The Kiss Before Midnight

by Sophie Pembroke

  He sighed, and settled down onto the sofa. The others could finish up. It wasn’t like it was really his family tree anyway.

  Previous years had been so much easier. He’d just pitched up after he clocked off work on Christmas Eve and headed straight down to the pub with Tim. Christmas Day itself was a walk in the park compared to all the festive preparations he appeared to be required to take part in this year. Presents, food, booze, Doctor Who, some board game or other, bed. Then straight home again on Boxing Day. Barely thirty-six hours of pseudo-family fun. Easy.

  Molly dropped onto the sofa cushion beside him, bringing a cinnamon and pine scented breeze with her. “See? Wasn’t that fun?”

  “Masses,” Jake lied. Tucking her bare feet up under her, Molly turned to look at him, and he tried not to shift uncomfortably under her gaze. “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I never thought to ask before. But… do you have decorations from your family you’d like to add to the tree?”

  Jake blinked in surprise, suddenly very aware that Tim and Dory were being a little too obvious about not listening to not actually be eavesdropping.

  “Uh, no. Not really.”

  “Because we wouldn’t mind,” Molly went on, earnestly. “I mean, this is your Christmas tree too. Your family celebrations.”

  Except it wasn’t, and they both knew it. “Honestly, Moll, there’s nothing.”

  “Surely there must have been something? Or are they all on your tree at home? Maybe next year, you can take a look through and pick a few to bring with you?” Why did she have to push things? Always too far, too fast, and usually at the worst possible time.

  “I don’t have any of my parents’ decorations any more,” he admitted, and watched Molly’s expression struggle through disbelief to disappointment to confusion.

  “You don’t… why?”

  “I need more coffee,” Dory announced suddenly, apropos of nothing. “Come on, Tim.”

  “What?” Tim looked utterly bemused as his big sister dragged him out of the lounge. Jake gave thanks that at least one member of the Mackenzie family knew when something was none of their damn business. Maybe she could teach her little sister.

  Molly settled down a little closer to him, bringing her knees up to her chest so her bare toes pressed against his thighs. Her toenails were painted deep red with tiny silver stars on them. He stared at them for a moment too long before looking away, suddenly swamped with the feeling that the colour of her toenails was weirdly a too personal thing to know about her.

  Which, considering he’d had his hands up her top earlier that morning, was completely ridiculous.

  “Why didn’t you keep any of your parents’ Christmas decorations, Jake?” Molly asked the question in a softer voice, this time, but it didn’t make him want to answer it any more.

  “They weren’t… Christmas with my family wasn’t like the way your family does Christmas, Moll.”

  “Molly,” she corrected, obviously unable to stop herself even when she was trying to be sensitive or nice, or whatever the hell it was she was doing. “How do you mean? Were they… I mean, your parents always seemed really nice.”

  “They were,” he said simply. “They were good people, who loved me. And I loved them very much, too. But… you might not realise this, Molly, but not everyone feels the same way about Christmas as you guys do.”

  Molly’s wide eyes neatly conveyed her complete incomprehension of his words. Jake sighed.

  “Look, if my parents were still alive today, this is what would happen. I’d come home on Christmas Eve, after work. My mum would have decorated the house in whatever this year’s colour scheme was, so it looked good for dinner party guests over the holidays, or whatever. I’d have dinner with them, then come over here to grab Tim and go to the pub. Christmas morning we’d have breakfast, open presents, then sit around reading or whatever while Mum cooked Christmas lunch, because she hated having anyone else in the kitchen while she cooked. After dinner, maybe we’d watch a film, then head to bed. And I’d leave to go home again first thing Boxing Day. It would be nice, and we’d enjoy seeing each other, but it wouldn’t be the highlight of any of our years. Whereas here…”

  “Christmas matters,” Molly said, emphasis heavy on the second word. “It’s the best part of our year.”

  “Right.” Jake didn’t want to admit that, in lots of ways, it had become one of the best parts of his, too, since he started spending it with Molly’s family.

  “Is that why you didn’t keep any of the decorations? Because they didn’t mean anything?” She sounded honestly curious, like she really wanted to understand him, his life. Hell, she’d only known him since she was born.

  But this… this was something new. And the shift made him uncomfortable.

  “Mum changed them every year,” he said with a shrug, wishing she’d just drop the subject. “There was nothing of sentimental value there, so there didn’t seem much point keeping them. When I sold the house, most of their stuff I boxed up to sell or give away. I kept the stuff that had mattered to them, or that had important memories for me.”

  “That makes sense.” Molly’s eyebrows furrowed over her pale green eyes, and he wondered if she was any closer to fathoming whatever riddle she thought he presented. “But… what do you put on your tree at home now, then?”

  Ah. Jake had a feeling she really wasn’t going to understand this one. “I don’t have a tree. Didn’t seem like there was much point, since I’m here the whole time anyway.”

  “This year, yes. But most years you’re only here for forty eight hours or less.”

  “Plenty of time to do Christmas.” He sighed as her face fell again. “Molly, please. I love spending Christmas with your family. I’m honoured to be part of your celebrations. But once it’s done… I’m usually ready to get back to work, to be honest.”

