I tutted and crossed my arms over my chest. ‘Honey badger videos and one-line messages about your amazing girlfriend? Hardly a correspondence for the ages, was it?’
Dev stood up, a stony look on his face. ‘Seems like you’d rather be alone. I’ll let you sulk in peace.’
‘Thank you, that would be wonderful,’ I huffed. ‘Merry Christmas, Dev.’
‘Merry Christmas, Gwen,’ he said, softening slightly. ‘Whatever’s going on with you, I hope you work it out sooner rather than later.’
I watched him go, barely fitting between the garage and the shed and making even more of a mess of his lovely coat as he went, and my frustration dissolved into shame. I’d never been the kind of person to lose her temper. Except when it came to Cerys. And Andrew Jergens. And Jason Broadhurst. But other than where those three people were concerned, I never lost my shit. Not that I didn’t want to fully Hulk out at least ten times a day; I was a woman and a lawyerandI was on Twitter, I felt like flipping tables daily, but whenever those hot flashes sparked into life, I always tried to remind myself of something my dad told me when I started my training at Abbott & Howe: no one likes an angry woman. It was sexist, offensive and at least in my office, one hundred per cent true. For years, I’d donemy level best to be professional, hardworking, calm and likeable, but now my rage felt like a can of Pringles, I had been popped and I could not stop. But there was no excuse for taking my frustrations out on kind, helpful, stupidly good-looking Dev. What sort of idiot lashed out at a beautiful man who willingly gave her chocolate? He didn’t deserve it.
‘I should go and apologize,’ I said out loud, standing up and realizing there was something I needed to do more urgently. ‘As soon as I’ve had a wee,’ I muttered, wishing I’d put more time into Kegel exercises and less time into downing Dorothy’s punch.
All the downstairs lights were out when I got back to the house. It was a little after seven-thirty, but Bronwyn Baker was not one to suffer a big light on in an empty room. Upstairs, I saw a dim glow coming from my parents’ bedroom and the diffused light of the bathroom, glowing through the frosted glass. Keeping my fingers crossed that Cerys and Oliver were still out, I reached for the handle of the back door and turned it to the right. It was locked.
‘Bugger,’ I declared, the word puffing out in front of my face in little frozen clouds. I tried the handle one more time, jiggling it just so, before giving up and heading for the front.
Also locked.
And of course I didn’t have my keys.
Standing on the front doorstep, I pondered my options. If I knocked on the door, Dad would answer. Dad always answered the door at night and I didn’t think I could stand to see that look on his face againtoday. My phone was charging in my room so I couldn’t call Manny and ask him to sneak me in. Icouldpop round next door and explain the situation to Dev’s mum but in all honesty, I would rather wet myself and if I didn’t get to a toilet shortly, that would be a very real option. Why did my ability to hold a wee completely disappear the moment I caught sight of my front door? If only there were a registered medical professional in the vicinity I could ask …
‘I am not going to piss myself in my parent’s front garden at the age of thirty-two,’ I whispered, leaning against Manny’s Volvo. ‘There’s got to be some way to get into the house.’
And there was. The downstairs bedroom window. Despite my parents’ security concerns, Nan always left it cracked open whenever she stayed over due to the fact my father kept the central heating ‘hotter than the fires of hell’ (according to the budget-conscious, put-another-jumper-on Myfanwy). I could climb in through the window. Arming myself with a helpful stick, I clambered onto the boot of the car and wedged the stick through the window, pushing it upwards until I could reach my hand inside to open it all the way. It would still be a squeeze, I realized, comparing the size of the window with the size of my arse, but better to get stuck half in and half out a window like some sort of velvet-clad Winnie the Pooh than to wet myself outside and freeze to death in a puddle of my own wee.
Probably.
‘Hello?’ I called as pushed my head through the window and came face to face with a pair of heavy lined velvet drapes.
No response.
Sliding one arm through the window, I twisted myself around, immediately regretting the fact I’d been slacking on myYoga with Adrienepractice, and somehow forced my other arm inside.
‘There we go,’ I panted, as an unexpected gust of wind blew my dress up around my waist. ‘Gwen Baker, ace problem solver.’
But the problem was only half solved. I rocked backwards and forwards like a human seesaw, attempting to inch the rest of my body inside as the sharp edge of the window frame cut into my ribs and the searing heat of the radiator wafted up towards my face. Nan was right, it was ridiculously hot. Swatting at a crack in the curtains, I heard the bedroom door open right as I reached the point of no return and my body gave in to gravity. My feet went flying up into the air as I crashed through the window, swaddled in the curtains, a muffled rip of fabric tearing as I went.
‘Have that!’ a loud, brave voice bellowed as I attempted to right myself. ‘Burgling a house on Christmas Day, what kind of a monster are you?’
‘I’m not a burglar,’ I protested, fighting with my dress and the drapes as something heavy clocked me around the head. ‘It’s me, it’s me! It’s Gwen!’
The bludgeoning took altogether too long to stop and when I finally emerged from my velvet cocoon, Nan was standing over me, panting, with a hardback book held over her head.
‘Who knew Barbara Taylor Bradford could inflict such damage?’ I winced, poking at a newly tender spot underneath my eye.
Nan placed the book on her nightstand and let out a long sigh of relief. ‘Sorry, pet. You might want to ice that, you’re going to have a shiner and a half.’
‘I had no idea you were so strong.’ I stared up at her from the floor, almost afraid to move. ‘Consider yourself added to my zombie survival team.’
‘How was I supposed to know it was you?’ she asked as she unravelled the curtains from around my legs and helped me up to my feet. ‘What were you doing climbing in through the bloody window in the dead of night?’
‘Nan, it’s not even seven. You didn’t hear me shouting through the window?’
‘I was in the living room with the kids,’ she explained as I sat on the edge of her bed, examining my war wounds. Scraped knees, tender ribs, nothing a chunk of Christmas cake couldn’t fix. ‘They’re sat in the dark, ruining their eyes and playing some bloody game that’s louder than the war.’
‘Where’s Cerys?’ I asked warily.
‘Oliver and Cerys went to the pub and your mum went upstairs to watch the telly. Manny had those little white plug things in his ears last I saw him and your father was knocking back a very stiff drink.’