Always, in December by Emily Stone

Chapter Three

Josie stayed sprawled on the ground, her heart pounding, ears ringing. Her knees stung and she could feel the dampness of the road seeping in through her tights. As she pushed herself into an awkward kneel, she realised her hands were shaking.

There were several people clustered around her, one of whom was shouting, she noticed now, the sound finally getting through the buzzing in her ears. She focused in on a figure marching around from the other side of the taxi – a woman. A short, slightly plump woman. Why was she shouting at her? Then she got it – this was the taxi driver.

‘Didn’t you see me here?’ she screamed, her voice disproportionately deep compared to her size. ‘What the hell were you thinking, coming at us at that speed? Do you not have eyes? Do you not think it might have been sensible to slow the bloody hell down?’

Josie scrambled all the way to her feet, wincing a little. She wasn’t seriously hurt, but her arm had twisted awkwardly from where she’d tried to cushion her fall, and she was pretty sure she’d have a bruise on her hip when she checked later. And her tights had laddered. Great. Well, that’s what you got for cycling in completely impractical clothes, she supposed.

One of the passers-by who had stopped to witness the spectacle asked if she was ok, and she nodded, dumbfounded, while taxi woman continued to rant, her eyes skimming over Josie to a spot behind her. Josie jumped, remembering, far too late, about the man she’d hit. She spun, her heart renewing its gallop.

Her breath loosened a little when she saw him. Another man, slightly balding, had stopped to help him, and he was already getting slowly to his feet, his movements slow and awkward. She jerked towards him, her nerves fizzing, mouth dry.

‘Are you ok?’ she blurted out, but he didn’t seem to hear her above all the interested chattering of the little group around them. The balding man was now holding out to him a wallet, and a few stray bits of paper he must have dropped. She stumbled forward another step, earning an evil glare from taxi woman. God, what if he was hurt? He was up, but he looked a bit unsteady on his feet – what if he had a broken rib or something?

‘I’m . . .’ She tried again, but stopped, sucking in a tight breath when he finally looked at her. She couldn’t quite make out the whole of his face, only got an impression of a somewhat chiselled jaw and messy hair, but she swore she saw it darken, the night’s shadows winning out over the pockets of light from the streetlamps and headlights. She took another wavering step towards him, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she breathed. He said nothing, just dismissed her with a glance and turned instead to Balding, who was helping him to take the last of his belongings.

Josie became very aware of the clamminess of her palms. ‘I really, I don’t know what to say, I can’t apologise enough,’ she babbled, wishing he’d just meet her gaze, rather than now looking at the tarmac, frowning, as if she weren’t worth paying attention to. ‘I just, I don’t know what happened, I wasn’t concentrating, it was completely my fault and I—’

He held up a hand as the crowd around them began to disperse, losing interest now the drama of the moment was over. He looked her up and down, as if weighing up the sincerity of her words, taking in her laddered tights, the skirt of her work dress poking out beneath her blue winter coat, purple and white trainers that definitely did not go with the outfit. Her body felt stiff and when his gaze travelled up to her face, she felt her cheeks warm. She had no doubt she looked a total mess – he probably thought he’d been run over by a complete lunatic.

‘It’s fine,’ he said, his voice clipped and low enough that it barely carried over the sound of the traffic. He turned away from her again to thank the balding man, who nodded, glanced at Josie in a curious sort of way, then headed off up the street.

‘It is not bloody well fine,’ taxi woman muttered. But she’d already turned her back on them both, apparently deciding that, now it was clear no one was seriously injured, she was better off out of it.

Josie hovered awkwardly. Her knee was throbbing now, but she didn’t want to bend down to check it in case that looked like she was more concerned with herself than the stranger she’d just knocked off his feet. Now that they were the only two people left, he glanced over to her and his eyes flickered briefly, as if he was surprised to see she was still hanging around. She couldn’t quite make out the colour, wasn’t sure if they just looked dark because of his expression. He was about her age, she realised, and a couple of inches taller than her.

‘I’m really, really sorry,’ she said again, aware that she sounded like a broken record, but completely at a loss as to what else she could say that wouldn’t sound utterly wrong, given the circumstances.

‘I said it’s fine,’ he said on a tired sigh. Not as clipped as before, but still not quite what she was after. Josie bit her lip, but before she could say anything else, the taxi driver wound down the window on the passenger side.

‘All good here then?’ she asked, clearly making an effort not to look at Josie, seeming to decide this was a better form of punishment than shouting at her.

