Chapter 4

FOUR

1st December

‘You'll never guess what I found,' Leo says, bursting through the door of the office, clutching a couple of plastic bags. ‘The Starbucks on the corner has those bags where they give away all their food that's going off. Dinner is sorted.'

I look at the excitement on Leo's face. The cold has made his cheeks red and he pulls off his green beanie and ruffles a hand through his hair. When I said to go and grab us some dinner, I wasn't particularly fussy, but I hope he's not got that food out of a bin. Such is Leo. He's particularly fond of a bargain, a free film screening, cheap eats – you could call it miserly, but in a city such as London, it's actually quite savvy. As sad as it sounds, he helped me knock two hundred pounds off my car insurance and, as you get older, those are the hacks and tips that make someone a very useful friend.

‘CHRISTMAS TREE brOWNIES!' he says, holding them aloft like a trophy.

I walk over to his desk. ‘And three cold brie and cran-merry toasties…' I say, sifting through his haul .

‘No fear…Eric in maintenance has a sandwich toaster in his cupboard. We are sorted.'

I smile, pulling out a handful of smaller bottles. ‘We also seem sorted for turmeric shots.'

‘For health,' he smirks. ‘'Tis the season to look after one's immunity.'

‘I know that carol well,' I reply.

There is still some bright festive excitement in his face that makes me smile in reply as he takes off his coat and hangs it off his chair, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. ‘Did Frank and Jasper not fancy it then?' he asks me, looking around the empty office to see his colleagues decidedly absent.

‘Frank had a wedding tux fitting and Jasper looked like he'd rather pull his own teeth, so it's just you and me. And all our toasties…' I joke.

His excitement calms for a moment as he laughs under his breath. I don't quite know what that laugh means. Perhaps he feels he's been lumbered with having to stay in the office with me and put up the Christmas decorations.

‘I mean, it's past clocking off hours. You don't have to stay, please don't feel obliged,' I tell him.

He looks at me, undeterred by the lack of helpers. ‘Rubbish. You can't do this on your own. I've got all this food now too. Can't eat it by myself…Also…' He heads over to a filing cabinet and starts to pull out long lengths of paper chains.

‘Leo…' I say, looking at them closely. ‘Are those recycled output reports?'

‘Don't worry, I'll shred them later. I also made hanging snowflakes,' he tells me, carefully getting them out of the drawer.

I bite my lip, not sure whether to laugh because, in truth, I'm mildly impressed at the ingenuity. ‘They're very good.'

‘I feel you're mocking me, Maggie. You got a face on that's telling me you think I'm a Scrooge. These decorations would have set you back a lot in the shops.'

‘I am not mocking you. I appreciate the craftwork and your thriftiness,' I tell him.

‘I went on Pinterest especially.'

I beam. ‘But did you make those on company time?'

‘Of course not. I would never do that,' he says, putting a hand to his chest. He laughs as I watch him head over to the small stepladder we've borrowed from maintenance, perusing the table of Blu Tack, drawing pins and twine that I've brought along to help. When I decorate, I come prepared. There's twenty metres of LEDs, a six-foot tree and a box of carefully selected red and white baubles that will transform this place by the morning. I head to my computer and open a playlist that I play ad nauseum every December, so much so that by the second week of advent it starts to send Jasper a little doolally. Leo hears Michael Bublé and smiles.

‘You've unleashed the Bublé,' he says.

‘It's December. It is permitted to let him out.' I start to sing along with the song, tying my hair into a scrappy bun so I can get down to business. Leo watches me curiously, maybe because I am not great at holding a tune.

‘So did you really carry that tree on the Tube this morning?' Leo asks me as he sticks one of his paper garlands to the corner of the room and considers the ceiling tiles carefully so he can festoon it properly.

‘I did,' I say proudly, getting it out of the box and piecing it together. ‘I got looks, and one commuter called me out for the space I was taking up, but I did.'

‘You're committed to Christmas then,' he says.

