by M K Hardy
“Come back with me?” she said then. “For dinner? There’s plenty.”
Brooke’s smile widened and she nodded, setting her knife aside. “Okay. As long as it’s all right that I don’t have anything to bring. Or any presents.”
“I had actually kept a couple of things back for you to give to Maya, if you wanted—just some candy and colouring pencils. But it’s up to you. I was going to ask.”
“Wow, you really planned this out,” Brooke said, with a laugh bubbling up behind her words.
“I wouldn’t go that far—there’s always candy and colouring pencils hidden somewhere in our house.” Holly’s grin turned into a shy smile, and she reached for Brooke’s hand. “If this is all too much, especially after… That’s okay. I swear.”
“I’d really like to spend Christmas with you. And Maya,” Brooke said, squeezing Holly’s hand. “Start making some good memories of the day.”
“Then we’d best wrap up and get going.”
“I’ll just stick this in some thermoses…” Brooke indicated the pan of hot toddy. “If I’m going to meet your parents, I think I’ll need it.”
Brooke’s last words rang in Holly’s mind as they walked—waded, really—through the still blizzarding snow to her home. “If I’m going to meet your parents…”
Should we be not doing this? Now we know there’s something between us?
Of course, their admitted mutual attraction didn’t mean anything, necessarily. Indeed, there were lots of reasons it shouldn’t. They were going to have a business relationship. Brooke was only in town for a matter of days. And as much as her feelings about Noelle might’ve changed, that was a long way from ever wanting to spend a large amount of time here.
Still, nobody should be alone on Christmas, and no matter the uncertainty between them Holly knew she didn’t want Brooke to have to go through that. They could put the rest aside until after the holiday—couldn’t they?
“Mom!” Maya rushed them as soon as they stepped inside. “You got Brooke! Brooke, hi!”
“Hi,” Brooke chuckled, shrugging her coat off. “Merry Christmas, Maya.”
Holly’s parents immediately emerged from the kitchen, her dad drying his hands, their expressions openly curious.
“Brooke—glad you could make it after all,” Holly’s mom said with a slightly bemused smile. “Just as well Holly cooks like she’s feeding a football team.”
“Thanks for having me,” Brooke said. Holly could hear the nerves in her voice, but her smile was genuine. “Um, is there anything I can do to help? I could set the table…”
“That’s Maya’s job,” Holly said quickly. “But I’m sure she’d enjoy the help.”
“C’mon,” Maya said, motioning for Brooke to follow her through to the dining room. “We get to use the fancy stuff for Christmas!”
Holly watched them head off through to the kitchen together, a warmth suffusing her no amount of snow would dispel. When she looked back to her mother, Pat was regarding her with a thoughtful expression.
“All right,” Holly blustered, approaching the kitchen herself now. “Let’s see how you two coped without me…”
Dinner had suffered remarkably little in her absence; the carrots were a bit singed but everything else was perfect. Holly had no time to speak to anyone—not her mom, who clearly had questions, and not Brooke, who luckily seemed wholly occupied by Maya, who had taken it upon herself to recount every present she had received that morning in great detail as they all carried plates and platters and bowls full of food to the dining table.
Maya was a godsend that evening. She kept the conversation running, asking endless questions of everybody at the table and generally keeping everybody laughing and comfortable.
Even Brooke seemed to relax, and for a while everything felt normal. Right, even. Holly’s heart swelled watching Brooke laughing at Maya’s jokes or helping herself to a second helping of stuffing. Christmas to her had always been more about family and comfort than anything else, and she was glad to be able to share that with Brooke, no matter what lay ahead for them.
The flipside of all the family time, of course, was that Holly hadn’t had a moment alone with Brooke. She told herself it didn’t matter, that wasn’t what this was about, but still, when Brooke stood to help clear up the plates Holly was quick to wave both Maya and her parents toward the living room, eager for a moment with just the two of them, even if it was elbow to elbow at the sink.
