‘I haven’t confirmed it yet. But I thought, with Bob growing up out here with no neighbours close by, he might like a friend to play with. It’s a good reason to get out on walks, and might help you feel safer when strange men come wandering into your back garden, rapping on your windows.’
‘I’ve never had a dog before.’
‘I have. I can show you what to do, what they need. Like I said, if it’s not what you want, I can cancel. Or keep him myself. He’s already house-trained. One of my regular clients bought him and then got a job overseas. He’s called Hudson.’
I took a moment to picture it. Me and Bob, walking through the trees with a spaniel scampering alongside us. Hudson curling up in front of the fire, playing fetch with Bob once he grew older. A best friend who’d love him unconditionally. A long-term commitment, not to living in a penthouse apartment in the middle of a city, but to this new life, here in the forest.
‘It’s perfect.’
Cue more crying into my bacon butty.
My present for him was a three-month membership of a local rowing club. A bit presumptuous, but not even close to buying someone a pet.
He promised to accept the gift on one condition.
‘You have to try it with me some time.’
I squinted at him over my coffee mug. ‘What, with Bob as our cox?’
He grinned. ‘I’m sure one of those coffee mums would love to have him for a couple of hours.’
‘Okay. But not until it’s warmer. Pick a date sometime in the spring.’
‘A date?’
We both exchanged soppy smiles at the confirmation that we’d still be hanging out together in the spring. That we so casually arranged a date that both of us knew would be 100 per cent a romantic one.
‘This is the best Christmas present,’ I said once we’d finished eating. My heart felt swollen with happiness at the simple act of clearing up breakfast together. I hadn’t been alone for that long, compared to some, nothing compared to Beckett, but we had both felt very, very alone, given how insular and empty our lives had become.
‘Okay, that’s not true. The puppy is better. But having you here is… more than I could have ever dreamed of.’
‘Is that how it’s going to be?’ Beckett raised one eyebrow, tugging me gently until I bumped up against him, having to crane my neck to meet his sparkling eyes. ‘Me coming second to the dog? The dog who will chew your furniture, steal your socks and never once bring you breakfast?’
‘The dog who’ll never say he wants “time apart”, or that kissing me was a “rash mistake”?’
‘Ouch. How long is it going to be before I’m allowed to forget that?’
I grabbed his woolly jumper with both fists. ‘I don’t know. How long are you planning on sticking around for?’
He replied with a slow, sexy smile that flipped my insides upside down. ‘I’m here as long as you’ll have me.’ He bent to give me a soft kiss. ‘Well, I actually need to see Gramps at some point, but I was hoping you might want to come along too.’
He kissed me again. ‘To see Gramps, and wherever else we decide to go.’
‘Are you talking about the New Life Christmas Day Lunch? Because I promised Sofia I’d bring custard.’
‘I’m talking about the lunch. Dinner. Breakfast. A billion mugs of tea, pieces of cake and tonic and gins. Hot chocolates at the Winter Wonderland. Ice-cold beers in the summer. Wherever. Forever. Sticking around, hanging around. I’m not sure how else to say that I’m yours now. If you’d like.’
‘I would like. A lot.’ I rested my head against his firm chest that had always felt like the safest place on earth, adding a whisper. ‘Almost as much as a puppy.’
We drove to the church, where Yara had invited us both (separately, the night before, presumably in some obvious attempt to get us talking again) to a lunch for people who would otherwise be spending the day alone.
I was nervous about eating Christmas dinner with the kind of people who had no friends or family to be with, while at the same time chastising myself for being judgy, given that up until very recently, I was one of those people.
I should have known my fears would be totally unfounded. As well as Sofia, Moses and all their children dropping in on their way to Sofia’s enormous half-Irish, half-Italian family Christmas, there were the Christmas Twins, Patty and a whole bunch that together were lively, lovely and the exact opposite of my actual family, in all the best ways.
‘Are you sure you two qualify to be at a lunch for lonely losers?’ Yara asked with a knowing smirk.
We both made no effort to hide our grins, Beckett squeezing my hand underneath the table.