I look up as he stretches his arms above his head to attach the garland, revealing a slice of his stomach, just above the waistband of his jeans. I quickly avert my gaze. I'm not sure why. In the summer, when it gets super hot in here, Jasper has been known to sit in his chair topless. But since our Mexican Christmas outing, things feel like they're changing with Leo. I find I'm hyper-aware of more stolen glances over monitors, more coffee breaks together, more laughter over ridiculous IT requests. It's weird, but I find I look for him more in the room, and an excitement overwhelms me when he arrives at work.

‘I am committed to joy. I think Christmas makes people happy,' I explain. ‘And I feel it's my job as your manager to keep you guys happy.'

‘Well, you do a good job,' Leo says as he stares at the ceiling, unaware he's passed me a compliment that makes me smile to myself.

‘And you also seem to have the same enthusiasm…with the crafting and all of that,' I smirk.

‘That's growing up with a crafty mum and two older sisters. Christmas for me is all about the glitter, my mum making wreaths and homemade mince pies. It's very homely.'

‘It sounds perfect,' I tell him.

‘You'll find out in a few weeks,' he says, almost teasing me by not saying anymore.

It is, however, of huge intrigue to me to be spending time with each of my three workmates, to be finally putting faces to the random names that have cropped up in conversation. In superhero terms, it's like I'll be able to understand each of their origin stories. I drag the tree over to the corner of the room by the coffee machine and start to untangle the lights, reaching up to try and attach the first bulb to the top of the tree.

‘Hold up there, shortie.' I hear Leo jumping off the stepladder and he comes over, our hands brushing as he takes the light from me and attaches it with ease to the top.

I am very conscious of his body leaning over mine. ‘How tall are you?' I spurt out.

‘Six foot. You're what…five three?' he guesses.

‘Five three and a half actually,' I jest. ‘I take offence to the term shortie in the workplace actually. It's discrimination.'

‘Then I apologise, boss. It's good I stayed though.'

‘Exactly. You're better on a ladder too. Frank doesn't have the balance.'

He laughs and it makes me feel warm inside to hear that sound. ‘Well, given I have the height, then maybe I'll do the walkaround with the lights and you can look at the distribution, how does that sound?' he suggests.

I pause for a moment. Is it strange that the practicality of that sentence is appealing to me? I nod, not saying a word, as he takes the lights from my hands and starts to hang them off the tree while I follow. We're tech people, so there are always methods with us; things have to be aligned, spaced properly, none of this haphazard decorating you may see in the marketing department. I watch his face as he attaches the lights with care, looking back at me every so often. It feels nice to be bonded to him over something so simple but it's confusing too, and I am keen to keep this unawkward so, of course, I start to sing along to the Bublé. Leo doesn't have to say a word. The laughter tells me everything I need to know.

‘So, the Christmas plans we've kind of made for you…' he tells me, I think in a bid to stop me singing. ‘We weren't too presumptuous, were we?'

‘Not at all. I thought it quite sweet that you thought about me in that way.'

‘I just didn't want you to be alone…'

‘Was it your idea, then?' I ask curiously.

Leo pauses. ‘ We didn't want you to be alone.'

I smile. I never worry about being alone. In recent years, it's felt better to sometimes be single than living through the kind of half-arsed, ill-advised relationships I've got into in the past. The killer is perhaps the loneliness. When you live in a big city like London that's busy and heaving all the time, it can sometimes feel like you're a tiny fish in a massive ocean. So when other fish notice you swimming out there on your own, when they empathise and extend an invitation, it warms the cockles, shall we say.

‘ We also wanted to show you that we appreciate you. We know how hard you work and you keep us all in line. It's the least we could do.'

It's difficult to know how to respond when bombarded with all these compliments. It's very Leo. You sense he's been raised with manners, by strong women (I've learned this much about him). There's a no-nonsense attitude to him too that means you know he's not bullshitting.

‘Well, you're only as good as the team around you,' I say, trying to downplay his kindness.

He finishes unwinding the lights, finding the plug and the socket on the wall. ‘Are we doing a countdown then?' he asks me, his hand reaching for the switch. ‘You did check they worked first, yes?'

‘Have we not met before?' I joke.

‘Well, 3-2-1…' The lights flicker on and I find a setting that is pleasing to the eye, a slow glow and fade. With Bublé serenading us, it certainly feels like Christmas has arrived in this basement and I feel a festive glow that makes me grin. I watch as Leo drops to the floor, rearranging his body under the branches.

