Chapter 1

ONE

‘And so, cheers, everyone! Here's to Christmas and the New Year and the next quarter and…YAY!' I raise my cocktail in the air and hold my phone at arm's length for a group selfie. As we are all squidged in together in this cosy Mexican restaurant booth, the idea of a photo to mark the occasion hasn't gone down well. Frank looks out from under his sombrero, scrunching his nose to move his glasses up his face, while the other two shuffle closer, awkwardly.

‘Where am I looking?' asks Jasper, frowning. ‘I'm rubbish at selfies, I'm always looking in the wrong place…'

‘The black dot…There…' points Leo. ‘Crap, was I pointing in that picture? You'll have to take it again, Maggie. Otherwise, it'll be me with my finger looking like I'm phoning home.'

Jasper laughs – that laugh where I don't know whether he's having an asthma attack or genuinely finding life funny. I tap on my phone and take a glance at the picture. Leo is pointing, Jasper has his eyes closed and Frank's sombrero blocks out the light. I also need to learn how to convey excitement more appropriately in photos. My eyes are bulging and I'm grinning so widely you can see my wisdom teeth. With my long brown hair hanging in a ponytail over my shoulder, I look like some sort of comedy horse. We will definitely be taking that again.

‘Just look in the general direction, lads, and we'll try again. Everyone say "Wifi for life!"' I squeal. Jasper raises an eyebrow; he rarely gets my jokes.

‘But it's the twenty-seventh of November, Maggie,' Frank replies with a heavy hint of sarcasm. ‘There is not a hint of Christmas in this place.'

I look around, listening to the November rain thunder down, almost drowning out the mariachi music. Some Halloween décor is still hanging near the kitchens. ‘Imagine the cactus in the corner is a Christmas tree.'

They all look confused, like teenagers who've been dragged out against their will.

‘How does Darth Vader like this turkey?' I say, trying to lighten the mood, and holding my phone up again ready. Their faces are blank. Nothing. And you call yourself geeks? ‘On the dark side?'

And finally I get a laugh. I take the picture, then turn my phone around to have a look. Frank throws up a touristy peace sign, Jasper is pulling some sort of Elvis lip curl, we've caught Leo mid-laugh, I look less horsey. It'll do. I'll print it out and put it on our office noticeboard as a reminder of the time when we attempted to have a life beyond our office walls.

You see, I had thought this would be a good idea. Given that our office smells a lot like Doritos Cool Original chips for most of the year, I thought, where better to host our Christmas dinner than in a Mexican restaurant? This place has hats you can wear and all-you-can-eat fajitas and free Mexican-style Day of the Dead tattoos. It's fun, and I suspect what is lacking in all our lives is a bit of fun. And daylight, to be fair.

Unfortunately, this is the reality when you're the IT department of a mid-sized corporate financial assets company; you get put down in the basement. This place is everything our office isn't. I look around the restaurant on this quiet Wednesday evening in November. There's no shortage of light and colour here. It's a vision in teal and bright pink, with large murals of dancing jalapenos holding maracas.

‘Anyone know what Queso Fundido is?' Frank asks, scanning the menu.

‘According to this, it's like Mexican fondue,' Leo says, consulting his phone. This is very Leo, he's meticulous and will check every detail on that menu. In fact, they all have their phones out and I feel I know them all so well that I can say with some certainty that Frank is most likely texting his mother to check in and Jasper is looking up reviews for this place.

‘Maggie, someone once had a fajita here and found a human fingernail in their salsa,' Jasper whispers, looking distressed, his head down low so the serving staff don't hear him. ‘One star and reported to the Food Standards Agency.'

I hate it when I'm right. I glance over at his phone and scroll down. ‘The restaurant replied, Jas. It was a bit of onion.' I smile at him. Jasper is wound so incredibly tight. He needs the tequila the most.

‘Is there a Christmas menu?' Frank asks.

I shake my head. However much I don't want to admit it, Frank may be right. They've not really ramped up the festive in this joint yet. Not a turkey fajita in sight. But then I also don't know how to tell my lads that I only discovered last week that HR had forgotten to send out the memo to us in IT about the Christmas lunch planned in town. Some grand party in a fancy hotel; there was a dress code, a fun raffle and ice skating. I only found out because I was fixing someone's hard drive and saw a printout of the set menu on their desk. I'm sorry, Maggie. We always forget IT . They don't seem to forget us when their computers are filled with viruses because they've tried to download porn again, but I said nothing. For ‘health and safety reasons' there was no capacity to add us to the guest list, so I took matters into my own hands. As the team's line manager, it was down to me to ensure they weren't forgotten.

‘Would you like some tortilla chips to share?' a waitress says, approaching the table. She's young and blonde and has a fitted T-shirt on that says ‘Ask Me About My Nachos'.

I see Frank snigger but then blush immediately. It's a member of the opposite sex; if he had to ask her about her nachos he'd implode and die. Leo looks down at the table not even taking notice of her. Jasper studies the prices of said tortilla chips.

