‘So what are your plans for Christmas Day, it’ll be your first proper one with Harry?’ Jules tried to deflect the conversation away from my boyfriend’s absence.
‘I just want to make this one special for him – he’s not really had any good Christmases, certainly not as a child. Last year was… well it was my first without Jack so I was pretty miserable, we both were. This one will be special for both of us.’
‘Are you guys going to get some time off with all these Christmas Proposals?’ Badger said, around Bella’s fingers that she was shoving in his mouth.
‘We’re definitely having Christmas Day off. We might get a last minute rush between Boxing Day and New Year’s but most people will have already booked our services for New Year’s Eve and all the other proposals will be organised by then, so hopefully we’ll have a quieter patch – but we’ve got our holiday in January so we can relax then.’
‘Oh yes, the honeymoon,’ Badger waggled his eyebrows playfully.
‘Hardly, we need to be married for that.’
Badger buried his face against Bella’s belly and blew a loud raspberry on her stomach. She squealed with delight. ‘I just meant, erm… your first proper holiday together… as a couple.’
‘Well yes,’ I frowned with confusion. ‘But we spent three months in each other’s pockets, travelling the world.’
‘Yes but this will be the first time you’re going on holiday specifically to have sex.’
I laughed.
‘You do realise that Harry has no intention of doing anything else. If you’ve got any notion of going for walks or eating out in fancy restaurants, you can forget it. Harry said that once the food is delivered, he’s locking the door and hiding the key.’
I laughed again. ‘We have sex all the time Badger, it’s not like I deprive the poor sod. It’s pretty much two or three times a day.’
‘Oh I remember those days, eh Jules, couldn’t keep our hands off each other.’
I closed my eyes and clamped my hands over my ears. ‘Nooo that’s way too much information.’ That was way too much information, especially considering how quickly after Jack’s death that Jules and Badger had got together.
Realising that Badger had overstepped some boundary, Jules plonked the biggest slice of cake on my plate. ‘Cream? Or ice cream? Or both? I could do both? I’ll do both.’
I smiled at her. This was Jules’s coping mechanism. When things went wrong she made cake or she served cake. When Jack was first diagnosed with leukaemia, Jules was making nearly a cake a day. She couldn’t eat it though. While Jack, Badger and Harry were stuffing their faces with cake, Jules didn’t eat a thing. She went from a healthy size twelve to a gaunt size eight in a month. I was glad to see she was back to normal again now.
‘I’m just going to the loo,’ I said, standing up and moving out into the hall. I stopped to look at a new photo hanging up of Badger and Bella, both grinning inanely at the camera. There was another of the three of them, the happy little family unit. The ones of Jack were still there but some of them were faded slightly. Life was moving on without him.
‘Just stop talking Badger,’ I heard Jules hiss. ‘Jeez how many times are you going to put your foot in it tonight?’
‘I’m rubbish at secrets, you know that.’
‘I know, just stop talking about Harry and honeymoons and sex.’
‘I will, I promise – but to be fair, I had no idea Harry was going to use me as an excuse tonight. He should just tell her, it would make it easier on all of us, stop all this sneaking around.’
‘Oh god, I don’t want to be there when he does tell her. She’s going to kill him. It’ll be grounds for divorce even before they walk down the aisle.’
‘As much as I love Harry, I have to agree. I think she’ll be gutted.’
‘I’m tempted to tell her myself.’
‘We can’t do that.’
‘I know. Oh god, I know. Here, have some more cake.’
‘I’m going to be the size of a house by the time this comes to a head, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, you are and I’m not even going to apologise for it. You want someone to blame, blame Harry.’
‘Pass me the cake, me and him are going to have serious words.’
I stood frozen in the hall. Badger wasn’t the only one who was going to have serious words with Harry.
*
I walked back into our house later determined to get to the bottom of the secrets, only to find Harry was sprawled out on the sofa fast asleep. With his eyelashes casting dark shadows on his cheeks and his mouth open slightly, he looked the picture of angelic innocence. I turned the TV off and he stirred slightly, smiling in his sleep.
I ran my hand across his cheek and his eyes fluttered open.
‘Hey beautiful,’ he said, sleepily. ‘I was just dreaming about you.’
I smiled and held out my hand. ‘Come to bed.’
His smile grew as he sat up – swinging his legs off the sofa, he pulled me between his legs and buried his face in my stomach, running gentle kisses through the fabric of my jumper.
He stood up and swung me into his arms, kissing me hard. Whatever was going on with him could wait until tomorrow.
‘Have I told you today how much I love you?’ I said, fastening my arms round his neck.
‘Ha! That’s my line.’ He carried me upstairs. ‘Let me show you instead.’
Proposer’s Blog
Christmas Proposal 75: December 22nd. Ethan and Victoria’s Proposal. Location: The River Thames
Ethan and Victoria have been together for nine months and Ethan knew she was the one he was going to spend the rest of his life with from the very first moment they met. She spilt coffee over him on her first day waitressing at some posh restaurant. She maintains it was an accident, Ethan thinks it was deliberate because he was being a dick and he deserved it. She was sacked for it and Ethan immediately hired her to work for him instead. Victoria fought the attraction for a week before she gave in and slept with him. Ethan says their love was unstoppable, it careened out of control down steep tracks. He said that he had never fallen so hard, so quickly with any woman he had ever met. Within a month they had moved in together and there was never any going back after that.
Ethan and Victoria went on a lunchtime boat ride, crossing first under Tower Bridge and heading up river towards Westminster Bridge. They were accompanied by a violinist and ahead of them was another boat (with us on), sprinkling rose petals into the water.
There are several bridges between Tower Bridge and Westminster and on each bridge was a letter, slowly making up the words ‘Marry Me’.
I’d love to say Victoria was surprised but whether Ethan had somehow let something slip or she just knew that this was where their relationship had been heading all along, maybe she knew that she had been waiting for that moment with that man all her life, but she seemed to take it all very calmly. By the third letter, she was already slow dancing in his arms and by the fourth letter, the ring was already on her finger. She didn’t even see the fifth, sixth and seventh letters, or the rose petals that were thrown over the sides of the final bridge that rained down like confetti on top of them, they were too busy kissing.