“That was really good,” Brooke remarked as she picked up a sponge, flashing a quick sideways smile at Holly. “I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, given your day job.”
“Hey, cooking is way easier than baking,” Holly admonished, leaning to bump Brooke’s arm with her shoulder. “Okay, the pots’ve been soaking, so we can wash and dry those, and then the plates just need to be rinsed for the dishwasher.”
“Roger that.”
The pair worked in silence. Holly wondered if, like her, Brooke was trying to think of something to say and coming up short. It wasn’t until they were leaving the kitchen that she made her move, reaching to take Brooke’s hand as they turned to head back through to the living room.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Brooke glanced down at their joined hands, her lips curving into a shy smile. “I am too. This has been wonderful.”
“D’you want to stay after Mom and Dad have gone? Once Maya’s in bed we could…talk. If you liked.”
“If you want to. I’d like to, I mean.”
“Good. I had this sudden vision of my parents bustling you out with them before I could say anything and…” Holly released Brooke’s hand with a grin and a shake of her head. “We’d best get back. They’ll want to watch Elf. I’m sorry.”
They watched Elf, but Brooke barely noticed the film. She was too busy turning over and savouring memories from the past few hours—every touch of Holly’s hand, every time she smiled. These moments seemed to slot themselves over past Christmases, replacing stony silence or, later, too much drinking with the warm, merry feeling of spending time with people who cared about each other—and about her.
As the evening went on, Brooke’s enjoyment of this time with—as—a family warred with her desire to skip ahead to the promised time alone with Holly afterward. Though she was a little nervous about their “talk”, her trepidation was entirely overridden by the prospect of rewriting another moment from her past—the last time she’d talked alone with Holly on the couch in this very room.
When Maya’s bedtime rolled around, Brooke was to find herself thrown over as putter-to-bed by Holly’s father, who was apparently her favourite person even when there was someone exciting and new around.
“He reads to her longer than anyone else, and is apparently best at voices,” Holly explained, as if reading Brooke’s mind.
Pat snorted. “Likes the sound of his own voice, more like,” she said. “So, Brooke,” she went on without preamble. “I can’t tell you how glad we were when you decided to give Holly here a shot at keeping the bakery. I hope you know how grateful she is—we all are.”
“Yeah, of course. She deserves a chance to make it work. I’m rooting for her,” Brooke said, with a smile in Holly’s direction.
This seemed to please Pat well enough, and she moved on to talking about the events of the night of Margie’s party. She’d obviously heard edited highlights of the night, including Brooke and Holly’s trip across to Highfield. Brooke nodded and answered when necessary, though it was hard to quell her impatience while they waited at Maya and her grandfather’s pleasure. She kept glancing over and finding Holly looking back at her, which wasn’t helping her to pay proper attention to Pat’s small talk. A couple of times she thought Holly’s mother noted their exchanged looks, though she had no reason to think anything of it.
“Well,” Holly said as the door finally closed behind her parents. She leaned back against i
t and favoured Brooke with a smile that appeared both relieved and nervous. “I kept some wine back?”
“Great. I’ll just…grab a seat on the sofa.”
Brooke didn’t sit immediately, instead making a quick lap around the living room, praying for her nerves to settle. She paused in front of the Christmas tree, taking in the obviously handmade ornaments, the twinkling lights, the haphazardly strewn tinsel. She found herself wishing she could have been there for the decorating, despite having eschewed a tree or lights ever since having moved to Boston.
“I keep hoping every year it’ll be missing, or too ratty to use.”
Holly’s voice cut into Brooke’s musings—she’d arrived at her side and was proffering a glass of wine. “The tinsel,” she added by way of explanation, nodding to the twinkling garlands. “Hate the stuff.”
“I dunno, it’s kinda fun,” Brooke said with a chuckle as she took the glass. “Like a psychedelic bird’s nest.”
“I bet your tree’s all black and silver and white lights.”
“I don’t usually go for a tree, actually. Never really saw the point when it was just me.”
