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“Twenty quid maximum, Lockwood. That’s it. That’s all you’re allowed to spend on my Christmas present,” Lucy says, glowering at him as they finish draping garland across the fireplace mantel. “And you aren’t allowed to include any family jewelry.”
Lockwood let his fingertips graze the sapphire necklace resting at her throat before he replies. “Isn’t that price range a bit low, Lucy?”
“You know how much you pay me!”
“Are you trying to say that I’m not a generous employer?” he says, pretending to pout.
“I’m saying that for once I’d like for you to not show me up by giving me priceless family heirlooms.”
“Fine,” Lockwood sighs, as he moves his hand to her waist. “I agree to your terms. I’ll save the jewelry for your birthday.”
“What—”
“Just kidding,” he says, eyes twinkling as he throws back his head and laughs.
“I don’t know if I believe you.”
She’s still suspicious that he has some sort of scheme brewing when Lockwood tugs her across the room and gestures hopefully to the mistletoe he insisted on hanging above the doorway. “Luce?”
“You ridiculous boy,” she grumbles, as he pulls her closer and angles her chin up so he can kiss her soundly.
Soon Lucy realizes that it’s a good thing Lockwood waited to kiss her until after he agreed to her demands because she quickly finds that she doesn’t have the will to keep arguing. After all, there’s far more pleasant ways for them to spend the afternoon.
As she knew would happen, George is rightfully horrified about the mistletoe, and it takes less than twenty-four hours for Holly to insist that it is relocated.
“It isn’t quite professional, is it?” she says, throwing Lockwood a stern look. He doesn’t even pretend to be embarrassed, the side of his mouth quirking up into a smile.
Later that evening, Lucy finds the green sprig conveniently strung up over the door to her attic, where Lockwood once again uses it as an excuse to enthusiastically kiss her goodnight.
When he finally pulls away, Lucy lets her fingers comb through the soft strands of hair at the nape of his neck.
“This was your plan for the mistletoe all along, wasn’t it?”
Lockwood winks at her. “We shouldn’t give clients a free show.”
“I don’t need a show either!” George yells from his room.
“Let’s move the mistletoe to the attic?” Lockwood suggests, finally looking a bit sheepish as he reaches above her for it.
“Yes, please.”
Even with a budget agreed upon, Lucy still spends the following weeks fretting about what to buy Lockwood.
While it’s not the first Christmas they’ve spent together, it is their first Christmas together. It’s a milestone, and it feels important that she does this justice. While boyfriend and girlfriend will always feel like inadequate titles for all that they are to each other, the expectations of this new phase of their relationship still occasionally make Lucy feel like she’s floundering.
When Christmas is only a week away and no brilliant ideas have materialized, Lucy gets so desperate that she begs Holly for help. Holly suggests endless gift options while the two of them spend an afternoon browsing the shops, but Lucy rejects all of them.
“A book?”
“No. I’m sure George will do that.”
George’s default Christmas gift for everyone was always a book.
“A tie?”
She makes a face. “No, I gave him one two years ago, and it doesn’t feel very girlfriendly.”
“Define ‘girlfriendly,’ Lucy.”
“You have a girlfriend! Don’t you understand my dilemma?” Lucy says grumpily.
It’s a testament to Holly’s love of shopping that she doesn’t kick her in the shins and head home right then.
“I do,” she replies patiently instead. "And I think Lockwood will be pleased with whatever you buy him because it’s from you.”
“It needs to be right,” Lucy says stubbornly. “He’s always giving me the most lovely gifts, and I just…” she looks at Holly beseechingly as she wrings her hands together.
“You want to give him something just as thoughtful. That’s very sweet, Lucy.”
“Well,” Lucy says, feeling flushed and hot under her collar, as she takes a deep breath. “Yes, I suppose that’s it, Hol. Although at this rate, I’d be happy to find anything.” She squares her shoulders again. “One more shop?”
“One more,” Holly agrees, dragging her into a large department store and guiding her to the men’s section.
The store smells like a peppermint cinnamon bomb has exploded, and it’s stuffed to the gills with haggard last minute Christmas shoppers. Staff dressed like elves keep popping out around every corner, and Lucy feels like she’s entered a hellscape of the North Pole. Only Holly’s steady presence keeps her from running for the door immediately.
