All I Want for Christmas_a funny and sexy festive novella by Keris Stainton

Author:Keris Stainton [Stainton, Keris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Afterwards, I fetch the pizzas from where we abandoned them on the hall floor and bring them into bed along with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

‘I could get used to this,’ Joe says, tipping his head back to lower a huge slice of pizza into his mouth.

‘The pizza? The wine?’ I ask.

‘The pizza, the wine, you.’ He kisses my shoulder. ‘I love these freckles. I always wanted freckles.’

I tip my head back and look at him. ‘You haven't even got any freckles? God, you really are perfect.’

He laughs. ‘Oh, I'm not perfect. I'm far from perfect.’

‘Really? How?’

‘I bite my nails.’

‘Oh, pfft. Everyone bites their nails.’

‘Toenails?’

‘Ew!’ I laugh.

‘If I'm in a restaurant and they start clearing up around me, it completely freaks me out.’

‘Big. Deal. Tell me something bad you've done.’

‘I stole a CD from a shop.’

‘A CD? When you were a kid?’

He frowns. ‘I was maybe seventeen?’

‘Teenagers steal. Doesn't count. Something worse.’

He lowers his head then looks up at me from under his long eyelashes. ‘I killed someone once...’

My stomach clenches, but Joe grins. ‘I didn't kill anyone.’

‘Phew.’

‘I've thought about it a few times. My dad, mostly.’

I open my mouth to speak. Joe says, ‘Shit. I did it again.’

‘It's “Oops, I did it again”, Britney,’ I say.

He reaches over and hooks his hand round the back of my neck, pulling me towards him. ‘I really am sorry. I almost never make inappropriate comments about parents and death when I'm not with you.’

I pick up a slice of pizza and cram it in my mouth, shaking my head. ‘That's good to know.’

‘I think it's one of those things when you know you shouldn't talk about something so your subconscious fixates on it, you know.’

I swallow the pizza. ‘We can talk about it.’

Joe shakes his head. ‘You don't have to. It's none of my business.’

I feel like the pizza's stuck in my throat, but I want Joe to stop worrying about it so I take a deep breath and say, ‘They were in Rhodes. They'd been going there for years. They always hired a scooter. Cos my dad had one when they were first going out together so it was a nostalgia thing, you know?’

Joe reached over and held my hand. I look down at our fingers.

‘You know what's coming, obviously. They crashed. They died. Mum immediately, Dad later in hospital.’

‘In Greece.’

I nod.

‘Did you get to see him before...?’

‘No. It was the next day. I got there the day after.’

‘I'm so sorry, Ella,’ he says. He squeezes my hand and for a second my throat's so tight I can't speak.

‘You're an only child?’ he says.

I nod.

‘I can't believe you had to deal with that on your own.’

I shake my head. Apparently I've lost the power of speech.

‘What about aunts or cousins or something?’

I count to three as I breathe in and three as I breathe out then say, ‘Not really. There's a couple of people, but we're not close. I tried for a while to see them more, but it was too forced, so.

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