Holly didn’t say anything, but she did reach to touch her hand to Brooke’s, lacing their fingers together.
“Tonight was really nice. Perfect, really. Thank you for bringing me back,” Brooke murmured. “I’m glad I didn’t miss it.”
Holly’s grip tightened briefly, and she tugged Brooke back toward the sofa. “Shall we sit?”
They made their way to the sofa and sat, each taking a sip of their wine as they contemplated what to say. Then, at the same time, they spoke.
“So, I don—”
“Should we—”
“You first,” Brooke said with a wry grin.
Holly shook her head, dipping her eyes away from Brooke’s, but then she did speak. “I was going to say, I don’t want you to feel like…I have any expectations here. I know this has all been…kinda out of left field. It is for me too.”
“Yeah, no, of course.” Brooke tried to ignore the way her heart started to race, her fingers tightening around her glass. “It’s unusual to say the least. And I don’t either. Expect anything, I mean. I’d be lucky just to be able to count you as a friend, after the way things started.”
“Of course. I mean, I hope you do. As to…well. I…guess it’s hard to know where we go from here. Because of Maya. And Noelle, and the bakery. And, well. A lot of things.” Holly looked up at Brooke, eyes a little hopeful, as though at the thought perhaps Brooke would have some magical answer to all these considerations, something that let them explore what might exist between them without taking them into account.
Brooke didn’t have any answers, only an almost overwhelming desire to find a way to make this work. “I guess we just take it one step at a time.”
“Right. Um.” Holly shifted a little closer on the sofa. “So…what’s the first step?”
Brooke reached out with her free hand. Her fingers came to rest lightly on Holly’s knee. “I guess we have to figure out how compatible we are first.”
Holly’s smile grew shy again, though she let Brooke guide her closer. “Are you sure? I’d understand if—”
Brooke kissed her. Sure, they could talk until the Christmas lights burned out about what to do next, about how they could negotiate the many barriers between them, about whether they even had a chance, but right now she just wanted to be close to Holly, to taste her, to feel her. Holly made a tiny sound of surprise in her throat—though how much of a surprise could it really have been?—but was soon responding in kind, her lips light and soft on Brooke’s, tentative, exploratory.
When they drew apart for breath, Holly chuckled. “Been a while since I did that,” she murmured, still close, their foreheads resting together.
“Hope it wasn’t a letdown,” Brooke replied, her pulse fluttering.
“Mm, nope.” Holly reached to graze her fingers down Brooke’s cheek. “You?”
“Absolutely not. In fact, I’d like to do it again.”
Holly smiled, and leaned in again, and everything went dark.
“Um. That was nice an’ all but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t good enough to render me blind, so…”
“Shit. I mean, sorry…another power outage?”
Holly chuckled. They were still close—Brooke’s breath was on her face, sweet and a little wine-y. She swallowed. Actual emergency, come on, Holly. “That would be my first guess,” she said, shifting to grab her phone from her pocket. “Take a look out the window for me while I check the breaker?”
The circuit breaker was in the hall cupboard, which was easy enough to find in the dark, though once she was in, she had to go by touch. A minute later she nearly jumped out of her skin as a hand landed on her waist, followed closely by the spotlight of the phone illuminating the cupboard. “It’s dark all down the street,” Brooke said, her voice quiet. “No flashing Santas or anything.”
“Guess there’s no point in me checking this, then,” Holly murmured, turning to put herself face to face with Brooke. And thigh to thigh. And stomach to stomach. And it seemed the most natural thing in the world to reach up and draw Brooke closer for another kiss, right there, leaning half into the cupboard. Her arms snaked around Brooke’s neck, Brooke’s hands anchoring her by the hips, and it was with considerable reluctance that she drew back after a scant few seconds. “I need to check on Maya,” she murmured. “She has a nightlight, so I’ll need to take her a battery lamp.”
“Okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“There are candles in the cupboard in the laundry room, right at the front. You could fetch some and light them?”
