Mistletoe's For Kissing Under, part 3
"Suddenly it wasn't the slightest bit difficult to see Noah as a mature, very sexy grown man."
The time seemed to fly. Noah was so easy to talk to. We'd always got along well, but the six year age gap (plus the fact that I’d known him from birth and changed his truly disgusting nappies) meant that I had only ever seen him as the little boy who'd followed me, and his older brother, round like a puppy. Much to Jim’s annoyance.
Which reminded me of something.
‘How’s Jim, by the way?’
‘Same as ever. Never actually came home after his gap year, as you know. He worked as a rep, then a tour guide, then got together with a Greek girl, Melina, and got her up the duff. He works in her father’s taverna now, hoping to get his hands on the place when the old boy carks it, and meanwhile – according to him, anyway – he’s got as much tourist totty as he can handle, and Melina washing his kecks at home. A big brother to really look up to!’
‘I have a very embarrassing confession to make. The Christmas I was sixteen – you’d have been nine or ten, I suppose – I had a brief crush on your brother. I was looking after you after the end of term, and we started hanging around together and flirting.’
‘I remember. You suddenly didn’t have any time for me, and Jim kept telling me to piss off and go and play in my bedroom. I watched you through a crack in the door. He kissed you, and I hated him for taking you away from me. You were supposed to be my friend!’ All these years later, and yet I recognised the exact same hurt, indignant expression that he’d worn on that day as he rushed into the room crying and screaming, pummelling Jim with his puny little fists.
‘That’s why you came flying at him? I was furious with him for hitting you and pushing you away so roughly. Called him a twat if I remember. That put an end to my crush!’
‘In fact you called him an “unmitigated mouthbreathing twat”. God, I loved you for that.’
‘You still remember?’
‘Course I do. Why do you think he’s in my contacts as UMT to this day? I remember everything. You yelled at Jim and you looked at him like he was shit on your shoes. Then you grabbed my hand and pulled me round to yours so fast my feet hardly touched the ground.
‘You sat me at the kitchen table and made me hot chocolate. Not the everyday one out of a jar, but with proper milk and real chunks of chocolate. In the biggest mug I’d ever seen. Father Christmas, with the handle made out of his hat curved round. You filled it halfway, then you crammed a big handful of those tiny marshmallows on top, and you looked at me with the biggest smile I’d ever seen, and ran to the fridge, snatched a can of squirty cream, and you must’ve used half of that damn can, it was piled so high. But even that wasn’t enough for you. You pushed two stripy candy canes in at jaunty angles, plonked it down in front of me, and dropped a kiss on my head.
‘That might have been the end of your crush, but it was just the start of mine. And possibly also my slide into Type 2 diabetes!’
My chest felt too full to get any air into, and I felt giddy. I risked a quick glance at Noah, and he was staring intently back at me. His cheeks were a very interesting shade of pink which made the blood fizz in my veins. Suddenly it wasn’t the slightest bit difficult to see Noah as a mature, very sexy grown man.
