Christmas Is All Around

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

On Friday, she put the finishing touches on the final commission she was working on for the year, then stood at Ava’s kitchen sink, rolling her shoulders as she washed her paintbrushes and carefully packed them away. The rest of the morning passed in a haze of end-of-workweek admin—she was trying to dig her way out of preholiday emails, and she had a lunchtime call with her assistant (still in her pajamas, given the hour of the morning on the East Coast) as they prepared to close down the shop on Charlotte’s website next week for a brief, much-needed hiatus to recover from the holiday rush.

“And I think that’s it,” Sarah said, looking down at the list on her iPad that she was consulting. “I’ll keep monitoring the customer service email for the website and let you know if anything comes up over the weekend, but we’ve mainly been getting questions about Christmas shipping, so I’ve been referring them to the printing service that handles fulfillment, and I’ve added a banner that says that anything ordered after Monday won’t be shipped until after the new year. Oh…” She frowned down at her iPad. “I forgot—we got an inquiry from someone named Jamie Dyer—claims he knows your mom? He wants to commission invitations for an event. The lead time isn’t nearly enough, given how long your wait list is, but since there was a family connection, I thought I should check with you. Want me to forward you the email?”

Charlotte sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Yeah, send it to me and I’ll take a look.” She was mildly surprised that her mom had had the follow-through to relay her message to Dyer in a timely manner. It felt almost… considerate. As though she were actually trying to help.

Huh.

“Okay,” Sarah said, making a note on the iPad and setting it aside. “Then I think that’s all I have for today.”

“Perfect,” Charlotte said, stretching; she was in leggings and a cashmere pullover, hunched over her laptop on her bed at Ava’s like a weird troll. She’d barely ventured out of her room all morning, except to fetch coffee and a banana, and she was now feeling the vague sense that it might be nice to approximate something of a normal human existence for the rest of the day.

Sarah smiled at her. “How’s London? All the pictures I see online make it look like a Christmas wonderland.”

“It is,” Charlotte said darkly. “Please understand I don’t consider that a compliment.”

“Because you’re an emotionally deficient Grinch who refuses to embrace the magic of the season,” Sarah said, without the slightest hint of awareness that Charlotte was, you know, the person who paid her.

“Sarah. You’re Jewish,” Charlotte pointed out.

“But I can still appreciate some nice Christmas decorations, because I’m not a holiday movie villain,” Sarah said cheerfully. “Good luck avoiding doing anything that would make your heart grow three sizes.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said dryly. “I’ll talk to you on Monday to wrap up any loose ends, all right?”

She waited for Sarah to wave goodbye before disconnecting the call, then closed her laptop. She might not like Christmas, but she did like the knowledge that her workload would be considerably lighter for the next couple of weeks, particularly once they closed the shop on Monday night. She wouldn’t be fully relaxing—she needed to finish her sample materials for her meeting with Perfect Paper—but at least she wouldn’t have other deadlines to worry about. (And, crucially, could step back from Instagram a bit, which would offer a nice respite from the slowing-but-still-active trickle of DMs from people accusing her of hating all forms of joy.) Once this meeting was behind her, whatever the outcome, she planned to spend January working on a new set of prints to unveil, though she hadn’t decided what the theme was going to be—she liked to release small collections all centered on a given theme and hadn’t picked her next one yet. Usually, by this time, she had it all in mind, had been sketching away as ideas struck her, but she was feeling a bit flat this year. Though, considering how much she’d had going on lately—avoiding deranged teenagers in Central Park; cohabitating with demon-possessed babies; having sex with emotionally repressed British men—she thought it was understandable that she was a bit off her game.

She pondered this further as she showered, blew her hair dry, and put on a green wool dress that she was very sure made her legs look incredible—not that there was anyone around at the moment to appreciate them. Ava, John, and Simone had strapped a protesting Alice into her stroller and gone to watch Kit don a Santa suit and run a 5K, surrounded by a bunch of other people in Santa suits, which was one of those events that Charlotte would love to watch someone attempt to explain to an alien visiting the planet.

