12 Days 'til Christmas ✓

chapter seventeen

s e v e n t e e n

*

After a recuperative coffee in a sweet little independent café not far from the ice rink, once Casper and I managed to get off the ice without further injury, we spent two hours driving back to Saint Wendelin, so I spent two hours thinking way too hard about the guy sitting next to me. With every minute that passed, I tried to convince myself that no, of course I'm not falling for Casper, a guy I've considered to be nothing more than a friend for four years. But with each dumb joke he made and every quirk of a smile I caught sight of, it got an awful lot harder to believe my protestations.

It's dark by the time we get home. It's crazy how early the sun sets – we watched it as we drove into the sunset, heading west across the country to our cosy little valley – and the already-freezing temperatures drop even lower as the dark sinks in.

When I pull up in my driveway, a frost warning on my dashboard flashes that it's minus eight degrees and that is painfully clear when we get out. After two hours of toasty heating, the engine guzzling petrol to keep us warm, it's a shock to the system to be confronted by the chill.

"Fucking hell!" Casper cries out. "I swear it's five times colder than it was when we left. Jesus, this is brutal. Come on, Beth, open the front door before my dick shrivels up and my balls drop off."

"Wouldn't want that," I say, fumbling with my keys in gloved hands to separate my tiny house key from the assortment of keyrings jangling on the fob. I change them throughout the year when I feel like switching it up, and right now, they're all festive: a felt reindeer from a handmade stall; a tiny Santa hat; a tiny snow globe featuring an even tinier Christmas tree and miniscule presents.

"Seriously, Bee, we are about seven seconds away from a genital catastrophe."

I snort at him as I unlock the door and he rushes in past me, heading straight for the empty fireplace. The heating isn't scheduled to come on until seven, so the house is almost as cold as outside. Casper wastes no time in laying a fire, haphazardly stacking kindling around a couple of firelighters and topping the pile with a couple of bone-dry logs.

"You're a quick learner," I say as I watch him strike a match. A week ago, he'd never laid a fire before.

"Desperate times, desperate measures," he says. "I know matches make fire and fire makes wood burn, and wood burns nice and hot. And right now, I'm wondering if it's time I invest in thermal underwear."

"You're so nesh, Cas. Why don't you go and have a bath to warm up? I'll stick the heating on and get this going."

Still crouching in front of the fireplace, he rocks back on his heels, pouting as he considers it. "Good shout," he says eventually. "That ice gave me the worst pounding I've ever had in my life. Pretty sure my arse is gonna be bruised to high heaven when I get changed."

I bite my tongue before I can offer to check for him.

Only once he's upstairs do I sink onto the sofa and drop my head into my hands, taking a moment to despair the state of my head and my heart and my back. I can only blame the rink for the last in the list, though I wonder if maybe I did some damage when I hit my head on the ice; maybe this is some strange concussive hallucination and I'll wake up tomorrow and see the same Casper I've known for four years.

Funny, cute, dorky little Casper with his endearing asymmetry and his hatred of my favourite holiday, his wonky teeth and his odd laugh and his charm and...

Damn.

Fire. Make the fire, I think, propelling myself into action. That's something to focus on, neatening up the wood Casper has laid out, which hasn't yet caught the flame from the pungent white blocks of firelighter. It doesn't take long for me to get it going, less than ten minutes, but it feels like an age when the same thoughts are twisting and turning over and over.