Aimee Duffy - The Office Christmas Party - A fun, feel good Christmas cracker of a romance!

Behind her, Steven rolled onto his stomach and reached an arm out, grumbling in his sleep. Dodging out of the way, she was careful not to stand on the buckle again, and tried to remember where her clothes were. She spied silver lace peeking out from beneath a shirt which was abandoned by the door and flushed remembering how those had gotten there.

Natalie swiped up her bra, hooked it on, then snuck out into the hall. Her knickers were by his bedroom door and this time she didn’t let herself remember how those ended up there. Instead she just pulled them on and went on the hunt for the rest of her things.

In the living room she spotted her lovely gold dress, just dumped on the coffee table half balled up and so wrinkled she wanted to kick herself. Not only did it cost more than she made in a month, but it was the most festive dress she owned. She examined it carefully but there were no tears she could see, it just badly needed ironing.

She turned on a lamp and the room illuminated. Everything became clear from the empty beer cans in the corner to the half-eaten kebab on the arm of a tatty looking green sofa. A total bachelor pad, sans class. Fabulous, she’d gone home with a slob.

A shuffle sounded behind her. With her heart in her throat she spun around to see a guy who was not Steven wearing nothing but his boxers. His frown turned to an astonished blink, then he gave her a good once over. Even with the underwear, she felt utterly naked, so pulled the dress against her front.

As her cheeks burned, she remembered thinking the week from hell could never, ever get any worse. She really needed to stop thinking that because it seemed like fate was really into poking her repeatedly with a sharp, pointy spear of shame.

And she needed to get dressed. Like right now.

‘Hey, you here with Steven?’ the guy asked.

Who else would she be here with? Then she had a horrible thought that maybe there would be others who lived there. Others who would catch her mortifying floor show.

‘Yes. I’m just leaving,’ she said, turning around and pulling her dress over her head. ‘Have you seen a black clutch anywhere?’

Might as well put his eyes to use and take some of the heat off her.

‘Oh, yeah, here.’ He picked up something from the sofa, screwing up his nose. ‘Sorry, I think it landed in hot sauce.’

Natalie let out a whimper as she took her brand spanking new clutch, pulling a strip of saucy donner meat out of the folds. She had to get out of there, like, now.

‘Why not stay ‘til morning? I’m sure Steven wouldn’t want you walking the streets in the middle of the night.’

She didn’t know if this was just a nice guy, or if the distress was showing on her face and he felt sorry for her, but she’d had about as much as she could stand of embarrassment for one evening, so she shook her head. ‘I’ll get a taxi.’

Without making eye contact or waiting for him to say anything else, Natalie bolted out the door. Maybe Rose was right, maybe she needed to rethink the whole celebrating Christmas properly thing.

She hailed a taxi, but didn’t go home. Instead she recited the address of a block of storage units she’d not been to in ages, determined to face the contents and her past so she could finally – hopefully – move on.

Natalie’s head was pounding as she woke to the chorus of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer echoing through her skull.

She fumbled for her mobile and answered, not bothering to open her eyes. Her head wasn’t ready for that yet.

‘Hello?’ she croaked.

‘ Where are you? Do you know how worried I’ve been? ’

Rose’s voice was like knives in her ears and she had to hold the phone away to listen. As she opened her eyes, she saw why her friend was flipping out. Natalie was lying on a sofa she hadn’t seen in years, wrapped in a dust sheet and surrounded by boxes.

Boxes of her mum’s stuff.

‘I’m fine, Rose.’ But that wasn’t true. The pain of her headache was smothered by the agony in her chest. Coming here had seemed like a good idea last night, a way to move on with her life, but she hadn’t even been able to face looking inside one box.

‘Natalie Taylor, I have been up all night terrified something happened to you. I’ve called you a hundred times along with every hospital in London! I even called the police. Do you know what they said? You’re not a missing person until you’ve been gone longer. What if you had been stabbed and were lying in a ditch somewhere or fell into the river!’

Tears filled her eyes and clogged her throat. What had made her think Rose wouldn’t care where she was? ‘I’m sorry Rose, I’m so selfish. You didn’t need to worry, I was—’ Admitting she went home with a stranger was not likely to ease any of her friend’s worry, so she decided to skip that bit. ‘I’m at the storage unit. I came here to try and … I don’t know why. But I wish I hadn’t.’

She caught sight of one of the boxes. It was bursting with every colour of tinsel in existence and the tears spilled over. ‘I should have come home. I’m sorry.’

‘Nat … What’s up with you lately? Something’s wrong and we’re going to make time to talk about it. I might be getting married, but you’re still my best friend and I feel like I haven’t been there for you this last week. I know how hard this time of year is for you.’

Rose’s sudden concern made her feel like a rotten cow. She wanted so much to tell her friend everything, but she had to stop being so dependent on Rose. Besides, the truth would only cause friction with her friend’s new fiancé. ‘I’ll be okay, I promise. I’m coming home now for a hot bath and something to eat.’

‘Do you need me to come and get you? I can make it before the lunch rush,’ Rose offered.

‘No, it’s fine. The fresh air will be good for me.’ Or the freezing breeze would kill her, but she couldn’t face Rose like this. It would be too easy to slip back into leaning on her friend.

‘If you’re sure. But I’m telling Tom it’s girls’ night tonight. You and I are going to talk. I’ll bring the wine and we can get a takeaway.’

Wine was the last thing she needed, but it would be nice to have some girl time. ‘Okay, that sounds good. See you later.’

Natalie hung up and slipped her phone into her bag. The walls felt like they were coming in on her and her heart was going double time. After carefully rearranging the dust sheet over the sofa, she bolted for the door without looking at anything. Outside, she slid down to the ground, panting like she’d just sprinted a mile.

One thing was for sure, she wasn’t ready to unpack those boxes, but she didn’t want to give up on Christmas either. Which meant she had to find a way to deal with solo Christmas party-crashing that didn’t end in total disaster.

***

The girls’ night wasn’t going exactly as she’d imagined. After apologising to Rose again, they’d had Thai takeout and Natalie had eaten so much curry she thought she might explode, so changed into her Christmas themed pyjamas. She wasn’t up for the wine though, and left that to Rose who was uncharacte‌ristically knocking it back.

By the time they’d finished catching up on the television shows they’d recorded, Natalie had come to the conclusion that Rose had something she wanted to talk about too. ‘What’s going on? Is everything alright with you and Tom?’

See, she could be a good friend. She didn’t even call him Tom the Twat.

Rose shook her head. ‘It’s me, not him. I know you don’t like him, Nat, but you should give him a chance. He’s an amazing guy.’

Natalie wondered if it was worth lying and saying she did like Tom to avoid a potential argument – or eviction, but that just wasn’t her. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what you see in him. He uses your emotions to get you to do what he wants. That’s why I don’t like him.’