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It was a good night. Good food, good people. Rebecca thought it might’ve been a bit more crowded than last year at the Higgins’, but maybe Ted’s flat was just smaller. It’s not too bad now, however, past midnight and no longer Christmas. Ted had tucked Henry into bed a couple of hours ago and only a few people were left lingering. Roy and Keeley. Some of the players and their dates. Beard. That was about it.
She was holed up in the kitchen for some peace and quiet, hand washing the dishes to spare Ted some of the cleanup and keep her mind from wandering around. He’d trailed after her with a dopey grin and plopped himself on one of the chairs, staring shamelessly while munching on something called snowball cookies that were in a bowl on the kitchen table, dusting his face and the floor with powdered sugar.
At first, it was all right; he was drunk. Drunk people were strange and it’s not like she doesn’t know where this is coming from. She’s well aware they’re balancing on the edge of whatever it was that separated friends from more – circling the drain, one might say, and it felt appropriate to put it that way because it has been making her dizzy.
It’s getting her a bit loopy now, feeling his gaze burning on the back of her neck. She keeps dropping cutlery. He needs to stop.
Rebecca tucks a plate carefully on the drying rack and wipes her hands on the dishtowel thrown over her shoulder.
“Ted, would you please stop staring?” She asks, turning and resting her hip against the counter.
Despite the absolutely conspicuous nature of what he'd been doing, Ted startles, the last cookie halfway to his mouth. He puts it down, blinking dumbly a few times, then nods and, instead of looking away, closes his eyes.
That’s the effects of heavily spiked eggnog for you.
She sighs, exasperated and fond, shakes her head trying not to smile, and goes back to the dishes because all right, that works fine.
In the living room, she can overhear Keeley trying to explain offside to Richard’s newest girlfriend who barely speaks English and doesn't care to; her thick French accent punctuating the conversation now and then to say ziss does naht mahke ahny sense – though Keeley, buzzed on rosé, is undeterred.
Outside, the faint hum of Perry Como’s Home for the Holidays is drifting out of somebody’s window and her mind starts doing what she meant to avoid it doing and wanders between Christmases past and present and — God help her — future, and she’s lost in a fantasy of waking up to snow and kisses that tickle and Mornin’ sunshine and-
“Can I look now?”
His voice cuts straight through her reverie. He always knows when she’s in need of assistance.
“You can if you don’t stare.”
She looks back in time to see him pout and snorts.
“What is it you’ve lost on the back of my head?”
He shrugs. “I’m just always wantin’ to look at you.”
She blushes of course. But his eyes are still closed, thankfully.
“If I can’t look, will you sing me something?”
He cocks his head to the side, face slack and innocent; the Santa hat perched on his head at danger of sliding off any minute. Goddamn him.
Rebecca takes a deep breath. Biting the inside of her cheek, she turns back to the sink, dries the last plate, and then-
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright.
Her voice tinkles around the kitchen and the emotion takes her by surprise.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace
The song ebbs and flows through her and she gets a little lost in it, overcome with a sort of melancholy. She blinks to let the tears welling on the rim of her eyes fall.
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia
He starts humming behind her and she smiles, and by the time she gets to Jesus Lord, at Thy birth Rebecca feels a little wrung out, but satisfied.
She clears her throat and turns, anxious to see him, and that’s when she realizes she’s got a much larger audience than anticipated.
“What are you lot doing here?” She asks and Ted’s eyes snap open.
“Oh, neat.” He says vaguely, looking at the roughly ten people crowded by the entrance to the kitchen at his back. She notices his face is marked in wet streaks.
“Here Coach!” Dani pipes up from the back of the crowd, arm sticking through bodies to hand Ted yet another cup of eggnog.
Rebecca intervenes; walking up and reaching out to intercept the transfer.
“You’ve had enough.”
Ted whines, scrunching his nose, and she thinks he wants to stick his tongue out at her too but isn’t far enough gone for that yet.
"Do Santa Baby next!" Keeley chimes in and everyone nods and murmurs their approval.
Rebecca scoffs. "I'm not caroling for you. Out!" She points at the exit.
When nobody makes a move to leave, she tries again. "I can fire every single one of you."
They all exchange looks to confirm this is, obviously, a pathetically empty threat, but at least ultimately have the decency to humor her and file out to the living room, with Keeley at the back of the line, who does stick her tongue out at her.
"So you'll sing for Ted but not me, I see how it is!”
Rebecca bunches up the dishtowel on her shoulder and throws it at her, but Keeley ducks, and it bounces harmlessly off Roy’s back.
After that, it's only Ted and her again, and sure enough, he’s back to staring.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she huffs, dropping heavily onto the chair next to his.
Ted takes this opportunity to make the whole thing even sillier and rests his elbow on the table, chin propped up on his fist, truly committing to watching her, a small smile playing on his lips while his eyes dart all over her face. It’s unbearable.