The man nodded. ‘All good, cheers.’ Oh sure, with the taxi driver he was perfectly affable. But then, Josie supposed she’d been helping him get to where he was going, not knocking him over the moment he got there.

‘Right-oh.’ And with that she rolled up the window and pulled back out onto the road behind a bus.

The man frowned again the moment the taxi drove away, and turned his attention back to the road. The way he was determinedly ignoring her, she could probably have got away with just leaving him, but it felt wrong to abandon him. She glanced down at the road too, and noticed what he was looking for before he did. She grabbed his phone, a metre or so from where he stood, and her stomach twisted as she saw the screen was completely smashed.

‘Shit,’ she muttered, grimacing apologetically as she held it out to him. ‘I’m so—’

‘Sorry?’ He raised his eyebrows as he took it from her and she felt herself flush. His eyes were green, she realised now she was closer, though they were those fancy two-toned kind of eyes, with a ring of something lighter around the edges. It felt wrong to describe the second colour as ‘gold’, given the way his eyes seemed to scowl without so much as a furrow of eyebrows.

‘I’ll pay for it,’ she said immediately. She wondered what model of iPhone it was, how much that would set her back, whether she’d have to use her credit card to pay for it. He didn’t reply, just pocketed the phone and grabbed her bike from where it was still strewn across the cycle path, pushing it up the kerb onto the pavement. She should have done that, she realised. The bike was in the way, and she hadn’t even thought to move it.

She stepped up beside him. ‘Seriously, let me pay for it. Maybe there’s a phone shop near here that’s still open and we can—’

‘Stop.’ He said it in such a final way that she did. ‘I’ve said it’s fine. Besides, we were parked on a cycle lane, weren’t we? So you’re not the only one to blame.’ He jiggled the handlebars of her bike a little, as if impatient to be rid of it, and she took it awkwardly.

‘I just . . .’

He sighed, slipped his phone out of his pocket, switched it on and held it out to her. It lit up to show his home screen, still visible beneath the cracked glass. ‘See?’ The word was a little aggressive. ‘Still works and everything. And besides,’ he carried on, overriding her protest, ‘my contract’s up soon. So if I’m not bothered about living with a smashed screen for a few weeks, then you really shouldn’t be either. Ok?’ It was a demand, more than a question.

‘Well,’ she said slowly. ‘If you’re sure. . .’ The problem was, although he said it was all fine, he really sounded as though it was not in fact fine in the slightest. She bit her lip, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do now.

‘Look, thanks for the concern and all, but I could use a pint after that, so I’ll just . . .’ He trailed off, looking up and down the road, then huffed and looked down at her. ‘Do you know where the nearest pub is, by any chance?’

‘I’ll show you!’ Josie knew she sounded far too enthusiastic, but she was determined to make him not so pissed off with her. He frowned and she nodded vigorously. ‘I know a good one around here.’ Well, ‘good’ might be a bit of an overstatement, but she’d been to one round the corner with Bia a few times on a Friday night. She started walking, pushing her bike in a way that made her have to hunch over awkwardly, and he followed along beside her.

‘You don’t have to walk me there,’ he grumbled, shoving his hands into his coat, which was reminiscent of Benedict Cumberbatch’s in Sherlock – long, grey and expensive-looking. ‘You could just point me in the right direction.’

‘It’s no trouble!’ she said, a little too squeakily, despite the fact that she was pretty sure that he wasn’t really concerned with her trouble so much as didn’t want her tagging along. Well, too bad. She’d show him the damn pub and maybe that would even out her karmic bad luck or whatever. He made absolutely no effort to start a conversation, seeming to be particularly focused on the pavement in front of them. She fought the scowl that wanted to settle on her face. She knew she’d run him over and all, but he didn’t need to be such a prick about it – she’d have forgiven someone for doing it to her, she was sure. It wasn’t like she’d done it on purpose.

After a full minute of silence, she was severely regretting not just giving him instructions and hopping on her bike. She tried desperately to think of something to say – but what did you say to the stranger you’d just knocked over in the middle of the road? She needed Bia. If Bia had done the same, she’d have this man laughing in two minutes tops.

‘So, umm, were you on your way home from work?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said slowly, and the look he gave her was a little incredulous. She pushed her bike a bit faster. Well, no, ok – if he was on his way home from work then he would probably know the area, and therefore know where a pub would be. But, in her defence, he could be a hotshot businessman or lawyer or something, living in a big house in the country and down in London for meetings. Besides, he didn’t have to be so damn rude about it – he could show some appreciation for the fact she was trying to show him around. She sneaked another glance at him, but couldn’t guess anything else about him, everything hidden under that damned coat.

