Page 48 of Melting His Grumpy Heart
Ru lingered in his room until well into the afternoon, a book he’d picked up from the living room open on his lap. He’d read the same paragraph half a dozen times without absorbing a word. The muffled sounds of Jake moving about the house—the occasional footstep, the distant clatter of something in the kitchen—drifted through the door, each noise a reminder of the man he’d spent most of the last day and a half avoiding.
Jake’s revelation about Phil had both shocked and saddened Ru. Angered him too, if he were honest. The breaking of trust… He gotthat, right down to his bones.
Since then, they’d kept themselves to themselves, by unspoken, mutual consent. Jake was bruised by what he’d revealed and Ru understood the need for retreat, leaving them to bare bones conversations limited to practicalities, and avoiding the raw emotion that had surfaced between them. All that had been painful enough, but what was worse was pretending that what had happened in Jake’s bed was something they could set aside. Ru’s stomach tightened. He’d never be able to set aside what had bloomed between them, he could never forget it, even if Jake decided that once the snow had cleared it was time for Ru to leave for good.
Ru threw the book aside. It was Christmas Eve, and he was skulking in his room. It was time he showed his face, even if it did mean stilted conversations and side stepping everything they needed to talk about.
As he made his way downstairs, a delicious aroma wafted from the kitchen, something savoury and rich that made his stomach rumble. On his way to the kitchen, an unexpected sight stopped him in mid-step outside the living room.
In the corner near the window stood a small Christmas tree, not the grand, fresh cut pine of festive adverts, but a modest artificial one, no more than three feet tall.
“Well, that wasn’t there yesterday,” he muttered to himself.
He made his way in to take a closer look, curiosity edging out his hunger.
It was wonky, and its branches were straggly and threadbare, or what he could see of them, because each was hung with an eclectic assortment of decorations: faded glass baubles alongside small wooden figures, glittering tinsel next to what appeared to be dried herbs tied with red thread. A few pinecones dangled from lower branches, painted in silver and gold. At the top, instead of a traditional star or angel, perched a figure of the Green Man, his face composed of leaves and vines.
“It’s been in storage a while. I had a hell of a job straightening the branches. Not sure if I really succeeded.”
Ru turned to find Jake standing in the doorway, looking stiff and awkward. Next to him, Monty wagged his tail in greeting. Jake held two mugs in his hands.
“It’s lovely,” Ru said.
Jake’s shoulders relaxed slightly. He crossed the living room floor, offering a mug to Ru. “Tea. I’ve just made it.”
Their fingers brushed in the handover, a fleeting, casual contact that to Ru didn’t feel fleeting or casual at all. Jake’seyes met his with a flicker of something, of acknowledgment, perhaps, before he looked away.
“Thank you.” Ru cradled the mug between his palms. “I didn’t expect…”
“A Christmas tree? Wasn’t sure I’d put it up. Haven’t for a few years.”
Ru put his mug down to take a closer look. “Some of these ornaments look old.”
Jake nodded. “Most of them came from my nan. She always said they’d been handed down the generations. She didn’t leave a formal will because she had bugger all, but she did write a letter specifying I was to have them.”
“Which makes them valuable. Emotionally, I mean.”
“They’re priceless.”
Ru bent down to examine the strange assortment. Plaster Santas which didn’t look like any that had adorned his family tree growing up, they were pared down and primitive rather than jolly and cuddly. Ru peered at one of the little wooden figures. A naked man, with giant horns sprouting from his head.
“Cernunoss, sometimes known as The Horned One,” Jake said. “He was an important god in the old Celtic religion and was associated with nature, wild animals, and fertility. The Christians turned him into the devil, because of the horns. Biggest piece of character assassination in history.”
Ru straightened up and turned to Jake. “They’re incredible. Wouldn’t let the local vicar see them, though. They’d have a fit.”
Jake smiled, his features relaxing a little. “You should see St. Bridget’s, up on the high moor. It’s more of a hermit’s cell than a church, and its stone carvings don’t have much to do with anything in the Bible. It’s a site of pilgrimage for some. You can’t get a vehicle within about five miles of the place,” he added.
“I’d like to see it, when the weather’s better.”
If I’m here, if I’m around… if you want me to be…
Their gazes met, before sliding away.
“I never put it up when Phil was here,” Jake said suddenly, his voice loud in the otherwise silent room. “He called it a piece of tat, said it looked like something from a charity shop. That really pissed me off, because my nan had given it to me, when she upgraded to one of those pre-decorated silver tinsel ones.” He smiled at the memory of his nan, but almost immediately it fell from his lips as a frown creased his brow. “He said we should get a ‘proper’ tree. A real one. Because it was more stylish.”
Jake ran the fingertips of his free hand over the wonky, near threadbare branches, his touch as tender as though he were caressing a lover. Ru’s chest tightened and his skin tingled, knowing how Jake’s touch could feel.
Ru cleared his rough, dry throat. “I’m glad you decided to put it up, because it’s perfect.”