‘That would be great. Could we also get a selection of the dips?' I say on the table's behalf. She nods. She looks at our table with bemusement, trying to work out what this is. I can understand the confusion. It's not quite a work party, not quite a social gathering, none of us quite match. I can't even explain it myself. We all joined the company within a year of each other four years ago and have stayed in our IT basement ever since.

As the waitress leaves, Frank waves at her. Yeah, Frank. Don't do that.

‘So…' I say, trying to prompt a conversation. These guys may be geeks but they have excellent manners and put away their phones. ‘Tell me what you're all doing for Christmas when the office shuts down.'

They all sit around that table and stare into space. We are a tight-knit little unit in IT but we rarely delve into the personal. Our conversations mainly take place in our WhatsApp group, where we send coffee orders to the last person in, and in quiet moments where we're playing online games and trading insults to each other online though we're sitting across the room from each other.

‘I'm going home. To Kendal,' Leo says in his soft Northern accent. If there's someone in our team I know least about it's probably Leo. He's quiet. He comes in and does his work, gets his haircut every two weeks, owns a healthy line in hoodies that he wears over obscure album cover T-shirts, and the only time he makes a fuss is when someone re-stocks the teabags with anything other than Yorkshire Tea. ‘Traditional Christmas at home, country walks, family and turkey.'

I nod, smiling at how wholesome it sounds.

‘My sister is getting married on the twenty-first,' Frank says, looking pained. ‘Big event in town. I'm an usher.'

‘That's exciting!' I say, wondering why his tone is so flat. Frank finds very little joy in life and sometimes looks very confused by it all. His mother cuts his hair and he comes into work wearing the same black polo shirt and Adidas Gazelles every day. I hope he washes that shirt. If not, he has five of them, all the same.

‘You've not met my family. I've got a whole load of aunts coming in from Singapore. It will be mayhem. I may need to use official holiday time to get over it,' he informs us, annoyance in his tone. ‘It will literally be days of aunts asking me why my younger sister is getting married before me and why I'm so skinny.'

‘That's your natural body shape, no?' Jasper asks him.

‘Exactly! But it's an Asian thing. You're either too skinny, too fat, too perpetually rubbish at life. I have one aunt who thinks my job is playing video games for a living.'

We all laugh. We do play a fair bit of video games to bide our time, but we also fix stuff and code and shit.

‘Are you taking anyone?' I ask him.

Frank laughs, a little too loudly. ‘No. This is half the problem. The invite specified a plus-one but I am perpetually single. People will just stand there, point and laugh at me for going on my own.'

‘Could you take Jasper?' I ask, knowing that they're the very best of friends.

Jasper widens his eyes at me. ‘Because bringing his gay friend to a wedding won't cause the traditional aunties to lose their shit?'

‘I'm not gay, Maggie,' Frank tells me.

‘I know that…' I tell them, feeling the need to explain myself. ‘But a wedding plus-one can be platonic. I feel Jasper would be very good at fending off overbearing relatives.'

‘Then I'd like to come along too. I quite like the idea of seeing Jasper putting Frank's aunties in their place,' Leo says, chuckling.

‘More like I'd put them in headlocks,' Jasper says.

Frank grimaces, imagining the extra drama that would entail. ‘Then would it be OK if I respectfully rebuff that idea, as much as I like you, Jasper.'

Jasper puts a hand to the air to let Frank know he also thinks it's a terrible idea. Well, I tried.

‘Jasper, what are you doing for Christmas?' I ask him, still trying to keep the conversation alive.

‘I'll be going home to the family manor too. Few days there and then I'm going skiing,' Jasper tells us.

‘Fancy schmancy,' Leo mutters.

‘Not really,' he says defensively. We always joke with Jasper as he has a double-barrelled surname and, well, he's called Jasper, which is a name for posh boys and ginger cats. He usually swerves the posh jokes which does make me wonder. Jasper has a bushel of uncontrollable curly hair, lives in a range of loud Hawaiian style shirts and clashing socks. I see him as a skier. I bet he tells people off when they're using the ski lifts incorrectly.

‘And you?' Leo asks me.

I smile. ‘Oh, it'll be a quiet one. I'm house-sitting for my parents. They're on a Christmas cruise in the Norwegian fjords so it'll be me and a box of mince pies. I've built a catalogue of Christmas films to get me through the season from Home Alone to Bad Santa .'

They all sit there quietly for a moment looking at me. It was something that had transpired over the last fortnight – the prospect of my first ever Christmas alone – and although at times it felt a tad bleak, I'm not one to wallow. It's just a day.

‘You'll be on your own?' Frank asks, confused, a real look of sadness on his face.

‘Well, it was either that or go with my parents on that cruise where the average age was likely to be sixty plus.'

‘You could find yourself a sugar daddy,' Jasper jokes, laughing.

