Love At Christmas, Actually. Jenny Oliver

      She looked at Lucas, trying to find the exact changes of age. His hair was shorter, his face softer somehow, the stubble more fitting for a grown man than a teenager who could never seem to even it out. He was painfully beautiful, the pouting lips still capable of pouting, even now whilst he was softly humming along to the radio. She wondered how she looked to him now, whether she’d matured into the woman he’d expected, or whether she looked the same. Or worse, she was some aged disappointment, simply a mother and nothing more. Not that it mattered. They were being friendly. That was it.

      ‘Where are we going for dinner?’

      ‘Surprise!’ He sent a smile her way.

      ‘I don’t think anything about this place can surprise me,’ she shrugged, leaning back in the chair. ‘Well, except for the fact that you’re here. And Estelle’s here.’

      ‘We didn’t all need to make it in the Big Bad City. Besides, didn’t you see we have a Subway now? We’re moving into the twenty-first century, one sandwich shop at a time.’

      ‘I have missed it, a little,’ she said thoughtfully, looking at the tall pines that lined the road, the barest sprinkling of snow on their top branches. It was a beautiful place to live. But somehow, it just held shame and regret. Like she was stepping back into being that person. The Megan who had so much promise, and then was gone. She straightened her back a little. She wasn’t that person. She wasn’t an angel or a devil. She was just her, doing her best.

      Lucas pulled the car into his driveway, little fairy lights around the doorframe.

      ‘Are we stopping for something?’

      ‘No…I wanted to make you dinner,’ Lucas shrugged, jumping out of the car and running round to open her door for her.

      She looked at him in confusion. ‘Why did you do that?’

      ‘Being a gentleman,’ he frowned, closing the door behind her, and leading the way to the house, hand resting on the small of her back.

      ‘And you’re going to cook? You think I trust you after the macaroni cheese incident of 2001?’

      ‘I can cook!’

      ‘That’s what you said then, too!’ Megan laughed, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Sorry Luke, thank you for wanting to cook me dinner.’ She paused. ‘And if you give me food poisoning before Christmas, I’m never coming back again.’

      He raised his eyebrows as they walked into his house, flicking the lights on. ‘sSo you were planning on visiting a bit more then?’

      ‘There are some things worth sticking around for, I think,’ she said, staring intently at the objects in the room, flicking from the guitars to the massive vases on the floor.

      He smiled to himself, and went to the kitchen. ‘Wine?’

      ‘Ooh, yes please!’ She hovered in the living room. ‘Do you need me to do anything?’

      ‘Nope, you make yourself comfortable. Fizzy okay?’ He pulled a bottle of Prosecco from the fridge, holding it up.

      ‘That is never a question you need to ask,’ she grinned, coming over to the kitchen area, wincing as he expertly twisted the bottle, and the cork popped. He poured into two champagne flutes and handed her one.

      ‘Cheers,’ he grinned.

      ‘Cheers.’ They clinked glasses and she sipped delicately. ‘I can’t believe you have proper champagne glasses! What bachelor knows to have different types of glassware?’

      ‘They’re only from IKEA,’ Lucas shrugged.

      ‘But…you’re a grown-up now. I don’t even have my own cutlery. We just live at Anna’s, using her stuff.’ Megan frowned. ‘I really should have thought about creating my own identity by this point.’

      ‘Are you thinking of moving out, getting your own place?’ Lucas asked as he turned on the oven and got out the chopping board, washing his hands. She was shocked by how at home he was in the kitchen.

      ‘Never really thought about it. We could, Anna will only accept a minuscule amount of rent, as much as I argue, so we have the savings.’ She sipped her wine. ‘But we love being there. I love that I have a friend, that we have a family. I didn’t want it to just be me and Skye. I was willing to do it, but kids need family. She’s going to need someone to moan about me to when she reaches her teens.’

      ‘Very true.’ Lucas smiled up at her whilst she perched on a bar stool across the counter from him, and she felt her heart chirrup.

      ‘You ever think about leaving?’ she asked innocently, trying not to return to those accusations she’d made the other night, that he’d thrown away his life.

      ‘All the time,’ he shrugged, ‘but also, I like it here. I have this place, I have my routine. I like my work. I have my avid fans waiting at the Nag’s Head for me every week…what’s not to love?’

      ‘You want a family someday?’ Why were these questions so personal? She and Lucas would have talked about stuff like this all the time when they were kids. What they wanted to do, how they wanted to live. Now it felt like some sort of online dating profile, where she was assessing him for compatibility.

      ‘Yeah…’ He trailed off, as if there was an alternate answer coming, but said nothing.

      ‘Yeah?’

      He took a gulp of his drink, and focused on chopping cucumber, very delicate and precise strokes. ‘The reason I came back…after I got married, we were on the road, touring, having a great time. Living the rock and roll life. And Amber, my ex-wife, she got pregnant.’ His mouth twitched into a grimace, and the knife hovered above the salad, before he began chopping again. ‘She had an abortion. Didn’t tell me til a couple of months later. Seems most of the women I know don’t think I’m father material.’

      ‘Lucas –’ Megan started.

      ‘No, it’s fine.’ He put up a hand, tried to smile but didn’t meet her eyes. ‘My old man always used to say the same. I’m not dependable, not steady. Not that the old git knew what he was talking about, he came and went so many times growing up that it was like having a drunken clown turn up on a whim.’

      ‘I remember,’ Megan said softly, recalling Lucas’ thirteenth birthday when his dad arrived with a kid’s tricycle, stinking of booze, and fell asleep in the back garden under the hedgerows. Lucas hadn’t said anything, pretended it hadn’t happened and got on with his party.

      ‘So, that’s when I came back here, got my teaching degree part time, and here I am. Bachelor pad and slightly old rock god.’

      ‘You still seem to have your teeny bopper fans as always,’ she smiled, thinking of the girls in the front row at the pub, looking now as they had then, enamoured and in love with the idea of Lucas Bright. She’d always been so proud to get down off the stage and know that she loved the real him, the one who could sit quietly for hours. To her, he didn’t have to be performing or singing to be loved.

      ‘Ah, they’re all into teenage boy bands who sound like they’ve had their bollocks chopped off. Which is fine by me. Having a bunch of fifteen-year-olds sigh at you on stage when you’re seventeen is cool. When you’re nearly thirty? Not so much.’

      He got a tray out of the fridge and put it into the oven, dumped the salad into a bowl, and grabbed the bottle of wine. ‘Want to sit on the sofa for a bit? It’ll take a while.’

      ‘Did you plan this, Lucas Bright?’ Megan teased, noting his cheeks redden.

      ‘I pre-made some chicken. It’s hardly rocket science.’

      ‘Used to be.’

      ‘Well,