Now, she found herself alone, with an entire afternoon to fill stretching before her. This felt strangely luxurious. She thought for a moment of texting Graham, but something gave her pause. She’d spent most nights this week at his flat: he’d cook her dinner, if she arrived early enough; they’d watch TV together; in the mornings, he’d wake her up with a mug of coffee and a kiss. She told herself that she was there for the sex—and the sex was undeniably fantastic—but something within her worried that this was more than that. The sight of him, first thing in the morning, with bedhead and a crease from the pillow on his cheek, did weird things to her chest, and she didn’t trust it—didn’t trust this feeling. On the mornings she wasn’t at his flat, he was the first person she wanted to text upon awakening—and for this reason, she didn’t let herself text him now. She had a free afternoon, and she was going to spend it alone—she liked being alone. She shouldn’t have had to remind herself of that fact.

She pulled on her coat, shoved her phone and a credit card into her smallest purse, and set off on foot. She stopped into a café for a sandwich, then browsed in a bookshop, relishing the feeling of being alone, with an afternoon free, no deadlines weighing on her mind. Eventually she hopped on a bus and made her way to the Victoria and Albert Museum. She loved the V I guess it’s probably time I revisited it.”

“What a promising beginning,” he murmured, but gamely reached for the remote and hit play.

For the next two hours, they were—well, they were kind of transfixed. It wasn’t that Christmas, Truly was going to make any lists of all-time classic films anytime soon—no movie that contained the line “Christmas, truly, is all that we need,” uttered in complete earnestness, could lay a claim to that designation—but there was something strangely watchable about it. It was just a bunch of attractive, upper-middle-class, carefully-diverse-but-not- too -diverse-in-the-way-of-the-early-aughts people on both sides of the Atlantic having romantic problems while running around New York and London in nice sweaters. (Nadine really wasn’t kidding about the sweaters.) By the time the credits rolled, she felt like she’d had her brain ironed, but in a nice way? (That might also have been the wine.)

Graham clicked off the TV and turned to her.

“Oh my god.” She leaned forward on her knees. “Are you crying ?”

“The woman with the dying husband who hoped to spend one last Christmas with her was sad .”

“Oh boy, we have got to watch The Notebook together—I do not think you’d be able to handle it.”

“Is that the one where Ryan Gosling does a Southern accent and then there are elderly people with dementia?”

“Confirmed.”

“Seen it.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Sisters,” he reminded her.

“And? Did you cry?”

“I might have,” he said, looking a bit shifty. “I can’t remember.”

“Ha! I knew it!” She flopped back onto the couch, satisfied, then turned her head to meet his gaze. “So?”

“So, what?”

“So, what do you think? Do you agree with your dad that that was such an embarrassment to the entire concept of film that the use of Eden Priory as a filming location for one set of scenes was enough to sully the legacy of your jackass of an ancestor forevermore?”

“I mean, to be clear, it wasn’t Citizen Kane .”

“My good sir, you are preaching to the choir. Have you forgotten that I derailed an entire reboot due to my distaste for this piece of cinema?”

“Fair enough.”

“But answer my question.”

He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “No, Dad was wrong. It doesn’t matter.”

“Exactly,” Charlotte said smugly, cradling her glass of wine in a protective manner against her chest.

“I rather enjoyed it, actually.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far,” Charlotte said hastily. “But my point remains: one movie does not a legacy destroy.”

“Yes, yes.”

“One might say that siring five children out of wedlock but refusing to allow them to use your last name while still allowing them to live in the same house as you destroys a legacy.”

“You’ve made your point, Lane.” He paused, brow furrowed. “Actually, I’m not sure I remembered that detail.”

“I am your newly minted resident Christian Calloway expert,” Charlotte said cheerfully. “Anything horrifying you want to know about him, I’m your girl.”

“We’ve really got to get to work on that addition to the exhibition,” he muttered, but reached over to take her hand.

“Yes, you do.”

He turned to her then, his eyes still a bit red, his hair disheveled due to the fifteen minutes he’d spent gripping it in dismay during the portion of the movie in which Tallulah had thought that her pen pal, Pip, had abandoned her forever after failing to respond to her last letter, and cried herself to sleep each night in the hair of her pet rabbit. “Lane,” he said softly, and something in his tone, the way he said her name, made her heart kick up a rapid beat in her chest. “What are we doing?”

“Watching a mediocre Christmas movie and then hooking up on your sofa?” she asked hopefully.

“You leave in…” He paused, mentally counting. “Ten days.”

She felt every one of those ten days like a weight in her stomach. “I know.”

“Does this feel like a holiday romance to you?”

“You know, it’s funny because it is both a holiday romance, because that’s what you call a vacation, and also a literal holiday romance, because it’s three days before Christmas and my life appears to be sponsored by the Hallmark Channel now.”

