Page 20 of Merry & Bright

“We’ve got chocolate yule log,” Tim told me. “You want some?”

“Uh—sure, yeah,” I said.

“Great!” He dashed out the room.

“Don’t make a mess,” someone yelled after him. I glanced in the direction of the voice to see a tall, slim woman of about fifty levering herself up from the sofa. She walked towards me, holding out a hand.

“Hi, I’m Karen. Rob’s mum.”

It was easy to see the family connection. Karen had the same dark hair as her sons and she gave off the same warmth and energy. I immediately liked her. Which was unlike me.

I shook her hand. “Lovely to meet you. Tim too.”

Karen grinned. “It looked like he shocked you with that hug. Rob should have warned you about how affectionate he is.”

Rob chuckled. “Nah, that would’ve taken all the fun out of it.”

I laughed awkwardly. “I’m not exactly what you’d call demonstrative.”

“You did okay,” Rob told me, patting my shoulder, and I felt strangely warmed by his reassurance.

Tim reappeared with a massive piece of yule log on a plate. He’d added a gigantic swirl of that airy whipped cream that comes out of a can.

“For goodness’ sake, Tim!” Karen scolded, though she was laughing too, “Poor Quin’ll never eat all that!”

Tim just shoved the plate at me. “I could eat it all,” he said simply. “It’s yummy. Try it, Quin.”

All three of them looked at me, expectantly. Evidently, I was indeed expected to try the cake here and now. Taking the plate from Tim, I picked up the spoon and cut through the chocolatey mound, loading up the spoon before stuffing it in my mouth. Tim beamed.

It was a nice enough supermarket-bought cake, nothing special, but once I’d swallowed, I pronounced it to be the most delicious yule log I’d ever tasted and Tim grinned delightedly. When I glanced at Rob, he was looking me with a curious expression on his face, as though I’d surprised him, and perhaps in a good way, for once.

“Come on,” Rob said. “You can have the rest in the kitchen with your cuppa.”

***

AMAZINGLY, I ATE ALLthe cake. I’d inadvertently skipped lunch, so I was hungry, but it wasn’t just that. There was something about the dense, milk-chocolatey flavour, with its froth of fake cream that felt weirdly nostalgic to me, reminding me of childhood Christmases. I slurped down a mug of scalding tea with it as we chatted about inconsequential stuff.

When I was finished, Rob looked at the empty plate, then at me. Raised a brow.

“What?” I said. “I was hungry.”

“I’m just surprised. You never eat cake at work.”

“We don’thavecake at work.”

“No, but we used to,” he countered. “Remember those doughnuts we used to get? Till you had them replaced with hummus and veggies. You said the sugar crashes were affecting productivity.”

I did remember—and it made me want to curl up in a ball of shame. I cleared my throat. “Maybe that was a bit unfair of me,” I offered. “I generally don’t have a particularly sweet tooth myself...”

That reminded me of this morning’s mince pie debacle and I felt an unexpected pang of guilt at the memory of chucking the confection in the bin. I hadn’t been very nice...

I swallowed hard and blurted, “Everyone thinks I’m a wanker, don’t they?”

Rob’s eyes widened.

I didn’t wait for his answer. “I think—I think Iama wanker,” I said. The quiet horror of that realisation infused me as the words hung in the space between us.

“Well, sometimes,” Rob began carefully, his gaze on me, “you dobehavelike a wanker. It doesn’t mean you’re one through and through. And it doesn’t mean you have to turn into one permanently. You can decide to change, Quin.”