It Won’t be Christmas Without You

“I’m so glad I’ve been going to those fitness classes with the girls to shed a few pounds ready for Christmas. I don’t know where I would’ve got a swimming costume and sundresses at this time of year if I didn’t still fit into them! And your dad’s bought one of those Hawaiian shirts, a bright yellow one with big pink flowers on. Looks bloody ridiculous, of course, but there was no stopping him!”

There’s no stopping you going, either. Clearly.

“So …” Eloise swallowed the lump in her throat. Vin Diesel was back on the TV, and she reached for the remote to mute it. “So you’re going on holiday for Christmas. And Cara’s not coming home. So I’m – I’m spending Christmas all on my own.”

“Oh, no, don’t be silly! Of course you can still come home, and Cara will be here – just not first thing in the morning. And she’s said she can work from home for a day or so if she has to. And you could always go see your aunt and uncle and your cousins.”

The aunt and uncle and cousins who lived over an hour’s drive from home, who she didn’t actually talk to all that much, and only saw a few times a year since she’d gone off to uni. And who didn’t even cook a turkey on Christmas Day, because ‘it was too much hassle’.

Her mum was still going on: about the hotel (four and a half stars on TripAdvisor, you know) and the one utterly scathing review (but of course it was probably a one-off) and how close they were to the beach, and –

And Eloise could see how excited her mum was. Her dad’s voice was faint, somewhere in the background under what was now Michael Bublé’s Holly Jolly Christmas, chattering away to Cara to tell her exactly the same news. He was just as excited.

And why shouldn’t they be? They loved their sunny holidays in the Mediterranean. Of course they’d love a bit of winter sun for a change.

It wasn’t their fault she didn’t like to let on how homesick she got or how lonely she could be here.

So she plastered on a smile, asked her mum all the right questions, pretended that this was fine – they’d FaceTime from the beach! Her parents would have the best time! Of course Eloise didn’t mind! They’d send each other pictures of their Christmas dinner! Ha ha!

(God, Christmas dinner – that was always her dad’s domain … What the hell would they do? Would Cara expect her to do it all? They couldn’t not have a roast dinner on Christmas Day.)

It was all Cara’s fault. Cara and that bloody guy she was seeing, George. Eloise had only heard wonderful things about perfect, dashing, handsome George so far, but this made her kind of hate him. He’d ruined Christmas.

Cara had sort of ruined Christmas when she’d phoned a few days ago, to say she wouldn’t be there the whole day. But Eloise could just about live with that. It wouldn’t be great, but they’d still have most of the day, and it wasn’t like she’d be off to Josh’s in the evening like she had the last several Christmases.

She could live with Cara bailing on Christmas morning.

But this?

Christmas was the best time of year. For Eloise, it properly started as early as November. She’d been so excited about going back home and spending a few days with her family, watching the usual suspects on DVD, playing games, eating too much …

And now she’d be waking up on Christmas Day all alone. In a big, empty house.

Alone at Christmas.

Did it get much worse than that?

Eighteen days to Christmas

Chapter 3

“You coming?”

“Huh?”

Jen rolled her eyes, absently tapping her card wallet on the dividing wall around Cara’s desk. “Starbucks. I literally just explained. You said you were listening.”

“Sorry.” Cara stared intently at her screen, eyes scanning the email once more, deleting one more exclamation mark before she hit send. She looked up at Jen again. “Sorry. I swear I’m listening this time.”

“Starbucks time. Are you coming?” Cara’s eyes flicked towards Dave’s office, and she barely opened her mouth before Jen added, “Dave was the one who asked if anybody else wanted to go out and grab a Christmas coffee in the first place.”

“I don’t know. I’ve just got so much to get through for next week’s last-minute gifts campaign …” As if on cue, an email from some boutique candle company from North Wales pinged into her inbox. Promptly followed by a reply from the high street retailer they were still hoping to pin down. “I’m just …”

“Oh my God,” Jen sighed, exasperated but half-laughing, “don’t bother. You’ll just have your nose in your phone. What shall I bring you back?”