‘What about you?’ he asked after a moment, with the distinct impression of someone forcing himself to continue the conversation.

She started, caught in the action of surreptitiously studying him. ‘What?’

‘Were you on the way back from work?’

‘Oh right. No.’ God, this guy must think she was a total idiot. She cleared her throat. ‘No, I was just running a few errands.’ She took the handlebars of her bike in one hand, felt automatically for the letter with the other, then jolted when she realised it wasn’t there. She must have lost it in the road somewhere and not noticed.

‘Everything ok?’

‘Yeah. Sorry. It’s just . . . I was sending a letter, I think I must have dropped it.’ That was ok, though, she told herself. She’d write another one tomorrow and post it then.

‘A letter?’ His voice was a little less clipped this time, almost incredulous instead. ‘People still write those these days?’

She shrugged. ‘Well yeah, I guess so. Memo – my grandmother, that is – is always writing letters, even though she’s the most technologically savvy person I know.’ No need to tell him that’s not who she was writing to this evening.

He stepped out of the way of a jogger, quiet for a moment. ‘When I was a kid,’ he said slowly, ‘I used to try and get my friends at school to write me letters in the summer holidays, but it never quite caught on.’

He said the whole thing completely deadpan, but Josie let out a snort of laughter. ‘Really?’

‘Mmm. My best friend at the time, James Winterbourne, kept the letter I wrote to him and then read it out to everyone at school once we got back in September.’

She laughed again. ‘That’s so mean! What had you written?’

‘God, I don’t remember. It was just the principle of the thing that stuck with me more than anything. I never did quite forgive him for it.’

‘Aha. So James Winterbourne has been struck off the wedding guest list for a letter-writing faux pas.’ Though he met her gaze, her smile wasn’t reflected.

‘Quite.’

Damn, maybe she’d put her foot in it. Maybe he’d been married and it had all gone terribly wrong, or maybe he’d been jilted at the altar, or James Winterbourne had married the love of his life or something.

‘So how come you’re out this way then?’ she asked, her voice cringeworthily jovial at the forced change of subject. ‘Do you live in London?’

‘No.’ His voice was a little distant, but he shook his head and when he spoke again it was with a little more purpose. ‘No, I’m from Bristol actually. Well, from a few places, I suppose, but I grew up in Bristol, and live there now.’

‘So you’re down here for Christmas?’

He grimaced. ‘No. Well, I wasn’t supposed to be.’ He pulled a hand through his messy hair, and the coppery highlights in the brown caught the artificial light a little. ‘I was due to fly out to New York today, but my flight has been cancelled because of some bloody storm.’

Josie frowned, looked up at the sky. It was cloudy, for sure, and the echo of misty rain still hung in the air, but it didn’t exactly seem stormy. She glanced at the man to see him raising his eyebrows.

‘There’s obviously not a storm here,’ he said, in a way that seemed condescending enough to make her flush again. ‘But somewhere over the Atlantic or something. Anyway. I’m now on standby for a new flight, but looks like I’m stranded here for now.’

‘That’s so crap,’ Josie said, hoping her voice was conveying adequate sympathy. ‘So will you go back to Bristol now then?’

‘No, I need to be here in case of flights, so I checked into a hotel I’ve stayed at before around here.’

She nodded as they came to a stop and gestured to her right at an old building. ‘It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but they do good beers, I think, and there’s a nice garden out back.’

‘Ah yes, useful in this lovely English summer we’re in the midst of.’

It sounded like a joke, but if he’d bloody smile or something, then she could be sure. ‘If you don’t like the look of it, I can . . .’

‘I’m not fussy.’ He turned to face her. ‘Thanks.’ He pulled his hands out of his pockets and held one out to her. No wedding ring, so maybe the stolen love of his life theory was more likely. ‘I’m Max, by the way.’

She took his hand in her gloved one. His grip was firm, sure, and though she wasn’t exactly doll-sized like Bia, his hand made hers feel small. ‘Josie.’

He smiled, finally. Just a small softening of his lips, but it made his chiselled face look less sharp. ‘Well, it was nice to meet you, Josie, even if the manner of our meeting left a little to be desired.’ She grimaced, though there was no venom in his voice.

He’d let go of her hand and turned away from her by the time she blurted out, ‘Why don’t I buy you a drink?’

He looked back at her, his brow furrowed over those shifting eyes. She rolled the bike back and forth on the pavement, pinpricks of heat travelling uncomfortably over her skin from the way he was considering her.