  “I get that,” she said, although her tone made it clear she thought he was crazy. “But the thing is, Jake… if this is your family Christmas, why do you keep reminding everyone that you’re not part of the family?”

  Did he? “Well, it’s the truth.”

  Molly shook her head. “Not to us, it isn’t.” Getting to her feet, she held out a hand to him and pulled him up. “Come on. Let’s go see where they’ve got to with that coffee. You’re going to need caffeine before you head to your meeting.”

  “True.” After a night of barely sleeping, plus a morning of resisting – or not – Molly’s many temptations, he’d take all the help he could get to get through the rest of the day.

  “And then, when you get back, we still need to finish our talk,” she added, already halfway to the door.

  Jake groaned. That was definitely going to take more than coffee.

  Chapter 9

  Christmas Eve always made Molly feel like a child again. The anticipation, the excitement, the friends and family dropping by with gifts and cards, or just to sample Mum’s mince pies. But this year, as she dressed in her favourite red tartan mini kilt and a black sweater with a robin on it, she couldn’t help but wonder how weird it must have been for Jake, coming from a family who didn’t make a big deal of Christmas, to try and fit in with their excess of holiday spirit.

  He liked it, she was almost sure. He just still wasn’t sure if he was really allowed to be a part of it.

  Running a comb through her hair, Molly braided it away from her face, tucking it into a messy bun at the back, then reached for her make up bag. She wanted to look good today, especially if she might be able to get Jake alone to finish their conversation. Still, she couldn’t help but smile at the knowledge that not only had he wanted her in the dark, unable to see her at all, but he’d had his eyes on her all morning despite her Christmas pyjamas, wild hair and no makeup.

  The poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

  Downstairs, Jake had left early for his meeting, apparently via the supermarket for a last minute chocolate orange emergency dash on behalf of her mother. Dory and Lucas were in the lounge,
adding one last decoration to the tree – a vintage glass bauble Dory had looked very surprised to see in Lucas’s hand. Tim was hiding in the attic with his laptop, which Molly thought was probably the best place for him, but it left her at a bit of a loss as to what to do. In previous years she’d have been working Christmas Eve, and often Christmas Day itself. All this holiday time was a luxury she wasn’t used to. She supposed she should spend the time wrapping presents, but instead she headed into the kitchen to find her parents.

  Her dad was stirring a pan on the stove, the heady scent of spices and alcohol rising up in the steam.

  “Mulled wine at eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve morning?” Molly perched on the edge of the kitchen table. “What is the neighbourhood coming to?”

  “Oh, hush, you.” Dad flashed her a quick smile. “It’s for later. For the guests. Your mum wants to get in and make more mince pies, so I thought I’d get this batch made up now. We can reheat it later.”

  “Bet you need to taste it first though, right?” Molly teased.

  “Of course!” her dad sounded insulted she’d even ask. “I couldn’t serve sub-par mulled wine to any visitors now, could I?’

  “Is that nearly done, Glen?” her mum asked, bustling into the kitchen from the hall. “I’ve got another five sorts of mincemeat I want to try out today. Ooh, Molly, since you’re not busy, you can help me.”

  For a second, Molly contemplated claiming she had something very important to be doing elsewhere, but in truth, a morning spent up to her elbows in pastry with her mum didn’t sound all that bad.

  “I’ll grab my apron,” she said, and slipped off the table to the hook behind the door.

  “Great.” Was that surprise in her mother’s voice? Molly turned round just in time to see her parents exchanging a look. What did that mean? She supposed that most years she might have begged off the baking, but this year… okay, she’d been a little homesick the last six months. It was nice to have some time with her mum, that was all.

  For the first three batches of mince pies, they worked mostly in silence, or singing along to the Christmas tunes on the radio. But, just as Molly dug out the fourth sort of mincemeat – suet free cranberry and apple, apparently – Philippa turned down the music.

  “So, how’s London?” she asked.

  Molly froze, jar of mincemeat in hand. How was London?

  Her mum had asked the question with the deliberate nonchalance Molly remembered from her teenage years – the sort that tended to indicate that she already knew the answer and was just waiting for Molly to decide whether to tell the truth or lie.

  She hated those questions.

  “It’s fine,” she said, placing the jar on the counter next to where her mum was rolling out the pastry. “You know. Busy. Always something fun going on.”

  Apparently, anyway. Other than after work drinks with the same people she saw all day, Molly hadn’t really had much time or energy for seeing the sights or the bright lights. Her flatmates – all of whom had been living together for over a year before she came along – had their own lives. Boyfriends, friends, fancy jobs and big nights out. Most evenings Molly just curled up with a bowl of pasta on the sofa and caught up on the telly.

  “And how’s the job?” her mum pressed. “I must say, it’s nice not to have you working over the holidays for once.”

  It was nice. Except… part of her missed the buzz of being part of the hotel family, all stuck together making the best of the situation as Christmas parties got out of hand, or the chef ran out of sprouts, or whatever. The huge office she now worked in, even with its open plan layout and ‘town hall’ company meetings, just didn’t have the same feel of comradeship. Not even when they were out doing karaoke.