Jen had started her role in the PR team the same week as Cara had joined the company. Despite the four-year age difference, they’d clicked instantly. It hadn’t been long before their joint coffee breaks and lunches turned into after-work drinks and weekend wanders around the shops. Jen was a brilliant friend, especially at times like this, when she understood how much Cara had on her plate.

The company – Klikit – had been around for maybe four years now, but it had only really started taking off about a year ago, hitting the front page of the App Store, their followers spiking on Twitter until they were real competitors, a real household name. They still had a way to go, and everyone in the office worked hard to make it happen – and Cara loved it. She thrived on the pressure, the new challenges that hit her email inbox every day. She loved the team, the platform, the work, all of it.

But she also loved a good Christmassy coffee.

“Toffee nut. With cream. Unless you end up at Costa instead, then I’ll have the gingerbread latte. Ooh, and grab me a muffin while you’re there? Something festive-flavoured. I don’t care what. So long as it’s not a mince pie. I might vomit if I have to see another mince pie.”

People had been bringing boxes of them into the office for about a month now.

Eloise would have loved it. And Cara had at first – but there were only so many mince pies a person could eat. What was she – Father Christmas?

“Gotcha.” Jen waggled her fingers as a few others wandered over, already wrapped in coats and ready to go. “We’ll see you in, like, an hour.”

Cara waved them all off as they passed by her desk and stuck her head back into her computer, sucked into a world of draft posts and stock images and emails, barely looking up until the smell of toffee nut slid under her nose.

“Love ya.”

“You’re welcome,” Jen sang back. Cara looked up long enough to roll her neck, reviving the muscles there, and taking a long sip of her still-steaming hot latte. Heaven. This was liquid Christmas. Sod eggnog: this was the real magic, right here.

Jen was already chattering away, telling her about the latest office gossip that had surfaced, and Cara gave herself ten minutes to indulge in it. (Because damn, was Molly in Finance really hooking up with Patrick from IT? Didn’t she have a boyfriend, or something?)

Eventually, Jen wandered back to her desk and Cara shifted back into full-on work mode.

When six o’clock hit and she broke off another bit of muffin to munch on, Dave passed by her desk.

“Dude,” he said, “go home.”

He called everyone dude. He even called the cleaning lady dude.

“I will, in a minute. I’ve just …” Ping. Who the hell was even still working at six o’clock to reply to her emails now? Weren’t office hours over?

Cara started replying.

Dave laughed, leaning against the desk next to her. “You don’t have to keep working twelve hours a day, you know. You’re already a shoo-in. You work twice as hard as anyone here. You already do half of my job for me.”

Cara dragged her face away from the screen, and then her eyes a moment later. She smiled and said, “I swear, I’ll go home as soon as I’ve sorted this. I just want to make sure it’s done before I head off.”

What she didn’t add was that she did have to keep working like this, to prove herself. That was how she’d always been, though, in fairness, it wasn’t so much to do with the company as it was her. But, even so, there were people who’d been here since Klikit started who would be interested in Dave’s job. She was twenty-two and had been here only eighteen months. It seemed like way too soon to be looking for a promotion. So yes, she did have to work like this.

If she didn’t get the promotion, nobody could say it was because she didn’t work hard enough. Besides, she loved her job. It didn’t feel so awful working this much when she enjoyed what she was doing.

Dave shook his head, laughing softly. “Alright, but seriously – get yourself home.” He nodded at the screen. “That’ll still be there in the morning. And hey – make sure you turn your phone off at the Christmas party next week. We can’t have you working all night. This place won’t fall apart if you take a break, you know.”

She laughed. “Roger that, boss.”

It was eight o’clock before she walked through the door at home. It was pitch dark outside, but the house was warm (for a change) and smelled like enchiladas.

With all of her housemates working such different jobs (a bar manager, someone in digital marketing for a chain of clubs, one girl in HR for a high-street fashion brand, and another guy working as a journalist), they didn’t always get to spend a lot of time together. And some people (not that she was naming names, but it was totally Henry) never replaced the toilet roll when they used the last of it.

But times like this – when they made more than enough food and told her there were leftovers in the fridge – she loved them dearly.

