‘Would a gingerbread reindeer help?’
One eye opens and fixes on him.‘A biscuit I don’t have to share with piranhas masquerading as children?You’re offering me a Christmas miracle.’
Christopher slips two reindeer into a paper bag.‘And one to hide in the car, for later.’
‘You’re a good man.’She violently bites the head off.Her eyes close again, this time with the joy of eating.Christopher will never get tired of that look.
Without another word, he makes her usual frothy latte with many packets of sugar on the side and deposits it in front of her.
‘Oh, you absolute beaut.’Shaz dunks a bit of leg into the hot froth.‘Must you close for Christmas?How will I get by without this every day?I’m too used to it.And you.You’ve ruined me.Plus, I heard the pub had a burst pipe and the whole place is wrecked so that’ll be shut too.Where am I going to hide from my children if you leave?’
‘You’d have to buy a lot more coffees for me to stay open over the holidays.’
She snorts.‘I’m already metaphorically shitting myself over Gar’s mum coming for the holidays.I don’t need to beliterallyshitting myself too.’
‘A truly delightful image.Is it that bad?Now I feel bad for leaving.’
The tiredness must show on his face because she adds, ‘I’ll put my big pants on.Just this once, mind, don’t you get cosy with all this leaving business.But I suppose you’ll need to recharge your energy so you can come up with a new seasonal biccie for me.’
‘I could keep doing gingerbread out of season.’
‘Just for me?’
‘Just for you.And hopefully some other customers.’
‘Yeah, but they matter less than me.Are you all ready for your trip?’
‘I think so.Just the last of these to get out the door,’ he says, indicating the Christmas puddings.He passes hers over and sets it just far enough away from her that it won’t get splattered with coffee or gingerbread.
‘Diolch bab.Have you downloaded any films for the train?’
‘If you mean, am I still working through your several-pages-long list of essential Christmas romcoms, then yes.’
The other thing that Shaz brought into his life was an appreciation for Christmas romcoms.Back in September when he started making the Christmas puddings, she insisted he needed festive inspiration, and sent a list of seasonal romcoms to watch.
Determined to nurture their new friendship, he decided to watch one, just to say that he had.Over that week, he’d watched five.One each evening, with two repeats.And he hadopinionsabout them.He was absolutely completely and utterly hooked.He wasn’t sure if it was the guaranteed happy endings or the high ratio of bakers to literally any other profession, but he couldn’t stop watching.The only thing Christopher had ever felt that invested in before was baking.
He hadn’t even heard of most of them, but then festive romcoms hadn’t been something he’d sought out.At Christmas, he normally just passively watched whatever was put on.Maybe he should have been paying better attention.Apart from the few queer film titles he vaguely recognised, Shaz’s list skewed to heterosexual romances, and of those, most featured one particular actor, Nash Nadeau – a blond-haired, perfectly stubbled, slightly hench American man on the cusp of thirty who, well, Christopher found rather handsome.There was just something so charismatic and warm about him.Or perhaps his characters.But still.
At first, he kept this new obsession all to himself, but eventually, once he had completed Nash Nadeau’s infamousChristmas at the Clinicseries (casually known by fans as the‘Christmas Vet’ films), it all came tumbling out.The last movie in the series, unless there were more unannounced to come, ended on a cliffhanger – a cliffhanger, for Christ’s sake!Would the veterinarian played by Nash Nadeau ever get back together with the witty and brilliant schoolteacher played by Barbie Glynn?The films had been teasing it all the way through the series.And now, they’d left the final movie on acliffhanger.
When Shaz walked into the bakery the next day, Christopher had yelled, ‘They can’t just end a film on a cliffhanger!’With one throaty chuckle from Shaz, their friendship was officially cemented.
‘I’ve rinsed all the new ones for this year already,’ she sighs now, sadly, swirling the coffee in its cup.‘I’m going to have torewatchsome.’
‘Heaven forbid.’
‘Don’t be cheeky now.You’ll be in my position any moment at your rate.’
She wasn’t wrong.He had watcheda lotof Christmas movies in the last four months.It had become a kind of routine: he’d close up the bakery and wind down while watching some glittering, joyful Christmas romance, regardless of the time of year.After all, romance isn’t just for Christmas.There was nothing more comforting than knowing things would be all right in the end, no matter what you were put through.Christopher wished real life had that level of certainty.
‘Yes but I’ll just watch all of Nash Nadeau’s back catalogue again, and be glad of it,’ he says.
‘I would love to see that man’s back catalogue,’ says Shaz.
Me too, Christopher thinks to himself.Nash Nadeau’s various characters had started turning up in his dreams, always to whisk him off to some snow-dipped destination where they would kiss by the fireside and eat delicious food.
It was getting a little ridiculous.The last time he had a crush this intense was after he sawThe Mummy Returnsplaying on ITV as a child, and had suddenly developed a fascination for both Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser.