  “The job’s fine too,” she said, finally. “I mean, it’s kind of weird to just be sitting in front of a computer most days. But the people are nice. And I’ve made some really good friends.”

  Well, one friend. Jenna. Unless you counted Stefan from accounts, which Molly still most definitely did not.

  “That’s good.” Philippa handed her a double-sided cutter, and Molly began cutting out rounds of pastry for the bottoms of the pies, while her mum got on with greasing the trays. “I did worry…”

  “Worry about what?” Molly tried not to snap but, really, when were they all going to get over the idea that she was the helpless baby of the family? They’d let Dory go off to New York on her own without a moment’s concern, hadn’t they?

  “Well, that you might be a little bit… lonely, I suppose.” Her mum gave her a half smile as she pushed the tray towards her. “You have so many friends here, plus your career at the hotel… it was a bit of a surprise when you suddenly decided to leave. I worried that maybe we’d done something to make you want to go.”

  Molly’s heart felt too big for her chest. “No. Of course you didn’t.” She wrapped her arms around her mum in a floury hug. “How could you think that?”

  “You just seemed so happy with your life here until, suddenly, you weren’t. We just didn’t understand what had changed.”

  What had changed? What had made this year the year she’d fulfilled that vague, annual resolution of getting out, moving on, finding a new life somewhere else?

  Molly bit the inside of her cheek, very afraid she knew the answer. She’d wanted to prove something. To Dory, with her perfect life. And to Jake, who’d pushed her away and avoided her for a whole year, the idiot. And to herself, she supposed. To prove that she could get what she wanted as much as the next person, even when it had felt like she couldn’t.

  But she hadn’t ever wanted to upset her parents.

  “Nothing had changed, Mum,” she promised, not even sure if it was a lie. “I’d had ‘move to London’ on my hopes and dreams list for years, you had to know that. God knows I talked about it often enough!”

  “Don’t blaspheme at Christmas,” her mum snapped, on reflex. Molly hid her smile behind her hand. As a once a year churchgoer who was letting her eldest daughter live in sin with an American, most of the year the odd slip like that would pass completely unnoticed. But at Christmas, Philippa’s religious heritage tended to come back in force – if not enough to actually make her do more than attend the midnight mass at the local church. “And yes, you talked about it. We just…”

  “Never thought I’d do anything about it,” Molly finished for her. “Of course not.” Why would they? She was the child who never finished anything. Her mother had files of childhood mementos for all of them. While Dory’s was filled with merit certificates and glowing reports, and Tim’s with photos of complex models and computer competition wins, hers had mostly half finished paintings and stories that only lasted half a page. She was the daughter who took two years of driving lessons but never quite got around to putting in for her test. The one who switched A Level subjects twice before the end of her first year of sixth form. The one who never brought the same boy home twice.

  She was, officially, a flake. And to think Tim was more worried about Jake’s history of one-night stands! At least he’d managed to pursue an actual career and stick at his training long enough to start it. The best she had to offer the world of consistency and dependability was seven years working on and off at one hotel – even if she’d had six different jobs there during that time.

  “It’s not that we thought you couldn’t, love,” her mum stressed. “It was just…”

  “You never thought I’d get things together long enough to do it. I understand.” Molly shook her head and stepped away, reaching for another jar of mincemeat just for something to do. “But I did. I got myself that job, found myself that flat, and made myself a new life. All by myself.”

  “Yes, you did,” her mum said firmly. “And we are incredibly proud of you, you know that?”

  That feeling was back in her chest. The one that made her feel like her heart might burst. “You are?” The words came out small, and Philippa smiled.

  “Of course we are. You decided you wa
nted something, set out to get it and you did it, all by yourself.” She brought a hand up to cup Molly’s cheek, then flapped at it to try and remove the flour she’d left behind. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t decide you want something else, if it turns out it’s not right for you. You can always come home again. Okay?”

  Molly nodded, her throat tight. Yes, she knew there would always be a place for her here, if she needed it. But taking it would mean not following through on yet another thing in her life. It would mean giving up. Everything she’d worked for, every bit of credibility she’d gained, would be lost.

  She’d be flaky Molly, living at home again, back at the hotel – if she could even get another job there.

  And did she even want to leave London? The job was okay, her flat was reasonable, and she had friends. Okay, she had a friend. And all she had back in Liverpool was her family, friends she’d known her whole life, a community she felt part of, a job she loved and… Jake, living just an hour away and popping in whenever he was on their side of town for meetings.

  Could she go back to that life, if she wanted to? No, probably not. God, how would she cope with seeing Jake over the family dinner table every other Sunday, tucking into his roast dinner and pretending that he’d never kissed her, never wanted her in the way she wanted him? Badly, she’d bet.

  No. The safest plan was the one she’d come home with. Seduce Jake, fulfil her resolution and get this crazy lust out of her system. Then she could get back to building the life she’d dreamt of in London.

  Who knew? Maybe she’d even have a new man to bring home with her next Christmas.

  Chapter 10

  Jake was beginning to suspect that there wasn’t a single Terry’s Chocolate Orange left in the whole of Merseyside.