Cara dumped her backpack near the door and tossed her coat onto the peg in the hallway.

“There’s food in the fridge!” shouted one of her housemates, Jamilla, from the living room. “Elliot made enchiladas.”

“Thanks!” Cara called back, heading straight for the kitchen now and digging the leftovers out of the fridge. Ooh, and they’d left some salad too. Absolute angels.

The idea of living with four total strangers had been terrifying at first, for Cara. A new city and a new job? Sure, that was exciting. But sharing a house with four totally random people?

A couple of people she knew from uni had done it too, and she’d heard a few horror stories of nightmare housemates or awful landlords, so she had to count her blessings: her housemates were so easy to get on with. And they did things like cook enough food for everyone and keep the house clean, which was a huge step up from some people she’d lived with at university.

Enchiladas reheated, Cara headed into the living room, where she could hear some of her housemates talking over the TV.

“Alright, Cara?” Elliot said, glancing up from his own plate of food. Jamilla was there too, stretched across the other sofa flicking through a magazine. While Cara ate, the three of them swapped stories about their days until Cara’s phone buzzed.

She’d not checked her phone since she’d left work and noticed she had a few notifications. A text from Eloise. A photo from her mum in their family group WhatsApp, of the matching #Elfie T-shirts she and Cara’s dad had bought to take on holiday. A missed call and now a text from George.

Her face lit up: it must’ve done, because Jamilla promptly said, “Oo-ooh, let me guess. A text from the famous George.”

“Maybe.”

“He’s a keeper, C, I swear to God,” Elliot pitched in. “How many guys do you think spend their lunch break coming to your office just to bring you your favourite Starbucks?”

“That was one time.” But it had been a really nice surprise yesterday: he’d had to cancel their date the night before at short notice and wanted to make up for it, even though she’d understood.

“Go on, abandon your friends; call lover boy back,” Jamilla told her, grinning. “If you don’t, I will.”

Cara stuck her tongue out, collecting the empty mugs, cereal bowl and her own plate to take to the kitchen. She called George back, sticking the phone on speaker as she loaded the things into the half-full dishwasher.

George answered almost straight away. “Hey! How are you? Are you back from work now?”

“Yeah. Sorry I missed your call; it must’ve been when I was on the Tube. I’ve only just had tea.”

“I’m visiting a mate about two stops from you – is it alright if I pop in tonight? If you’re not too tired? I’d love to see you.”

“Oh! Um, sure. Yeah, absolutely!” She cringed, gritting her teeth. Did she sound too keen? Too late now. “Text me when you’re here; I’ll come down and let you in.”

She’d been looking forward to cuddling up under the duvet with one of the Hallmark Christmas movies on Netflix. Eloise had been messaging her recommendations and out-of-five-stars reviews all week. But she could pass that up to see her (sort-of) boyfriend.

She hoped he was her boyfriend.

God, she hated this whole label thing. Talking to each other, seeing each other, dating – why were there so many labels for it now? Why was it so bloody intimidating to just ask him if they were a couple?

She hadn’t even wondered about it too much until she’d gone to buy him a Christmas card the other day – and realised maybe he’d be freaked out if she got him a boyfriend card. Or disappointed to get one that didn’t say ‘boyfriend’.

“I have to ask you something.”

“Sounds serious.” Cara twisted towards him. They were lying side by side on her bed under about three blankets, her laptop propped on George’s knees with the credits of Jingle All The Way rolling.

“Is it too weird if I get you a present? For Christmas? I mean, I know I said the other week about you meeting my parents, but you can back out of that easy with some excuse about work and I wouldn’t even know if you made it up or not.”

Cara wondered who’d made him so cynical about relationships.

She’d also never been so relieved to find a guy who didn’t mind tackling head-on the kind of questions she worried about herself.

“I’ll outdo you on the weird serious question front,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow. “Do I get to call you my boyfriend yet, or do we have to go through some weird phase of casual-yet-exclusive dating for a few more weeks before that?”

George laughed so warmly that she felt she already knew the answer. It gave her the same warm, fuzzy feeling in her stomach as she got whenever she watched Love Actually.