‘I mean, as an apology. A drink in exchange for a phone.’ And yes, that was part of the reason, because really, buying him a drink was the least she could do, but it wasn’t all. Stranded here, he’d said. Alone at Christmas, though he hadn’t explicitly said that. And right then, she didn’t want him to be lonely, at least not in that exact moment, not when she knew exactly how that felt.

He cocked his head, as if weighing up her offer. ‘A drink in exchange for a phone . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Ok.’

She bit her lip – he hadn’t exactly sounded enthused by the idea. ‘Ok?’

‘Ok,’ he repeated, completely deadpan, his expression giving nothing away.

She locked up her bike, already slightly regretting the impulse, being as how they seemed to have already run out of things to say to each other, then led the way inside. She immediately had to strip off her coat to deal with the onslaught of heat from the fire in the corner and the impressive mass of bodies crowding the place. She headed to the bar, decorated with that fake green tinsel and jars of fairy lights, wishing right then that she had a local pub she could have taken him to instead, one where the landlord knew her name, where she could be chatty to the staff, rather than risk being stilted and awkward, as she was feeling now. The closest thing she had to that in Streatham was the little pizza place down the road from her flat, which she and Bia often went to, where the waiters greeted them politely, but with an undercurrent of suspicion, like they were wondering if they had a secret, pizza-eating agenda.

A woman behind the bar, her hair in bunches despite the fact she’d got to be in her mid-twenties, sidled up to them, and flicked her gaze over Josie to settle on Max. She beamed widely, more at Max than Josie, and Josie looked at Max for the first time since entering the pub. Well, of course he’d have to be bloody attractive, wouldn’t he? He’d taken off his Sherlock coat and was wearing a petrol-blue jumper underneath, which fitted his body snugly enough to make it obvious that he spent some time working out. The two-toned eyes were more obvious now in the light, the dark green merging subtly into amber. His hair was ever so slightly wavy, though she wasn’t sure if the windswept look was something natural, or because of their little accident just now, and there was exactly the right amount of stubble grazing his jaw.

‘What can I get you?’ the barmaid asked.

‘Umm, I’ll have a glass of house red,’ Josie said, looking questioningly at Max, who shrugged.

‘Sure, I’ll have the same.’

Drinks in hand, Josie managed to find a small corner table and slipped into the booth, leaving him to take the chair opposite. Max grimaced as he sat down. ‘What’s wrong?’ Josie asked quickly. If he was in pain from the accident, maybe she’d allow him to be a bit pissed off with her.

Max raised his eyebrows in a way that suggested she might have sounded a bit too concerned, and nodded up towards the ceiling. She frowned and looked up, but he shook his head. ‘No, the music.’

She listened. ‘God, terrible,’ she said. ‘Impossible to escape the endless Christmas songs at this time of year though. You just have to grit your teeth and block it out.’

His lips twitched as he met her gaze, not quite giving in to a full smile or, God forbid, the hint of a laugh. ‘Cheers to that,’ he said, and they clinked glasses. She took a sip. It wasn’t as nice as the wine Bia had brought home, but it wasn’t bad.

Max relaxed back against his chair, his eyes fixed on her face in a way that felt a little intense. ‘So, Josie. Tell me. What is it that you do, when you’re not off kamikaze bike-riding, running down strangers on the road?’

She took another sip of wine. ‘Oh that’s my main profession actually.’

‘Aha. That would explain the expert way you did it then. A lot of money in it?’

‘Tons.’ He did that lip twitch thing again. ‘I’m in marketing,’ she admitted.

‘In marketing,’ he mused.

‘Yeah, I work for an agency.’ She paused, then added, in a slightly put-on voice, ‘Peacock PR and Marketing.’

He let out a short burst of laughter, which surprised her so much that she jumped a little. ‘Peacock PR? Are you serious?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘So what kind of thing do you work on?’

She waved a hand in the air. ‘All sorts. At the moment we’re rebranding a “luxury” beachwear company.’ She did the air quotes around ‘luxury’, because she was very aware that if she didn’t, she sounded far too much like Janice.

He nodded sagely. ‘Busy time of year for them, is it?’

‘You’d be surprised. All the rich people going on beach holidays, getting a dose of winter sun and all that.’

‘Or Christmas presents,’ he pointed out.

‘Exactly.’

‘Or, you know, people who want to look sexy in their bikini on Christmas Day. To make a change from the sparkly dress.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘We did some market research a few years ago, turns out a lot of the British population actually swan around eating their roast dinners in bikinis. So my company was like, there’s an untapped market right there.’