“You’re doing it again,” she complains, taking a sip of the drink she’d nicked and cringing at the burn. “This isn’t eggnog; this is cinnamon-flavoured rum. Also, mulled wine is the appropriate Christmas alcohol.”
“You look pretty,” he offers spontaneously.
It’s not the first time he’s said it, ever or tonight. He had hugged her when she arrived and whispered that she looked beautiful in her ear and she’d blushed then too.
She’s forced to take another healthy sip of the god-forsaken drink just to give herself a second and an excuse to be flushed.
“Thank you, Ted,” she whispers into the cup.
“Been tryin’ to get ya under the mistletoe this week, but no luck.” He mopes innocently and at this point, she can’t possibly get any redder anyway.
“I banned it from the club; Rupert took too much liberty with it.”
Ted nods seriously, then checks his watch (a gift from her he put on right away that morning and hasn’t taken off since.) “Alright, it ain’t Christmas anymore so I can say it – that guy’s a twat.”
Her laughter breaks loose before she even fully registers it, the Britishism and his frown and the earnestness gripping her.
“That he is.” Rebecca agrees, raising her cup in cheers and taking yet another gulp that drains it entirely.
It doesn’t taste as aggravating to her as it did the first time and that cannot be a good sign, but Ted is still watching her and she keeps forgetting to concentrate on anything else.
It’s probably his staring — or Christmas, or maybe the late hour or, possibly (most likely) the rum — that makes her mad enough to say the next thing.
“But you need not have gone through the trouble, Ted. You could’ve simply asked."
For a few long seconds, he stares at her blankly, blinking slowly like he’s trying very hard to decipher her meaning and then his eyebrows rise on his forehead nearly to his hairline and she knows he’s got it.
“Oh?”
She nods.
He shifts in his chair, looking sobered all at once, putting his arms back down like a normal human man, and looks at her in an entirely different way than before.
“Y’know, my feet have been getting sore from dancin’ ‘round this thing.” He starts “And I couldn’t even walk a straight-line right about now thanks to Jamie dumping a whole bottle of rum into the eggnog, so I gotta check: this is my cue, right? To quit dancin’?”
Rebecca presses her lips together to contain the giggles and nods again.
Ted takes a deep breath and looks down like he’s psyching himself up for it and it’s so ridiculous, and then he’s looking at her again, kind of sideways, making sure she means what she means and Rebecca tries to hold an expression that she hopes conveys a Go ahead.
She must, because a moment later he is straightening up and leaning in and Good Christ, it's really happening. She can smell the cinnamon on his breath. Outside someone’s started a chorus of I’ll Be Home for Christmas.
“Hi,” he whispers an inch away from her lips.
She smiles, cannot help it; he is the silliest man she’s ever met.
“Hi.”
“Fancy seein’ you here. Mind if I kissed ya?”
So silly, but then again, not at all.
“Please do.” She sighs, and before the last syllable is out, his lips are soft and warm against hers.
It’s the sweetest of kisses, figuratively and literally, thanks to the cookies and the eggnog. Lips closed and chaste, like they’re in middle school instead of middle age, and Rebecca almost breaks it to laugh at that thought, but then Ted’s tongue traces the rim of her lower lip before sucking it between his teeth and she forgets all about any metaphors.
It goes on and on and when they finally break apart, breathless, she laughs a little, licking the remnants of powdered sugar from her lips and reaching up to wipe it off his moustache as well which is when she notices.
“Oh dear.” She giggles and he frowns.
“What?”
“Some white hairs in here,” she says good-naturedly. Her thumbs trace his upper lip to illustrate and he pecks the pads of them.
“Finally, ‘bout time I started transitioning into Santa.”
She scoffs, “Well, if anybody would.”
His eyes drop to her lips again, “In that case, wanna take my lap for a spin?”
If she were standing her knees would’ve wobbled.
“Ted, this kitchen doesn’t have a door.”
He pushes himself away from the table and taps his thighs, “Don’t think this is a secret, sweetheart.”
And well, she’s got nothing to say to that, so Rebecca hops over, hands going around his neck and threading into his hair while his arm comes around her waist to steady her.
It feels supremely correct and if she regrets anything; it’s not doing it sooner.
“I think it’s a fit, what do ya think?” He asks, burying his face into her neck and planting a kiss there that makes her shiver.
“Sadly, I don’t think you’ll be replacing Saint Nick.”
He pulls back to look at her, the obvious question on his face.
Rebecca leans in until their foreheads touch.
“I’m unwilling to share the seat.”
He laughs. “Sharing is caring, at this rate you’re gonna make the naughty list.”
She shifts very purposefully on his lap and he groans.
“God, I hope so.” She whispers and kisses the smile that spreads across his lips.
The new year is shaping up to be a great one.