Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper

At least someone wasn’t stuck for words.

Chapter 4 (#u52fb9490-82a3-529e-b036-fd66362b2391)

Everything was hurting. His ribs, his face. His leg. Especially his goddamn leg. Marco had played a lot of sports in his life, and been on the receiving end of a lot of injuries, often inflicted by men the size of small SUVs. But nothing had ever quite hurt as much as this. He felt…broken. All over. He’d been well and truly Humpty-Dumptied.

It had all happened so quickly. One minute he was pumping along, listening to the playlist Leah had sent him, mind drifting in and out of the lectures he’d been working on, and the next…wham, bam, thank you ma’am – he was off his bike, and lying in the freezing snow wheezing for breath and wanting to cry like a great big baby. With the sounds of Aerosmith’s Love In An Elevator still very inappropriately bouncing around his brain. It was probably all their fault – rock music must have made him cycle too fast.

And now, on top of it all, on top of all of the pain and the confusion and the damn cold, there was this crazy woman – screaming at him so loud his ears were starting to hurt as well. She was definitely screaming louder than Steven Tyler had been a few minutes earlier.

She was crouched next to him, kneeling in the snow, and shaking him by the shoulders. Each little tug sent even more excruciating pain ricocheting down his left leg like an electric shock. The worst thing was he couldn’t even understand properly what she was saying – he was probably in shock. Or in concussion. Or in limbo, as the Big Guy decided whether he was going to get sent upstairs to the celestial choirs or downstairs to the red hot pokers. Dead In An Elevator.

Even that, he thought, trying to focus on the words flying out of her mouth, would be better than this torment. He blinked a couple of times, clenched his fists together so tight he could feel nails cutting into his palms, and stared up at her. Come on, man, he told himself. Get a grip.

He could hear the sound of sirens wailing in the background, and hoped that help was on its way. That there’d be morphine soon. Oblivion. Even if it did come with red hot pokers. He just needed to hold on for a little while longer; man up until he was whisked away in the back of the truck with the paramedics.

“Yeah, yeah…okay…stop shaking me, for Christ’s sake!” he managed to say, “it hurts like hell!”

Abruptly the woman dropped her hold on his shoulders, raising her trembling, blue-tinged fingers into the air with a gesture of surrender. Her eyes were bright green; filled with shining, unshed tears. Wild loops of red hair were tufting out of her cycling helmet, creating a fuzzy auburn halo around her whole head. She looked…crazed. And vaguely familiar.

“I’m sorry!” she said, leaning in close to his face. “But where’s the baby? Where’s Luca?”

“He’s not here, okay? He’s fine! I’m…not fine! Didn’t you wonder if I might have had a spinal injury before you started shaking me like that, you crazy woman? I could be paralysed for life!”

She fell back onto her bottom, relief flashing across her face, the tears finally falling. He saw a spasm of pain cloud her expression and she wiggled around in the snow, trying to find a more comfortable position. He recognised that pose. Bruised coccyx. He’d been knocked on his own ass enough times to spot the symptoms. He’d actually feel sorry for her, if it wasn’t for the searing agony of his own. He tried to move his leg a fraction of an inch; was relieved when it responded – he wasn’t paralysed for life, after all – but unprepared for how much it was going to hurt.

Marco let out a scream, then bit his lip so hard he felt tasted blood. Jeez. This was not good. Not good at all.

The woman he’d collided with leaned forward, and he recoiled as much as he could. For all he knew she was going to whip out a red hot poker any second now.

“Hey – don’t start shaking me again, okay, lady? Just…back off!”

She nodded, but stayed at his side. He felt her icy fingers crawl into his, and her other hand gently stroked stray hair back from his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, her voice now low and soothing and not as generally all-out terrifying as before. “I saw the baby seat on the back. You came into my shop yesterday, and I thought, well…I thought the worst.”

He held tight onto her fingers. She was even colder than him. So cold that every tear that fell threatened to freeze on her eyelashes. She had terrific eyes…huge, clear, the colour of dark green grass. Eyes that went with the pale, freckled skin, the long, deep red hair. Once he’d mentally removed the cycling helmet, it came back to him: it was the woman from the little place with the dresses in the window. The seamstress with the smile and the toy gun. The chick who’d given Luca that Christmas bow he loved so much. Wow. Small world, he thought, as another wave of pain crashed through him.

It explained her reactions, at least. Who gave a damn about a big oaf like him if there was a two-year-old cutie pie on the loose? If the roles had been reversed, he’d have shaken her too.

“It’s all right. He’s safe. Now, tell me…does that leg look right to you? It sure as hell doesn’t feel right.”

She glanced down, and tried hard to hide her involuntary shudder at what she saw.

“It looks just fine. Nothing a few stitches won’t fix.” And possibly a few metal plates and a skin graft, thought Maggie, while trying to smile reassuringly. It was a hideous mangled mess of jeans and banged up flesh. She hadn’t stared too long in case she started to notice any bright white bone that really shouldn’t be visible at all.

“’Kay,” he replied, strengthening his grip on her fingers. “I’ll take your word for it. You know all about stitches. Listen, keep hold of me, all right? My ID’s in my pocket. My phone’s in there too; look for numbers for Rob and Leah and get the hospital dudes to call them, will you?”

“Don’t be daft,” she said, “you’ll be able to call them yourself soon.”

