He leaned in towards me, the smell of him, the size of him, all of it overwhelming considering the only physical contact I’d had with a man was when the Deliveroo guy accidentally brushed my fingertips with his while handing over my most recent Nando’s order. Dev’s mouth brushed against my cheek, a scratch of stubble, the quiet click of lips parting, his breath prickling my ear. When he pulled away, I was a puddle. Who knew a kiss on the cheek could be so deeply erotic? His fiancée was a very lucky woman and I hated her guts.
‘Merry Christmas, Gwen,’ he murmured.
‘Merry Christmas, Dev,’ I replied, leaning against the kitchen cupboards, knees weak, as he let himself out. It was a lot. A magical moment with my childhood sweetheartanda fully cooked Christmas dinner? There was a chance Manny was right, this could be heaven after all.
‘I don’t know how you did it, Gwen, but that was marvellous,’ Mum called through the serving hatch as she polished off her third helping of turkey. ‘How long have you been hiding the fact you can cook?’
‘And where did you learn to make Yorkshire puddings like that?’ Dad added. ‘Because it certainly wasn’t from your mother.’
‘Oh, you know, I watched a bit ofMasterChef, that’s all,’ I shouted back as she clipped him around the back of the head. Manny passed the rest of the dirty plates back through the hatch, each and every one scraped so clean, I was able to stick them straight in the dishwasher. Dev was a confirmed culinary genius. Not that my family needed to know it.
‘Michael is missing out,’ Oliver shouted. I paused for a moment, taken aback by the almost-compliment from my brother-in-law. And by the fact I hadn’t thought about Michael in hours. ‘Although I shouldn’t think it matters if that new gal of his is any good in the kitchen, if you know what I mean, looks like she’s got the skills elsewhere.’
‘Is everyone ready for pudding?’ I called back, confident in my assumption that everyone knew exactly what he meant. Wanker.
‘Yes, please,’ Mum replied as she leaned back in her chair. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relaxed on Christmas Day. You’ve really made my wish come true.’
‘You’re relaxed because you’ve been drinking since half-ten,’ Manny pointed out. ‘Let’s not give her any more credit than she deserves.’
But I didn’t care, she said it. I made her wish come true. That was good enough for me and hopefully the nice people at The Little Silver Sixpence Company.
‘Can you bring the Mini Rolls in for the kids?’ Mum asked as I grabbed the matches off the top of the fridge to light the pud. ‘They’re in the pantry, I ran out of room in the fridge. Be careful, the bulb’s out in there!’
The pantry wasn’t huge but it was a long, narrow space that ran under the stairs, and like most pantries, very cold and very dark. When we were little, I was too scared to go in on my own and even now as a (relatively) sensible adult, I got a chill at the idea of poking around in the back without someone else in the room to watch my back.
‘Where are they?’ I shouted back, squinting into the darkness, matches still in one hand. ‘If I go any further back, I’ll be in Narnia.’
But no one could hear me.
‘I bet that bloody lightbulb has been out for weeks,’ I grumbled as I struck a match against the box. There it was. A big purple package on the back shelf, spotted at the exact same moment I stumped my toe on something extremely solid.
‘Bugger,’ I huffed as I dropped my match and the Mini Rolls disappeared into the darkness. Which genius had left something on the floor of the pantry when the light isn’t working?
As I struck a second match, I saw right away which genius had left something on the floor of the pantry when the light wasn’t working. My dad.
I’d stumped my toe on The Widow Maker and even worse, I’d dropped a match on Apocalypse Now and lit the fuse.
‘Oh no,’ I whispered, blowing out the second match that was burning its way down to my fingers. A frenetic white spark travelled down the firework’s fuse as I huffed and I puffed, trying to blow the spark out, but it was no use. Dad’s fireworks were about to blow the house down. I turned to run and warn the others but it was too late. Covering my head with my hands, I heard a boom, I felt the blast and somewhere in between the two, a packet of Mini Rolls went flying through the air with everything else in the pantry, me included.
CHAPTER TEN
‘You set fire to the house?’
Manny stared at me, slack-jawed, his face ashen.
‘Technically, I blew it up,’ I replied, casually munching on a bacon butty the following morning, Christmas Day 4.0, right back where I started. ‘Word to the wise, Dad’s got a massive stash of explosives hidden in the kitchen so unless you like the smell of napalm in the morning, don’t go in the pantry with any open flames.’
He pushed his breakfast away across the coffee table untouched. The presents were open, the TV was on and Manny’s mind was blown. For some reason he wasn’t taking the news of my eternal Christmas so well today. I couldn’t imagine why.
‘Were we … were we OK?’ he asked.
‘The house literally exploded so I’d have to say probably not?’ I wiped a smudge of tomato sauce from the edge of my mouth and shrugged. ‘But never mind, eh? All’s well that ends well, or not, as the case may be. If at first we don’t succeed and all that jazz. No point crying over severed limbs.’
For the first time, I was relieved when I opened my eyes to find myself back in bed on Christmas morning. Mum was furious when I backed her car into the fence the day after passing my driving test, I couldn’t imagine her being exactly thrilled about me blowing up the whole house and everyone in it. Although Dad was the one who left enough explosives to alarm NATO in a blacked-out pantry so it could be considered a group effort.
‘You seem awfully relaxed about this,’ Manny said, still adjusting to my new reality. ‘How are you not panicking?’
‘Because I’ve already panicked and it didn’t help. Are you going to eat this?’ I asked, reaching for his bacon sandwich. For the last two days, I’d had to choke down every mouthful of food. Today I’d woken up ravenous.