Page 19 of All About Christmas

Some people find it too early to be hopping around in a Christmas sweater and listening to Christmas hits on the train at the beginning of November. Or to have already secretly taken the Christmas tree out of the storage room and turned the living room into an exploded Christmas market.

I’m not a part of that group. I wear my blue reindeer sweater with pride.

The hem is partly tucked in my short, black skirt, and my legs look a lot longer because of my high-heeled ankle boots.

This morning, I hesitated over whether I should wear my little Christmas ornament earrings and decided that it might be a bit too much of a good thing after all.

So, I opted for little gold studs in the shape of snowflakes.

I’m softly whistling “White Christmas”—which somehow ended up in the same Spotify playlist twice—when the elevator doors slide open with a soft ping .

My heels tap on the laminate as I walk under the gold, silver, and white decorations to my desk.

Dad was allowed to return home the next day, where—judging by the photos in the family app showing him very contentedly licking the powdered sugar off his fingers—he ultimately got his donuts.

When I connect my laptop to my monitor, my gaze falls on my competitor’s empty chair. Noor greets me between curses: someone sent in a letter to meet his great love for the first time at the Christmas Market in Cologne but has now fallen in love with someone else.

“You should discuss it with José,” I suggest, taking a seat. “There are plenty of similar submissions.”

Noor lets out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, you’re right. It’s just that I had already booked everything: hotel rooms, plane tickets, and mapped out the route of the love bus. Now, all that has to be changed again.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” I say, casting another glance at the empty chair across from me. “Where’s Olivier?”

Noor stretches for a moment and yawns extensively.

“I think he’s messing around in Studio 21.

Something about Pippin being sick and how he couldn’t find anyone to cover the ceiling of the Mistletoe Madness room with hanging mistletoe.

So, he’s doing it himself.” She stirs her cup of tea. “A rotten job, in my opinion.”

“Hm.” My laptop asks for a Windows 11 update for the tenth time, but I click away. “Do you think he could use some help?”

Noor snorts. “I’m sure he could. He tried to bribe me with a hazelnut meringue pastry from that bakery close by, but I’m up to my ears in work myself.

” She casts a dreamy glance outside. “Too bad, though. I was in the mood for some pastry.” Then she turns her head toward me again. “Why, are you considering helping him?”

I look at her apologetically. “Maybe.”

“But why? Apart from the fact that you would be helping him in a project that would work directly to your disadvantage, you don’t even like him.” She raises an eyebrow made almost invisible by its red colour. “Right?”

I let out a deep sigh. Ever since he took me to the hospital and waited around to make sure I was okay, I feel like I owe him something. He cancelled his date for me and spent a rare free evening in the hospital waiting room.

“I have my reasons,” I reply and roll back my desk chair to stand up again. “Studio 21, did you say?”

Because we needed more space for the Christmas special, we were assigned multiple studios.

“Yep.” Noor still seems a little doubtful of my sanity. “Holly, are you feeling all right?”

“Sure,” I say and turn around. “Thank you!”

When I enter the studio, it’s empty except for the stage and the many chairs surrounding it. But then some rumbling sounds pour out from a small room behind the scenes, swiftly followed by a muffled “shit!”

“Olivier?” I call out. “Are you okay?”

It’s silent for a moment.

“Holly?” a surprised voice remarks and then a door opens.

He has taken off his blazer and is standing in the doorway in a white shirt.

His hair sticks out in all directions, and here and there, a twig pokes out of his hair.

I put my hand to my mouth to keep from laughing.

If it had been spring, a little bird with a nesting instinct would have known what to do with this hair situation.

When Olivier notices me stifling a laugh, he knocks some of the junk out of his hair, and I watch as the leaves swirl down.

“What are you doing here?” He steps aside and I stride further into the room.

The walls of the room are covered with tall mirrors.

But that’s not the most impressive thing.

Above me, much of the ceiling is already covered with mistletoe.

The white berries glisten in the spotlights, and if I look closely, I can see the seams of plastic.

They’re fake, which seems like a wise choice, since the shooting is still a while away.

It’s not finished yet, but it looks beautiful. Almost magical.

“I, um... I heard you needed help,” I say and turn back to Olivier. “I think I need to upgrade the decorations for Olaf and Maggie’s wedding a bit more,” I add, motioning to the ceiling in awe.

