted my laptop hidden underneath a copy of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, slapped it shut and picked it up. The bathroom was still locked. I rested my fingers against the light wood door and waited for a moment. I couldn’t hear anything but running water. Leaving the apartment seemed so ridiculous, but staying felt impossible. I was too scared of what he might say when he came out. I couldn’t lie beside him without talking it out, and I couldn’t talk it out without one of us getting angry. So I did the only thing I knew to do when things were going badly.

I ran away.

‘And then what did he say?’

Jenny was sitting on the sofa, combing her fingers through my hair while I sprawled on the hardwood floor, a Corona in one hand, a spoonful of New York Super Chunk in the other. To my left was the emergency bag of Monster Munch I kept at Jenny’s. To my right was an open bottle of wine. Jenny had drunk all the tequila before I got there, so we were punctuating beers with shots of Sauvignon Blanc.