One Week With You: A Brother's Best Friend Holiday Romance by JR Jenner

Author:JR Jenner [Jenner, JR]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-03T16:00:00+00:00

After breakfast Rafe made some calls from his temporary desk at the kitchen table while I went in search of the box of decorations.

“I found them,” I called out ten minutes later, carrying a battered cardboard box labelled “XMAS DECS” down the stairs. I set it down on the sofa, blowing across the layer of dust on top before thinking better of it.

“Bless you,” Rafe shouted from the kitchen at the sound of my eye-watering sneeze.

“Thanks,” I managed before sneezing again. The urge tickled the back of my nose twice more, and I held my breath and my hands in front of my face just in case. Once it felt safe, I peeled the yellowing sellotape somehow still keeping the box sealed and rifled through the contents. Red beaded garlands tarnished with age. Matte green baubles. Old Christmas cards cut and hole-punched, then threaded with gold string for makeshift hanging ornaments. I smiled. My mum had once done the same.

“Wow, that takes me back.” Rafe walked in as I pulled an angel tree topper from the box. The halo was crumpled and the dress was more beige than the white it probably used to be, but it was still usable. “Haven’t seen that since I was a kid.”

“Oh, so it’s ancient then.”

“Less of the old, please.”

“I’m four years younger than you. I’m kidding.”

He glanced down at the box and went quiet. “Where did you find this?” he asked, picking up a wooden Nutcracker doll missing its nose and half of its moustache. He ran his fingertip down the faded red and gold and stared at it for a long moment, lost in the memory.

“In the top of the walk-in wardrobe in the back bedroom. There’s a lot of stuff up there. You should take a look.”

He nodded slowly, though not out of any sort of agreement. “I’ve been meaning to go through everything but I never get the chance to come here. My schedule hates me.”

“But you managed to visit now?” I asked, intrigued.

“It’s Christmas. And sometimes needs must.”

He sent me a long blistering look that heated my skin and forced me to turn away. I refocused on the decorations again, anything to distract myself from all the chemistry making my blood burn like molten lava.

I was going to melt, right here on the floor, if he kept looking at me like that. I wasn’t strong enough.

“Aw,” I said lightly, holding up a heart-shaped ornament with “Rafe’s 1st Christmas” in red lettering, twirling on the string. “This is so cute.”

“I didn’t know they had anything like that,” Rafe said, confused.

“Maybe you celebrated your first Christmas here.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t know?”

“They’ve never mentioned it. We don’t talk about things like that. I know we spent a couple of Christmases here when I was a kid. That was taken here.” He pointed at the tall pine bookcase in the corner and the framed picture of himself and his parents in the snow. He couldn’t have been more than five, if I had to guess.

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