tricky. You get ready for a date night and they throw up over you. You’re cuddling and they join in. You’re in the middle of the hottest sex of your life and they wake up with a screaming nightmare.’
Hannah’s eyes had grown enormous as she digested this litany. Then she smoothed her hair and twitched her top straight with an air of determination. ‘I have a lot to learn then, don’t I?’
When they strolled back through the sleepy Christmas village, Hannah felt as if she were floating at least two inches above a pavement beginning to twinkle with frost. Nico’s hand was hot around hers and her nerves were jumping, her blood dancing in her veins.
She giggled. ‘I feel like I’ve stepped through a magic portal to happiness yet my family are probably having an after-lunch nap.’
His eyes glowed into hers. ‘I can say with certainty that no one in the household will be sleeping until the girls get their presents.’
They reached the door to the house she’d known all her life and Hannah opened it.
‘They’re here!’ an eight-year-old squealed.
‘Dey here!’ squeaked her two-year-old echo.
The girls galumphed into the hall, Josie going into reverse to let them in and nearly flattening Maria. ‘Dad! You’ve been ages and—’ She paused and flushed, probably deciding not to remonstrate with him about the kissing in case Rob had been right and she shouldn’t have been peeping. ‘And everyone’s dying to open their presents.’
‘Everyone?’ he queried mildly.
‘P’esents, Mydad. P’esents, ’Annah,’ Maria affirmed, jumping on the spot, wearing one pink slipper and one drunken sock.
Nico relented. ‘OK. I’ll get ours from our car boot and you can help give them out.’
‘P’esents!’ Maria squealed.
Hannah watched the girls run off as she took off her coat and boots. Voices drifted to her: Jeremy asking about whisky, Mo telling him she’d put it on a high shelf because there were children in the house. Nan saying she’d sooner have sherry. Her ordinary family’s normal Christmas she’d depended on to cheer her up, rumbling gently on.
Joining them, she found Josie and Maria sitting on the carpet near the Christmas tree. ‘Your mum said we’d get our presents if we waited nicely,’ Josie said guilelessly.
‘My mum’s always right,’ Hannah assured her, as Nico walked in, hair tousled as if the wind had run its hands through it.
Taking pity on the two excited girls, Hannah gave them her gifts: matching jumpers with unicorns on, books and DVDs about princesses. They grabbed and unwrapped with seamless efficiency, Josie yelling thanks, Maria yelling because Josie did. The rest of the family, used to absorbing whoever Mo invited at Christmas, even at what had to have been short notice, had managed small gifts – colouring things, stickers, puzzles and games for the girls, beer and shower gel for Nico.
Hannah’s gift to him was an experience day he could build up out of various sporting activities from swinging through trees on ropes to hill biking. To facilitate it, she’d created a voucher for One babysitting day from Hannah.
‘Wow,’ he breathed, flicking through the brochure of what looked to her to be brutal activities with glowing eyes.
‘What? Without us?’ Josie demanded indignantly.
Hannah hugged her. ‘You, me and Maria will do something fun of our own.’ Josie looked mollified and Hannah congratulated herself on developing her child management skills.
Then Nico pressed a small, rectangular parcel on her. ‘God jul,’ he murmured. ‘Something from Stockholm.’
‘What is it?’ demanded Josie, crawling closer to investigate.
The gift was wrapped in gold paper with a red ribbon rosette. A red box lay inside and when Hannah opened it she found a necklace with two hearts in amber, secured together by two tiny golden clasped hands. She looked at him with glowing eyes, seeing past the prettiness to a message of two hearts secured by two small children.
Josie, however, dismissed it with small-girl scorn. ‘Soppy, Dad.’ Then, brightening, ‘But it definitely means Hannah’s your girlfriend if you bought her hearts, so yay!’
Hannah’s face heated to the tips of her ears. ‘Apparently, I needn’t make any announcement so long as Josie’s around so – yay!’ She looked at her parents, hoping they didn’t mind.
Mo beamed. ‘Your face made the announcement for you when you walked in, lovey. You look like one big happy.’
Her dad lifted his whisky glass to her in a toast and repeated, ‘Yay!’
Nan did the same with her sherry glass and soon the whole family was showering Hannah with their laughter and approval.
Nico waded through the discarded Christmas wrapping to scoop