“I think we can skip that phase, don’t you?”

“Skip it all,” she deadpanned, waving a hand. “I’ll expect a Tiffany ring for Christmas. June wedding. Kids by October.”

“Steady on. It’ll have to be a winter wedding. My step-mum will murder me if she’s stuffed up with hay fever in all the wedding photos. You think your parents would mind a child out of wedlock?”

“Hmm, not sure. Or we could just elope.”

“Las Vegas at New Year? Elvis can officiate.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Well, thank you very much, little lady, thank you very much,” he said, in possibly the worst impression of Elvis she’d ever heard.

Cara broke into peals of laughter and George set the laptop safely to one side before rolling on top of her, propped up on his elbows and kissing her softly. Cara sighed, leaning up into it, smiling against his lips.

“I can’t stay too late,” he murmured, breaking away with a groan and pushing his forehead against her cheek. “Early start.”

“Or you could just … stay here.” Cara felt herself blushing furiously. Even though they’d had sex (after date number six) they hadn’t actually spent the night with each other. “I’ve got a spare toothbrush in a drawer.”

George laughed. “Well, that was the deal breaker.”

Clearly she’d done something right to get on Santa’s Good List this year, because George was utterly perfect.

Fourteen days till Christmas

Chapter 4

She could do this. Only a few more days of school to go until they broke up for the holidays, and then – then she’d never have to go through another run of that bloody nativity again.

If Eloise had to hear Away in a Manger or Don’t Stop Me Now again any time soon, she’d scream. They’d been playing on a constant loop all day while the children did full run-throughs. And much as Eloise loved seeing them so happy and so full of Christmas spirit, it was driving her a little nuts.

Pouring herself a generous glass of white wine, she’d never been so glad to sink into her sofa. She FaceTimed Cara, but the call cut off before it was answered and she got a text instead.

Still in work and going straight to meet George. I’ll try to call you later xxx

PS How’s the nativity going? On the vino yet?

Eloise couldn’t help but feel disappointed, even as she typed out upbeat replies filled with emojis. It was gone six and she knew from Cara’s Instagrammed coffee at 7.32 a.m. that morning that she’d been in work early.

At school and at uni, Eloise always thought they’d both worked as hard as each other. They’d both fallen in love with Birmingham, and had lived in the same halls and house share throughout their degrees. Eloise wasn’t finding it hard to be away from Cara lately so much as she found it hard to just talk to her sister. Especially with all this promotion stuff going on. Cara worked too bloody hard.

So bloody hard she was even skipping Christmas and had encouraged their parents to do the same.

Eloise fired off the last few wine glass emojis to Cara and a Snapchat to match, then set her phone aside. “Humbug,” she muttered.

And giggled. A half-glass of wine and she was already tipsy. She probably should’ve eaten something before opening the bottle.

By the time she’d finished her glass, a movie had started on one of the TV channels and she left it to play, snuggling into her woolly cardigan and snapping off the lamp beside her. The Christmas tree and the fairy lights were all on, and she’d lit a cinnamon sugar-scented candle, so the room was lit with a warm, festive glow.

Bliss.

Lonely bliss, but still some kind of bliss.

Wryly, she thought this was probably more festive than Christmas morning would be.

Cara’s fault.

She’d barely settled in with the movie when there was a knock on her door.

Eloise sat up, muted the TV. Cocked her head and listened.

Another knock. Definitely her door.

She didn’t understand who it would be. Someone in the block, surely. You had to have a key to get into the building, or a special code for the intercom. If someone wanted to actually, physically knock her door, they had to get into the building first.

Another knock, this one harder, more insistent.

Eloise clambered up from the sofa, staggering a little as the wine hit her, and giggling while she steadied herself. Once she got to the door (which took at least three times as long as usual) she peered through the peep-hole.

Jamie knocked again, hammering his fist against the door. “I saw your lights on from outside, Eloise. I can hear you moving around.”

She undid the chain and opened the door. She lifted her chin primly, pursing her lips. “Can I help you?”

She hiccupped.