“Charlotte.”

She sighed. “No,” she said softly. “But… well, I didn’t come here looking for this.”

His mouth quirked up. “I promise you I didn’t escape into my favorite hiding place at Eden Priory last month looking for this, either. But…”

“But?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral, not as though she were hoping for him to say anything in particular—because, still, she didn’t quite understand what she wanted him to say.

“But I don’t want this to end,” he said, and she wished, in that moment, that she’d been brave enough to say it first—because no sooner were the words out of his mouth than she realized that she felt the exact same way.

“I have to go back to New York,” she said, her heart racing at the intensity carved into every line of his face as he looked at her. “This meeting—it’s important. I can’t miss it. And my whole life is there.” Except, of course, it wasn’t. Ava and Kit were here; her parents were in LA; even Padma and Andrew were no longer close enough for impromptu weeknight hangouts. Parts of her life were in New York—but she wondered, now, if she wasn’t using that as an excuse, because she was too afraid of what this might be between them, of the fact that an increasingly large part of her life might be here instead.

“I know that,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. His thumb rubbed a soothing pattern against her palm, and she felt, in this moment, that she would do anything—give anything—if only he wouldn’t let go of her hand again. “I don’t want you to give up your life—I don’t want you to give up anything ,” he said fiercely. “I’m not…” He trailed off, clearly weighing his words, and then said, “I’m not your ex. I don’t want you because of what you do. I don’t want you because your family is famous, or you were in a film once, or you’re a brilliant , talented artist who has created her own business no matter what her family thinks. I like all of those things about you, but… I just want you because you’re you .” His grip on her hand was tight, now, but she still didn’t want him to let go—and she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

She swallowed against all the words rising in her throat, trying to work out how to say what it was that she truly meant, in a way that he’d understand. And then realized— trusted —that he’d understand anyway, even if she didn’t get it out perfectly, because he was like that. And because he knew her.

And that, she was realizing now, was what she’d been longing for, for so long.

“After Craig and I broke up,” she said quietly, never moving her eyes from his face, “for a long time, I sort of… retreated back into myself. I was determined to never put myself in a situation like that ever again—I was going to do everything myself, not rely on anyone else, not be a… a burden to anyone, ever. And it was good for me, for a while—I felt like I’d built a life of my own, without a partner, and I was determined to not risk anything that might ruin that. But…” She paused, considering her words carefully, but he didn’t press her—just watched her quietly, his hand still holding hers.

“But after a while,” she continued at last, “I think it started to feel… too safe. And when Padma got married and moved to the suburbs earlier this year, it really knocked me off-balance, because it felt like things were changing, were unsettled, and I hadn’t agreed to it. This might be why the Christmas, Truly thing freaked me out so badly—I was already feeling sort of unsettled.” She shrugged. “I’ve been realizing this all, since I’ve been here—this is the longest I’ve spent away from New York since I moved back from college. And I miss my apartment, and my friends, and my life—because I do like it, and I’m proud of the life I’ve built for myself, but…” She glanced down, then glanced back up at him again, very directly. “It’s just a life. It’s been a good one in my twenties, but it doesn’t have to be forever. If something—someone—came along and made me want to change it. Maybe take a risk or two.”

“I don’t want to be a risk, you know,” he said, leaning forward now to cup her cheek with his hand, his expression almost unbearably tender. “I don’t want to hurt you—I don’t want to be some ass who blows up your life.”

“I know you don’t,” she agreed. “Or I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“But,” he added, “I don’t want you to be afraid to—to need me. To lean on me. I don’t like you because I think you’re calm, or steady, or whatever role it is you played in your family, in that relationship. I want to be with you, whatever you’re feeling.”

“It feels… risky,” she said softly, looking down at her lap. “I haven’t let myself need anyone else for so long—I’m scared to get used to it, I guess.” She took a deep breath, and glanced up to meet his eyes again. “But I think… I’m willing to risk it. For you.”

“Good,” he said in a low voice. “Because I already worked out, about a week ago, that there’s not much I wouldn’t risk for you.” It was so quiet, so simple, so sneakily devastating that it took a moment for the ache in her chest to even register. He wiped her cheek with his thumb.

“I’m not crying,” she informed him as he lowered his face to hers.

“Not anymore,” he agreed, and then he kissed her and made the words true.