Written as part of a Christmas Instagram challenge for the twelve days of Christmas, this very HSA Christmas is a unique series set in no particular time within the series; written simply for some festive cheer.
The switching on of the Christmas lights in Barnstaple was something the group always attended together. Wearing their thickest coats, scarves wound around their necks, gloves and a cardboard cup of hot chocolate each, they joined the thickening crowds clustered in the high street which had been shut off that evening for the festivities. It was a silly tradition and the local ‘celebrity’ picked to switch on the lights was always a nobody they mocked mercilessly, but it had become a staple of a true HSA Christmas and even this year, that hadn’t changed.
Blowing into the small slit in the lid of her cup, Emily watched as her breath clouded in a thick fog in front of her, warming her chilled face momentarily before it faded into the icy air. She was also warmed somewhat by all the bodies pressing in around her. One of those bodies being Will. She shivered again but this time, it wasn’t from the cold.
“You alright, Ems?” Sam asked. “Want my jacket?”
“Are you cold?” Will piped up, leaning down from behind her, his shaggy dark hair falling out from underneath his beanie hat and into his eyes. He shook it away bashfully as she smiled up at him. “Do you want my scarf?”
Neither Emily nor Will saw Sam rolling his eyes at the rest of their friends smirking knowingly to themselves. Sam simply readjusted his jacket and turned back to face the podium upon the stage where the town mayor was getting ready to start her speech, leaving Emily and Will to gaze at one another.
“No, it’s okay,” Emily murmured, rubbing her cold lips together.
Little did she know, Will’s focus hadn’t left her mouth; not those bow-shaped lips reddening in the cold or the small mole to the upper right of her top lip that he so longed to kiss.
“No, honest, have it.” Quickly, he unwound the scarf from his neck and draped it around hers.
Instantly, Emily’s nostrils were flooded with Will’s scent; the mint of his deodorant, the sweet smell of his sweat and of course, that gorgeous natural odour he emitted that drove her wild. All at once, she was overwhelmed with heat flooding across her body, warming her from head to toe.
“Better?” Will smiled, tying a small knot at the front just beneath her chin.
She quaked under his touch, her cup of hot chocolate trembling in her hand. He steadied it with a gentle grip around her fist.
“Are you going to Anna’s this Christmas?” Will asked, his hand staying around hers.
She never wanted him to let go.
“I think so – if Rupert lets me,” Emily replied. Her eyes danced to his hand and, much to her disappointment, he seemed to realise he was still holding it.
He dropped his hand quickly, chuckling awkwardly. “Sorry – I, sorry.”
Emily wanted to tell him that he didn’t need to be sorry, and that now he was shifting away, even as she wore his scarf, she was becoming cold all over again. She didn’t have the bravery to move closer. All she could do was turn and face the front as the mayor finished her speech and clapped on the local ‘celebrity’, a radio DJ, who had been picked to turn on the lights. The crowd clapped politely and Emily listened distantly as the DJ began another boring speech, hand hovering over that lever on the podium. Soon, the lights hanging above them, draped in an arch over the narrow high street, strung from building to building, would be switched on and the crowd would be illuminated in golds, greens, reds and whites. It would become a Winter Wonderland, a Christmas spectacle and yet all Emily could think about was Will.
Glancing beside her, her gaze caressed his handsome profile, soaking up every second she could look at him this way. Savouring it all to warm her for many nights to come. And just as she went to turn reluctantly away, Will smiled down at her. Caught in the act, Emily stuttered for an excuse but couldn’t even conjure words then as Will leant down to her, his tousled toffee fringe grazing her forehead.
“Your hot chocolate’s getting cold.” He grinned, nodding down to her cup.
She’d almost forgotten all about it. What was hot chocolate to Will Bennet?
Will Bennet so close she could smell the coffee on his breath and almost taste his soft lips as his grin eased to a kind smile, his eyes searching her face. For what, she wasn’t sure, only that when the lights switched on and the gloom that had shadowed them before was shooed away by the festive illumination above them, Will had never looked more handsome; gorgeous and utterly unattainable.
But before Emily’s heart could fade like a dying bulb, Will leant even closer. His voice was no more than a whisper.
“Spending Christmas with you is the only present I’ll need.”
And with those simple words, Emily lit up even brighter than any Christmas light.
A very HSA Christmas Copyright © 2020 Jodie May Mullen