‘Or …’ Dev checked quickly over both of his shoulders. ‘You could climb on my back and have a peek.’ Hecrouched down underneath the window, hands braced against his knees and looking up at me like I was the weirdo. ‘Come on,’ he said, slapping his thighs. ‘Jump up.’
A brief vision of me, clambering on his back, falling off and both of us breaking a hip flashed through my mind.
‘Absolutely not,’ I said, standing firm. ‘You can’t go around looking through other people’s windows, there’s a name for people who do that.’
‘Peeping Toms?’
‘I was thinking “twats”.’
He laughed but he did not move.
‘Come on, Baker,’ he said, gripping his thighs in readiness. ‘You know you want to.’
‘Baby Jesus, give me strength,’ I whispered, trying very hard not to think about how those thighs might feel. I didn’t remember him being quite so solid when we were teenagers.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Dev asked, still squatting. ‘It’s a cheeky look through a window, the world won’t end if you climb on my back and check it out, I promise you.’
I dithered back and forth for a moment. On one hand, it felt dodgy but on the other, Dev Jones was bent over in front of Chatsworth House and demanding I climb on his back. And he was probably right, I couldn’t bring on the apocalypse by peeking through a window. Said the girl who was on her sixth Christmas Day in a row.
‘Fine, but I’m going on record as saying this is a bad idea,’ I told him as I clambered onto his back, feeling my way upright against the rough stone side of the house and pressing my nose up against the glass.
It was more beautiful than I could have imagined.
The house, not Dev’s back.
But also Dev’s back.
Somehow, someone had popped inside my head and scooped out the Christmas of my dreams. The warm wooden floors and gilded ceilings, a huge fireplace big enough for me and Santa to climb inside at the same time, and one of the biggest, most beautifully decorated Christmas trees I’d ever had the privilege to witness with my own eyes. It was massive, at least twelve feet tall, and stood slap bang in the centre of the room, proudly showing off its baubles. Two wooden nutcracker soldiers stood sentry on either side of the fireplace, their mouths agape at the wonder of it all and I could have stared at it forever.
‘Not to rush you,’ Dev grunted under my feet.
‘Let me get a quick photo,’ I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket and holding it up to the window. But a picture couldn’t do it justice and besides, I didn’t really want a photo, I wanted to be inside.
‘Dev?’ I said, touching my fingertips to the window.
‘Gwen?’
‘This window’s open.’
I pushed against the pane and felt it give. No alarms sounded, no sirens raged. There was nothing but a waft of tempting Christmas-tree scent and a complete loss of my senses.
‘I’m going in,’ I told him as I tucked my phone away in my pocket and opened the window all the way. ‘Wait here.’
‘You are joking?’ Dev gasped, still stuck in the same position. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
This was not the kind of thing I would usually do. I didn’t even like returning things to the shops because I was scared of judgemental sales assistants, but we were a long way from ‘usual’ right now. What was it they said?Carpe Diem. Eat the cake, wear the nice perfume, knee Santa in the balls, break into the stately home, if not now, when? And if my day was doomed to repeat itself for all eternity, the very least I could do was seize the shit out of it.
‘Gwen,’ Dev huffed, his body beginning to buckle under my feet. ‘You’re not really thinking about this are you?’
‘Not really thinking at all,’ I replied as I poured myself inside the house, Mum’s jacket scratching against the sill, and landed in an undignified heap on the floor. Undignified but somehow unscathed. At least I was using this extra gift of time to get better at something, even if it was breaking into houses.
‘Bloody hell,’ I heard Dev mutter as a fluffy white face appeared in the open window. ‘OK,’ he said as I grabbed hold of a very excited-looking Pari. ‘I’m coming in.’
Carefully placing Pari down on the floor, I stuck my head back out the window to see Dev backing up the path before taking a running jump at the house. I marvelled as he grabbed hold of the window frame, feet scrabbling against the 500-year-old stone walls, and pulled himself up and in.
‘Impressive,’ I remarked as he leaned against the wall, bent over double and panting as though he’d just run a marathon.
‘Not to brag but Ihavebeen working out,’ he gasped, flexing a very, very slender bicep. ‘Promise you’ll remind me never to try that again.’