“This is all starting to feel very familiar,” Brooke said with a smirk. She leaned in to nuzzle Holly’s neck, her teeth catching Holly’s ear all too briefly. “With a few notable changes.”
Holly gave a comic groan of frustration. “Mph, go, go,” she said, pushing Brooke away.
When she returned from the highly delicate mission of replacing Maya’s nightlight without waking her, her arms laden with blankets, she found the living room illuminated with candlelight, tapers lined along the coffee table and at the edges of the room, casting a warm glow that welcomed her in. Brooke was lighting the final few candles and turned to smile at her as she approached. “I may have gone a bit overboard…”
“No, it’s beautiful,” Holly said, her pulse skipping a beat at the sight of Brooke standing there lit by the candles’ warm glow. “How are they…” Holly walked further into the room, laughing as she saw exactly what Brooke had used for candle holders. “So, you found the glass recycling too, huh.” She gestured to an empty wine bottle with a candle pushed into its neck.
“I thought it gave things sort of a Lady and the Tramp vibe,” Brooke said, smirking.
“Aw, shame we have no spaghetti…”
“I don’t think I could eat another bite. I’m stuffed. We’ll just have to find another excuse to get close.”
“Do we need an excuse?” Holly offloaded the blankets onto the sofa and then reached toward Brooke, who smiled and stepped closer. She took Holly’s hand.
“I hope not.”
Brooke had a feeling she was going to have some aches and pains tomorrow given her current position wedged along Holly’s sofa, and she didn’t care in the slightest. Holly was nestled against her, almost buried beneath the blankets, grinning up at Brooke.
“Well, that’s one way to stay warm,” Holly said, shifting to touch her cold nose to Brooke’s.
“Y’know, I didn’t sabotage the power lines but maybe I should have,” Brooke chuckled.
“Maybe, though I’m sure I could’ve been persuaded to do this even with the lights still on.”
“Noted.” With a smile Brooke leaned in again to press her lips to Holly’s, marvelling once again at how natural this felt. She hadn’t been celibate over the year
s—far from it—and if Holly hadn’t been intimate with anybody since the husband looming large in her past it had been considerably longer for her than it had for Brooke. Yet this still felt incredibly new. The kid, the location, the domestic setting—none of this was what Brooke was used to. At the same time, she couldn’t think of anywhere she’d rather be. The strange juxtaposition left Brooke’s head spinning, and so perhaps it wasn’t surprising that she found herself staring uncomprehendingly at Holly when she next spoke, several moments before she registered what she’d actually said.
“You shouldn’t go back tonight. There’s a spare room.”
“Are you sure?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “I don’t want to cause any tongues to wag…”
Holly pulled back then, looking a little surprised at the very idea herself. “I strongly doubt anybody is paying attention to who’s staying at my home during a power cut, and if they are, good luck to them.”
“Sorry,” Brooke said. “Sorry. I guess I just…don’t know what to think about this town. My mother told me they were always on the lookout for deviant behaviour.”
Holly smiled down at her. “My experience is they are mostly on the lookout for pastries.”
“Yeah, but…” Brooke shook her head, giving a sigh. “I just don’t want to mess up anything for you.”
Holly shook her head, smiling and leaning to touch a light kiss to Brooke’s lips. “I promise you: you are not gonna mess anything up. Well. Not outside of a real estate agent’s, anyway,” she teased. “I’m a grown-up, Brooke. Trust me.”
She did. How could she not? Holly was a grown-up, and she was entering this with her eyes wide open. She knew the real Noelle far better than Brooke did, and if she said it was okay, then who was she to argue? “I’m sorry,” she said again with a rueful smile. “I’ll let you lead the way. If you say this town’s ready for us… I believe you.”
Holly shook her head in disbelief. “This town,” she said, leaning down to punctuate her words with another kiss, “is so far from my primary concern. We can do whatever we want. I promise.” She hesitated before adding, “I’m more concerned with what you want, otherwise I wouldn’t be suggesting the spare room.”