Free I Heart Christmas by Lindsey Kelk Page A

had a roll-top bath – my interior design kryptonite. I was powerless against it. And then there was the garden. Actual grass in an actual outdoor space that was bigger than the average paddling pool. Slowly, I started to see how our lives could fill the space. My desk in the office alongside a big, squishy armchair for reading-slash-online shopping, our bed in the bedroom by the enormous sash window, Alex’s instruments lining the room of his new studio …
    Once I’d got over myself, I could see exactly what he could see – this place was made for us. Maybe not the people we were when we met but the people we were now. I couldn’t imagine scared, fresh-off-the-plane Angela rolling up to a leafy Park Slope address with her Marks and Sparks weekend bag, a spare pair of pants and a crumpled bridesmaid dress, but this Angela? Even in my denim shorts and specially-shipped-from-Marks-and-Sparks black tights, I could see it. If I squinted. I was absolutely the sort of woman who lived in a place like this and went out to buy her husband freshly baked bagels on a Saturday morning. Or at least the kind of woman who thought about it, fell asleep again and ended up eating Corn Flakes and illegally streaming Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway .
    ‘Well?’ Alex hadn’t spoken in an age. He looked genuinely worried. ‘What do you think?’
    ‘Can we afford it?’ I asked. I was my mother’s daughter after all.
    ‘You can’t,’ he replied, gazing at the fireplace as lovingly as I had ever seen him look at me. ‘Seriously, you make no money for the hours you work, it’s crazy. But, you know, I’ve been saving for this for years and with the advance for the new album …’ He stopped getting it on with the apartment fixtures momentarily and looked back at me. ‘We’ll be flat-ass broke for a while until we let the other place but yeah, we can afford it.’
    And that was when I realised. He must have been planning this for ages. While I’d been all late nights at the office and dragging myself through Monday to Friday so I could sleep through the weekend, Alex had been quietly working away and plotting our future. The sneaky, wonderful git.
    ‘What do you think?’ he asked in a soft voice I loved.
    ‘I think it’s amazing,’ I said, mentally punching myself in the ovaries for not being appropriately grateful for what a wonderful man I had. ‘I can’t quite believe it but it’s amazing. You’re amazing. Thank you.’
    Alex smiled down at me then cupped his hands around my face and kissed me for what felt like a very long time.
    ‘Just don’t ever, ever do this again,’ I said, actually punching him in the belly. ‘Because I will fucking kill you.’
    ‘Duly noted,’ he laughed, rubbing his stomach and pushing me away. ‘Not that I can imagine we’ll need to move for a very long time. This is going to be a great place to raise a family.’
    I pulled him back to me, pressed my head into his chest, ignoring both his family comment and the fleeting concern as to whether or not I was still getting an actual Christmas present.
    ‘Eurgh,’ I mumbled into his sweatshirt. ‘I hate moving.’
    ‘Oh, yeah …’ Alex’s voice wavered slightly. ‘I figured the sooner the better so I kind of started arranging that already.’
    Here we go. I held my breath and counted to ten.
    ‘That’s awesome,’ I said, as positive as possible. ‘So after Christmas, yeah?’
    ‘Next week.’ I felt him tense up but there was no fun in punching him when he was expecting it. ‘A week from today.’
    ‘You want us to move house, across Brooklyn, in seven days?’ I shrieked, composure forgotten. So this was what hysteria felt like. ‘Four days before Christmas?’
    ‘I’ll do everything,’ he replied as quickly as was humanly possible. ‘I’ll hire the movers, I’ll get the new stuff we need, I’ll make sure it’s perfect. I just thought it would be nice to do Christmas in our new home, you know? And you’re