Page 10 of Under the Mistletoe with You

Or, well, not exactly like that.He tends to be dressed in elaborately knitted Nordic jumpers or, if he’s playing a veterinarian, as he often does, scrubs.

Today, for some reason, he’s wearing a leather jacket, a truly terrible outerwear choice for Wales in the middle of winter.

Plus, this Nash looks as if he’s been through one hell of a snowstorm.Which of course he has.

But itisundeniably him.Christopher would recognise him anywhere.He could probably draw that face from memory.The aquiline nose and strong jaw.The peppering of just the right length stubble.The man is all broad shoulders and strong arms, but not in the usual stocky British rugby player way.There’s still something lithe to him, a nimbleness.Despite the dark purple under his eyes, there’s still a playfulness about him.Nash’s golden blond hair is mussed, presumably from the hat he was just wearing.It makes Christopher want to push it back from his face.

Several questions run through Christopher’s mind at once.

First of all, how did he even get here in the middle of the worst snowstorm in history?Andwhyis he here?He’s prettysure that Nash lives in California.London or Edinburgh would make sense, especially if he was filming.But if he was coming to Wales, you’d expect he’d be in the capital, Cardiff, or maybe somewhere fancy and picturesque in Pembroke-

shire, or perhaps even at a Wrexham game with Ryan Reynolds and the other one.But Pen-y-Môr is just a normal small town.And if they were filming something here, even he would have heard about it from Shaz.News travels fast in Pen-y-Môr.

He falls back on theprobably dreamingexplanation.Perhaps in the stress, his brain has decided to conjure a relaxing scenario for him.This is plausible if he ignores how much he can hear, smell, taste and how much he’s in control of his body.Well, sort of – he’s frozen, clutching the half-empty bag of marshmallows.

Anything seems more realistic than Nash Nadeau actually being here.

The whirring in Christopher’s head is promptly interrupted when Nash Nadeau steps through the door and drops his bags to the floor with a clatter.With the air of someone who has just absolutely had enough, he proclaims, ‘Fuck me, I didn’t think I was going to Narnia.’

In all possible scenarios, this wasn’t what he was expecting him to say.Not even a ‘Hello’ or a ‘Where am I?’

Christopher realises that he is wide awake and, in his stupor, he hasn’t actually said anything yet.And for some bizarre reason, the thing he responds with is, ‘I believe you have to step through a wardrobe to get to Narnia.That’s just a regular front door.’

Not ‘Hello, why are you storming into my bakery?’Just correcting Nash Nadeau on the lore of C.S.Lewis’s children’s fantasy series.Okay.

Could this day get any weirder?The bag of marshmallows crinkles, and he drops it on the counter before he rips it apart with nerves.

Nash drops a flapped hat on the table next to him and rubs at his shockingly pink cheeks and ears.‘Honestly, buddy,given the day I’ve had, having to walk through a wardrobe into another world wouldn’t feel that out of place.In fact, I think it would have been a major step up from some of the transportation I’ve been on today.It definitely beats the truck full of sheep.’

This might possibly be the most bizarre conversation Christopher has ever had in the history of his life.‘Hopefully you didn’t have to sit with the sheep?’he offers incredulously.

‘Luckily not.Though I think it would have been slightly better company than the driver.That man was no Mr Tumnus.’

‘No goat legs?’

‘I didn’t think to check.Look, sorry to barge in here yelling about satyrs, but I’m lost, half frozen, and dying for a coffee.’

‘Oh!Um, we’re not actually open I’m afraid,’ Christopher says, dazed from this whiplash of a conversation.

‘You opened the door?’says Nash, with a confused twitch of his eyebrows and a flash of teeth as his mouth pulls up at the corner.

Hang on a moment.‘Yes, because you were banging on it?’

‘Right.But we’re both in here right now, and that coffee machine is on.You were making yourself a drink when

I showed up.’

Well.Nash does have him there.

‘And you must own this place, right?Why else would you be here when it’s closed?’For emphasis, he adds air quotations around ‘closed’.

‘I do,’ says Christopher a little tartly, and points at the door.‘But the sign was turned to closed.’

To be fair, Nash does at least glance over his shoulder to look at it.‘Okay, but no one’s going to get in trouble if you make me a coffee, seeing as you own the place?I’ve had one hell of a journey, it’s basically Christmas, and I will literally pay you.’

All this rankles Christopher in a way he can’t put his finger on.If he’d been given a moment to process any of whatwas happening, he would have offered to do that anyway.He doesn’t need to betold.

But this guy stormed in as if he owned the place.In fact, it reminds him of some of the people he went to school with.A bit of money in the family pocket meant people felt they owned the world, and that everyone else’s job was to bow to their whims.It’s the attitude that he’s fought against all his life because it’s just so blinkered and cruel.Someone’s fortune of birth shouldn’t be meted out in unkindness to other people.