He nodded seriously, taking a sip of wine. ‘Genius. So do they do Christmas swimwear? Themed things like Santa or snowmen or something?’

She laughed. ‘No, but I’ll pitch the idea to the client.’ Her phone buzzed from inside her coat on the booth seat, and she slipped it out of her pocket. Thank God her phone, unlike his, had survived the fall. She definitely did not have any spare cash to be buying a new one right now.

Where are you? Did you get lost?

Bia. Josie tapped out a quick reply.

Just picking up a few things, back soon.

Because, somehow, explaining that she’d nearly run over a strange man and was now having a drink with said man didn’t feel like the kind of thing you relay over WhatsApp. Even if, for Bia, the fact that he was hot would probably be enough explanation.

‘Everything alright?’ Max asked.

‘Yeah. Just my flatmate.’

‘Just the one?’

‘Yeah, for the last few years. How about you – do you live with anyone?’

He frowned, like the question was unnecessarily intrusive, despite the fact he’d just asked the exact same thing. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘At the moment it’s only me.’ She wondered again about her jilted lover theory, but her phone buzzed again before she could answer.

What things?? Whatever it is, stop it and come home. I’m drinking all the wine alone and it’s making me sad.

Josie snorted.

Stop it then! You’ll be hungover for your flight tomorrow.

Exactly. You need to come and save me from myself.

Smiling, Josie tucked the phone away, and looked up to find Max watching her in a way that made heat trickle down the back of her neck. ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to go. My flatmate flies to Argentina tomorrow and I want to say bye . . .’

‘Of course.’ He glanced to the bar, which had filled up quite dramatically since they’d been sitting here, the after-work crowd arriving in force. ‘Well, I’m not facing that queue for a solo drink.’ He got to his feet and finished the last of his wine as she gathered up her coat. Together, they pushed their way through to the front door. Outside, Josie took a breath of cold air, enjoying the feel of the breeze as it whisked away the heat from her neck even as it made her shiver.

Max turned to face her, slipping on his coat. ‘Well, thanks for the drink. You’ve more than made up for trying to run me over.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘I really am sorry about that, you know.’

‘Really? You should have said.’

She let out a little laugh, then crossed the pavement to where she’d locked her bike around a lamppost. ‘So how come you’re supposed to be going to New York?’

‘My parents live there. Said I’d spend Christmas with them this year.’ His voice was light enough but there was something there – something oddly similar to the way her voice sounded when she talked about Christmas plans. Though maybe she was just reading into it or projecting or whatever. And even if not, it was hardly her place to ask.

‘They live there? So did you grow up there or something?’ She cocked her head. ‘You don’t sound American.’

He smiled. ‘No, I got stuck with my sexy British accent. My mum’s American, but she moved here when she met my dad, so two years ago she made him move back to New York with her in payment.’

She turned her attention to her bike. ‘I guess that sounds fair enough. So what will you do, while you’re stuck in London?’ She frowned in concentration as she tried to unlock her bike. She’d stupidly put her gloves on before she tried to do it, which made the whole thing slightly trickier.

He leaned against the lamppost, watching her struggle. ‘Room service and films is my current plan.’

‘Well, why don’t you do some of the Christmassy things in London while you’re here?’

‘As in Winter Wonderland and all that?’

She laughed. ‘You don’t have to sound so scathing. It’s actually not that bad. I usually hate all that stuff too, but my flatmate made me go a few years ago and it was actually a lot of fun and . . .’ She trailed off. The only reason it had been fun was because Bia made it so, getting really excited by the whole ordeal and dragging Josie from one thing to the next. But Max would be doing it alone, stuck here without friends or family. She cleared her throat and glanced up to see him watching her, with that same intense gaze. ‘It, ah, has drinks and food and ice-skating and stuff. Or stalls to do last-minute Christmas shopping, that kind of thing.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Alright. I think you should take me, then.’ He said it evenly, but it still made her jolt.

‘What?’

‘I think you should take me,’ he repeated, slipping his hands into his pockets. ‘To make up for running me over.’

She cocked her head. ‘Didn’t you just say the drink had made up for that?’

He shrugged. ‘I changed my mind. So, I’ll meet you there at two?’

‘Two?’

‘Yeah. That way, if we hate it, we won’t have to spend the whole day there.’

She could only stare at him, not really sure how she’d got herself into this. Her plans for tomorrow had consisted of watching TV and crying over Oliver with copious amounts of chocolate. It was probably because of that, that she squared her shoulders. ‘Ok.’

His lips did that twitchy, almost a smile thing again. ‘Ok?’

She nodded. ‘Ok.’