“Nah,” he replied, his head lolling back down into the snow, listing to one side. “I think I’m gonna pass out now. And I think I’m going to enjoy it.”

Chapter 5 (#u52fb9490-82a3-529e-b036-fd66362b2391)

The woman who was handing Maggie a coffee was a good few inches shorter than her. Probably a good few years younger than her. And definitely a whole lot more pregnant than her.

She was also, Maggie thought, heart-breakingly pretty. Blonde hair, tied up in a loose pony. Gorgeous skin. Huge, amber-coloured eyes. Five foot nothing and about ready to pop.

She lowered herself slowly down into the plastic chair next to Maggie, huffing and puffing as she sat, assuming the ‘bowling ball between legs’ pose beloved of heavily pregnant women the world over.

“I’ll be needing one of those soon,” she said to Maggie, pointing down at the inflatable cushion she was perched on. “After Luca was born I didn’t sit down for three days – just lay on my big wobbly belly, demanding caviar and champagne, while I watched reruns of America’s Next Top Model and hated all the thin girls!”

Maggie gave her a half smile, not sure if she was joking or not.

“Joking,” she said, clearing the matter up. “But I was pretty sore, and I still hate all the thin girls. You know how it is. Do you? Do you have kids?”

“One daughter,” replied Maggie, transferring the scalding hot coffee into the other hand to avoid adding third degree burns to her bruised coccyx. “But she’s 18 now. And one of the thin girls.”

The woman – Leah, she now knew, Marco Cavelli’s sister in law – did the usual surprised double take. Refreshingly, she didn’t even try and hide it. She didn’t seem the sort of person who was easily embarrassed. She was just too comfortable in her own skin to even bother.

“Wow,” she said, sipping her own hot chocolate and grimacing at the taste, the heat, or possibly the combination of the two. “You started early. High school sweetheart or too much swigging cider in the park at the weekend?”

Maggie laughed out loud – spilling Nescafe’s finest on her jeans as she did. She’d hit very close to the mark. Maybe she’d had a misspent youth as well.

“A little bit of both, actually,” she replied. “Seemed like a disaster at the time, but…well, it wasn’t. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Leah nodded, her blonde pony bobbing vigorously. “I know exactly what you mean. Luca was something of a happy accident as well, and he’s – “

“Adorable,” finished Maggie for her.

“Yes. I’d say I was biased, but it’s quite obviously a statement of objective fact – he is the most adorable little boy who ever walked the planet. Although he’s not exactly delighted right now – when we got your call we were about to head back up to Scotland with him. Instead, he’s stuck back in Marco’s flat, being looked after by his landlady, who he regards as one step down the moral ladder from Cruella de Vil. The landlady’s looked after him before and…well, let’s just say it took the mention of ambulances and emergency operations to persuade her to do it again!”

Maggie had been at the hospital for the last three hours. She’d drunk approximately fifteen of these coffees, in their finger-killingly thin plastic containers. She’d had her arse X-rayed. She’d been poked and prodded by a boy of about 12 who claimed he was a doctor but had to be lying. And she’d been given two paracetamol and an inflatable cushion to sit on. Her precious first edition was crumpled and soggy and stuffed in her backpack, she’d never got to her chocolate tiffin, and all things considered, it had been the Worst Day Off Ever.

Still, at least she was in one piece. Which was more than could be said for Marco. He’d been whisked away by the doctors once they got here, and had been too doped up to talk once the paramedics arrived. So Maggie had lingered in the family room as she waited for Doogie Howser to tell her what she already knew – she had a sore bum – and used Marco’s phone to call his family.

Rob – his brother – was on voicemail, but Leah had picked up straight away, answering in a fake American accent with ‘what gives, stud-in-law?’.

There’d been a fairly awkward conversation where Maggie explained what had happened, Luca squawking away in the background, and a slightly stunned pause where Leah finally connected the words ‘Marco’, ‘accident’, and ‘hospital’.

They’d arrived an hour later, and Leah had come straight through to find Maggie, while her husband went to ‘harangue the living daylights out of the staff’, as Leah put it.

Since then, the two women had been sitting together, sipping hot beverages, and making small talk as Maggie wriggled around on her inflatable cushion. There was a small fake Christmas tree on one table, and a few dusty drapes of tinsel over the doorframe. It was one of the least festive places she’d ever been, and she was desperate to just get home, take more pain killers, and soak her nether regions in hot water and Radox. Hopefully Ellen would be in later, and they’d have a fun old night applying ibuprofen gel, eating Chinese takeaway, and swapping war stories.

Luca, it turned out, wasn’t Marco’s son at all. He was super uncle, not super dad. He’d been staying here with Marco – who was delivering a guest lecture at the Law Institute – while Leah and Rob had a few days together in their cottage in Scotland.

“Though technically it’s not ours,” said Leah. “It belongs to a midget called Morag. Which I know sounds ridiculous because I look like I still need one of those plastic steps toddlers use to reach the bathroom sink, but Morag is both a midget and a thin girl. I’ve never forgiven her for making me feel fat the first time I stayed there, and tried to squeeze into her clothes. I only had a wedding dress with me at the time…”

Maggie raised her eyebrows, about to ask the obvious question. And also to ask what kind of wedding dress, purely out of professional curiosity.