‘What? Have a Christmas fling with a Santa lookalike? I say. The mood lightens around the table. ‘All, this is my new boyfriend, Kris Kringle.'

‘He only comes once a year,' Frank adds.

‘And you should see the size of his sack,' says Leo.

We all cackle loudly, to the horror of a couple a few booths down who I suspect might be on a first date. But I will admit to liking that sound. We are a very mismatched bunch but we all share the same sense of humour, we are all in our twenties, single without family commitments, and have grown to be comfortable in each other's company. We have this shared interested in all things tech and can argue for hours about whether we prefer Mac or Windows. As weird as it sounds, I think these three might be some of my best friends. I may not say that out loud though, because the admission would scare them.

‘That makes me a little sad,' Leo admits as the laughter dies down.

‘Oh, don't be sad,' I say, charmed by his thoughtfulness. ‘I'm fine with my own company. Pyjamas all day, not having to share my chocolates. I'll be alright.'

As I say it out loud though, I sense that they don't quite believe me. I guess after four constant years in their company they know when I'm not quite telling the truth. Like that time I told them we'd made the company newsletter because the Wiseman Brothers wanted to praise our good work. Never happened. They knew because they also read the company newsletter.

‘Actually, I'm going to a friend's for the afternoon so it won't just be me on my lonesome for that whole time,' I say, trying to allay their worries. Leo looks me in the eye. He knows that may be a lie. The fact is I'm still trying to work out how I feel about all of it. I don't feel abandoned and I think I'm not too daunted by the prospect but on the other hand I don't want to infiltrate people's Christmases. For many, it's sacred family time that you don't want to encroach on. Everyone is so rushed off their feet, stressed and busy that it feels wrong to add to people's plates. I'll be fine on my own.

‘Well, that's good,' Frank says.

Leo still studies my face trying to work me out, but the moment is interrupted by the waitress returning with chips and dips.

‘Chips, guac, salsa and frijoles negroes. Enjoy!'

‘Yay!' Frank claps his hands. The waitress doesn't know what to do with that. Jasper rakes through the dips with a chip, looking for fingernails.

‘Well, before we get too drunk and knee deep in quesadillas, we come bearing gifts…' Leo says. He reaches into his rucksack and pulls out an immaculately wrapped gift in brown paper and a red gingham bow. There's a gift card with my name written on it in perfect calligraphy. I widen my eyes to see it as I know I haven't got anything with me. It may be a Christmas meal but we still have a month before the big day itself.

‘What? I…'

‘Didn't you get our email about the Secret Santa?' Leo says plainly.

‘There was an email?' I reply, confused. I'm good with emails, why didn't I catch this? I am mortified. I'll have to buy them all extra drinks. Then I look at them and see them all smile. Oh, they're joking? That is good. I think.

Leo hands the gift to me. ‘Maggie, we know that we weren't invited to the big corporate do with the magician and the ice skating…' he admits.

‘And we know that you did this so we could have a Christmas do of sorts,' Jasper continues.

‘You know?' I say, feeling awful on their behalf.

‘We do talk to other people in the building. Maintenance also weren't invited,' Frank tells me. ‘Their response has been to block all the toilets on every other floor.'

I laugh, my hands wrapped tightly around the package, emotion welling up in me. ‘I just wanted you to have a nice night out. You do work hard and I'm sorry they forgot us…' I explain. ‘I didn't get you anything though. I was going to do that nearer Christmas.'

Leo shakes his head. ‘Oh, this is just something stupid to say thank you.'

‘You want me to open it now?' I ask them.

They all nod in unison. I slip my fingers under the brown paper and pull out a framed picture of a screenshot. I laugh so loudly to see it. It's the time when I got the Wordle on my first guess. It's our daily tradition. We all get in the office, wake up our computers and do the Wordle before we do anything else. The last one to get it has to make the tea for the rest of the day. I remember that day clearly. AUDIO. When those green squares flicked up one by one, I danced, I gloated, I went on about it for days like it was my life's best achievement.

‘We thought you could hang it in the office…' Leo tells me, smiling. ‘Then maybe you'd stop going on about it.'

I hold the frame to my chest. ‘I love it and I love you all. Thank you.'

Frank doesn't quite know how to absorb that expression of emotion, Jasper scrunches his face up, almost in disgust, but Leo looks at me, smiling to see my excitement from such a silly gift.

‘Well, I think that deserves a toast,' I say, holding my cocktail glass up high. ‘To IT and Christmas, and the fact I once beat you all at Wordle!' I exclaim. They all hold their glasses up, shaking their heads. ‘Merry Christmas, everyone!' I say a little too animatedly. Some of the other diners in the restaurant turn to look at me.

Our waitress has returned to take our orders. ‘No. No. It's November, love,' she tells me. ‘Shush now about Christmas or you'll have to leave. Now what can I get you all? Would you like to ask me about my nachos?'