He tilts his head slightly, ignoring my wedding decoration comment.

“So, you felt compelled to come here and help?” A suspicious look appears in his eyes as he takes me in from head to toe.

“What are you up to? Trying to install sprinklers in the ceiling that will go off the moment two people enter the room?”

A morning of ramming fake plants into the ceiling with a staple gun has had a strange effect on Olivier.

The empathetic man who waited for me at the hospital has once again given way to the formidable rival who, judging by his attitude, would prefer to nail me to the ceiling along with the mistletoe.

I almost feel a little offended yet intrigued at the same time. “Hmm. Sprinklers, you say? Not a bad idea.”

He throws me a faint glare and begins to turn around to go back to his work, but I stop him.

“No. I actually want to help.”

His eyes still look suspicious. “Okay. But why?”

I shrug my shoulders somewhat awkwardly. “So we’re even.”

“Even?” repeats Olivier, confused. “Even with what?”

“Well...” I begin hesitantly, pulling my sweater unnecessarily straighter. My proposal suddenly feels a little ridiculous. “You sacrificed your date to take me to the hospital. I’d like to return the favour so I don’t owe you anymore.”

Olivier blinks his eyes a few times in bewilderment, and just when I think he’s not going to respond, he says, “Return the favour?” His voice drips with disbelief.

“In what twisted world would you have to do something in return?” He shakes his head.

“Your father was in the hospital. You were shaking like a leaf and might have ended up next to him if you had gotten on your bike. Any normal person would have done what I did.” He scratches his forehead for a moment.

“Look, now if you had puked on my jacket for the umpteenth time, it would have been a different story, but this...” He stares over my shoulder, but he doesn’t really seem to see anything.

Then he looks at me again, and in his eyes, I see an emotion I can’t quite decipher.

He even seems a little hurt. “I know you don’t think highly of me, but assuming I’ll ask for you to give something back.

.. What do you think will happen if you don’t? That I’ll demand something in return?”

I bite my lip and Olivier’s eyes widen in disbelief.

“Listen, I didn’t mean it that way,” I hasten to say, though that’s a lie. I did mean it that way. In my experience, Olivier is not someone who does something for others if it doesn’t also benefit him. “I just wanted to give something back.”

Olivier snorts. “No need.” He sinks to his knees and grabs a new piece of mistletoe from the box standing in the centre of the room. Then he climbs up the ladder and staples it to the ceiling with a silver stapler. I jump a little from the loud tap the device makes.

Damn, now I feel guilty. I also step to the box and take out a handful of mistletoe.

Then I grab the other stapler lying on the floor.

I slide another ladder under a piece of the ceiling that is still bare and scramble up.

With a hard tap, I ram the staple into the drywall above me, and the mistletoe dangles down.

“First one down,” I say with satisfaction.

Olivier, now clambering down his ladder again, looks at the end result. “I told you that you didn’t have to help me, didn’t I?”

“I know. I decided to ignore that,” I reply, and I walk over to the box to retrieve another one, as Olivier bends over for a new sprig.

His hand shoots past mine as we both reach in, and when we pull our hands out, we look at the fragile plastic plant under which many people have exchanged bacilli as though they were Pokémon cards.

Olivier gives a little tug on the branch we now hold like a wishbone. “Come on, Holly...”

“Why do you mind so much that I want to do something nice for you?”

Olivier looks straight at me, his eyes still a tad incredulous. “I don’t mind that you want to do something nice for me. I mind that you want to do something in order to return a favour.”

With my foot, I slide the box a little to the side so I can stand up straight while holding the mistletoe. “Okay, and why does that bother you so much?”

Olivier’s jaw visibly tightens, his eyes twinkling in the light shining above us through the mistletoe branches.

Outside of that, he does not move an inch.

Just when I think he won’t answer again, he says in a slightly softer voice than usual, “Because that says something about what you think about me.” He still doesn’t let go of the mistletoe.

My tongue runs over my lips, which suddenly feel very dry. His eyes flash to my mouth. It takes me a moment to find my voice again, which sounds a little huskier than usual. And while my brain tries to figure out the meaning behind those words, my mouth rattles on.