Giggled again, pressing a hand to her mouth. Her whole face felt warm.

Jamie raised an eyebrow, but then went back to looking sullen and moody. Brooding, maybe. Brooding was a word that suited him. In a very Jon Snow-esque way. And ooh, he was wearing glasses. She’d never seen him in glasses before. Rectangular, black frames. They suited him. A lot. He cleared his throat, distracting her from looking at him. (And she really was only looking, definitely not staring. Not at all.) “I, um, I need a favour.”

“Do you need more wrapping paper?”

He’d knocked on her door two days ago, needing paper to wrap a Secret Santa gift for someone in work. He’d laughed at her collection of ribbons and bows and tags, but taken some anyway, smirking when she told him he’d picked the wrong ones to match the paper.

“No. I, um …” Jamie cleared his throat and stood up straighter, which was when she realised he’d been slouching. He was so much taller than her when he didn’t slouch, and she wasn’t in her usual heeled boots. His cheeks reddened. “I locked myself out. I went to take the recycling out and just … I forgot my keys. Obviously I can get into the building, but … not my flat. I tried the estate agent for a spare key, but they’re shut till the morning. I know this is a really weird favour to ask, but …”

“You can stay here,” Eloise said, before he could stammer and drag it out any more. God, he was making it painful. Like this was more trouble for him than it would be for her. Prick, she thought, but smiled politely. “It’s not a problem. Have you eaten yet? I might order some pizza. I’m starving.”

“I could eat.”

Eloise stepped aside, waving a hand grandly to admit him into the flat. She closed the door after him, and was pleased that he made use of the shoe rack without her even having to ask.

Jamie followed her into the living room, perching on the other end of the sofa. He looked awkward and out of place. He must’ve felt it too, because he ran a hand back and forth through his hair, mussing it up, cleaned his glasses on his T-shirt, rubbed his jaw.

Had he always looked this cute?

Maybe it was the glasses. Or the messy hair.

He might be too long for the sofa, Eloise wondered. But she could hardly offer him the bed. That was where she was sleeping.

He pointed at the TV and she followed his finger while she picked her phone up from where it had fallen on the floor earlier. She checked it for notifications, even though she knew there would be none. “Good movie.”

“Is it? I’ve not seen it before.”

She couldn’t even remember what it was called. Just that it was some movie with Daniel Radcliffe, about magic, and not Harry Potter. Mark Ruffalo was currently on screen.

Eloise loaded the Dominos app, picking a two-pizza deal and choosing one for herself before handing the phone to Jamie to pick what he wanted.

“I’ll pay you back tomorrow, when I manage to get into my flat.”

She waved him off as she tapped in the credit card details she knew off by heart. A side-effect of a lot of online shopping at university and a lack of ability to budget. “Don’t worry about it, honestly. You want some wine? Tea? I’ve got some coffee, but it’s only decaf. Um … there’s some lemonade too. Or orange juice. Or –”

“Tea would be nice. I’ll make it, though, don’t worry. Do you want one?”

“Um.” Did people actually do this? Make themselves at home in someone else’s kitchen? She’d only ever seen that in movies before. Was it arrogance, or was he being polite? It was hard to tell. She’d have opted for some more wine if she’d been on her own, but sobering up seemed like a better idea now she had company. “Yeah, go on then.”

She half-watched the movie while she listened to him fill her kettle, look through a couple of drawers for the teaspoons, take mugs off the mug tree and open her tin labelled, unambiguously, TEA.

She wanted to text Cara. She wanted to call her and have a whispered conversation to say her arsey neighbour was spending the night at her flat. But Cara would be with George now, and she didn’t want to disturb them.

Jamie handed her the tea. “Sorry – I forgot to ask if you take sugar. But, given that there’s a canister of tea bags out and no sugar, I’m guessing not.”

Eloise shook her head. Her fringe was falling out of its hairpin, tucked off her face. “Nope. Thanks.”

“No – thank you. Honestly. I really appreciate this. I know it’s – I know I’m not exactly neighbourly, so I appreciate this.”

Aww. That might be the first genuinely nice thing he’d ever said to her.