‘All OK there?' I ask him as he puts his hands behind his head.

‘Please tell me you do this,' he says from the floor.

‘What's that then? Are you telling me you're a gift?' I joke.

‘He laughs and shakes his head, patting the space next to him, and I tentatively drop to my knees and shuffle round to lie next to him.

‘This is a thing?' I ask, conscious of how close our bodies are .

‘I think it makes more sense when the tree is real, but my sisters and I used to do this when we were kids. It's like looking through a forest, all the lights twinkling and poking through the branches.'

I lie there and look up. He has a point. Naturally, it might be more atmospheric if there was a burning log fire nearby, and real pine needles under my back instead of the flat pile of an office carpet, but there is something about the light through the tree and all its magic.

‘Best Christmas gift you ever received…Go!' Leo asks me.

I'm charmed by his animation. ‘I got a bike with a basket once. My parents wrapped me up this ugly jumper with a squirrel on the front and made me think that was my gift and then told me to look in the garden.' I watch Leo's face beam to hear me recount the story. ‘I used to ride around the local park with a Fruit Shoot in that basket. I thought I was so bloody cool. You?'

‘Hands down, our parents got us a Mr Frosty one year. We lost our shit,' he tells me.

I laugh. ‘You lucky bastards. Never had one.'

Leo shakes his head. ‘Then you missed out. Snow cones for days. Gift of dreams.'

I turn to see the joy in his face as he talks about something so simple, the lights bouncing off his face. What is this? We're simply lying here on the office floor. But Leo's arm is next to mine and I can hear him sighing, completely relaxed. I've been next to Leo before. I've sat next to him on park benches in our lunch hour. I've lain under dusty desks, fixing wiring and attaching hard drives with him, but this is different and for a moment I can't catch my breath to have him so close like this.

He turns to find my gaze and smiles. ‘It's a bit magic, isn't it?'

I nod, trying not to avert my gaze but feel his hand reach over to mine, clutching my fingers tightly .

‘Maggie…I want to say something…'

I look into his blue eyes, his expression softened, my breath still caught in my throat.

‘THANK FUCK YOU'RE STILL HERE!' a voice suddenly booms at the door. We both sit up to see a man in a suit, his tie undone, glasses on his forehead. His panic is held back when he realises we are both lying on our office floor. ‘Shit, have I disturbed something?'

‘No, we were just putting our tree up…' I tell him, innocently. ‘You're from finance, yes? Julian. How can we help?'

‘We need one of you fast. We are royally screwed. A few of us were working on a presentation today and it's all bloody gone. Into the ether. Literally, we fly out to Brussels tomorrow morning to present. We're beyond screwed.'

I get to my feet. ‘Don't panic. I'm sure it's there…Did you back up the files?'

‘Is that a thing?' Julian asks.

Leo and I look at each other and smile. ‘It is. Look, head back upstairs and I'll come find you. Try not to panic, don't do anything to the computer until I get there.'

We hear Julian's hurried footsteps as he heads back to the lift, murmuring on the phone to his colleagues that the tech lady geek is on her way. I guess I've been called worse. I turn back to Leo who rearranges his hair and I take a deep breath, readjusting myself.

‘Seriously, if you need to go then I understand. Please don't stay if you have somewhere else to be,' I tell him. ‘I can get Frank to help tomorrow. It should be a team effort.'

He furrows his brow at me. ‘There is nowhere else I'd rather be.'

We pause for a moment to look at each other and the intensity of it makes me gulp loudly. I can't quite tell if the expression on his face is panic or sincerity, but this can't be a moment. Julian flies to Brussels tomorrow.

Leo takes a deep breath. ‘What I mean is that I spent a lot of time on the garlands, I don't trust anyone else to put them up…and you're too short, clearly.'

I laugh. ‘Well, get them toasties on too, yeah? I've got twenty metres of LEDs to get up.'

He gives me a thumbs up, festive tunes still playing in the background, and as I leave the room, possibly swaying to the music, I try to work out if it's the Christmas lights or something else that is making me look at him differently.