“How about cologne?” she suggests, stopping at a glass display case.
“I don’t know what brand Lockwood wears. Should I know that?” Lucy says, feeling slightly alarmed again. A good girlfriend would know this sort of thing, wouldn’t she? She makes a mental note to pay attention to the bottle the next time she’s in Lockwood’s room.
“Not necessarily. You could buy him something new.”
Lucy dismisses that option immediately. “I don’t want to buy something different. I like the way he smells.”
Holly gives her another one of those oh, aren’t you so cute smiles that Lucy’s been on the receiving end of entirely too frequently today.
Lucy feels her face start to get warm, but she can’t deny that it’s true. She is quite fond of Lockwood’s scent, occasionally finding herself discreetly burrowing into his shirt or pillow to breathe it in. Underneath the layers of iron and salt that follow them all around, he smells like crisp rainy walks in the park and cups of Earl Grey tea and something spicy and warm that feels like home.
While cologne does seem like the type of gift a girlfriend would buy her boyfriend, Lucy’s not going to risk potentially altering her favorite scent no matter how desperate she gets to find the perfect gift. Plus, it doesn’t fit in her budget.
Instead her eyes catch on a table of jumpers, and she stops to smooth a hand over them. The knit garments are as soft as they look, the fabric thick and cozy. “What about one of these?” she ventures.
“An excellent choice,” Holly says, evaluating the fabric with a critical eye.
Lucy bites her lip. “But Lockwood doesn’t really wear jumpers—”
“Well, maybe he should. He could stand to wear something a bit more comfortable from time to time.”
Lucy can’t disagree with that. Their short lives have been filled with adrenaline and death and danger; they deserve some softness—especially Lockwood. While they're still clumsily learning to be more open about their feelings, he already cares for her so well.
She pictures Lockwood sitting by the fireplace in a jumper, and the idea of it makes her feel warm and tingly inside. To be fair, Lockwood always makes her feel a bit warm and tingly inside. But this is still the best option she’s come up with after weeks.
“I should get the grey, right?”
“Yes. It’s perfect.” Holly smiles approvingly, as Lucy digs the appropriate size jumper out of the teetering pile.
Once the gift has been acquired, Lucy turns her attention to fussing over the wrapping. She attempts to do things with fancy paper and bows, but this sort of delicate, flouncy work isn’t her forte. She considers pulling Holly in for backup, but after all of her help with the shopping, she stubbornly decides to manage this part on her own.
That doesn’t stop Lucy from scowling at her present’s rather squashed appearance as she places it under the tree. It looks like it’s been wrapped by a deranged toddler, but there's nothing to be done about it now.
At the last minute, Lucy panics that just the jumper isn't enough for an occasion as momentous as a first Christmas. She decides that Lockwood deserves a second gift and stays up until dawn on their first night off from cases for the Christmas holidays, perfecting a sketch of the exterior of Portland Row that she’d started this autumn. Home, she writes on the bottom, signing her initials with a flourish. Lockwood has always admired her sketches, so even if he hates the jumper hopefully he’ll like this.
They exchange gifts with George on Christmas Eve before he leaves to spend the holiday with his parents and siblings. Books are passed around for everyone with great enthusiasm, and George even gives her a rare hug.
On Christmas morning, she and Lockwood wait to trade gifts until after they’ve leisurely enjoyed doughnuts and cups of tea. They sit in their pajamas on the floor next to the Christmas tree, and Lucy grabs her gift and shoves it in his direction.
“You go first,” she says, ready to get this over with after weeks of agonizing.
Lockwood begins with the jumper, and his face brightens into a wide smile. “It’s fantastic, Luce.” He immediately unbuttons his pajama top so he can replace it with the jumper, further messing up his already disheveled hair. He looks at her for approval, and she smiles back at him. He's just as handsome as she imagined he would be—maybe even more so.
Feeling on steadier ground, Lucy hands him the thin folder with her sketch next. “There’s this too.”
When Lockwood unwraps her sketch, he’s silent for a long moment. Lucy has just decided that he hates it and she has no other choice but to burn it and never draw again when he lets out a long, slow breath and blinks several times.
Oh, she finally realizes. He’s emotional.
Lockwood reaches out and grips her hand, his eyes suspiciously damp. “Lucy—” he says, swallowing and pausing again. “Thank you. I love it. We should get a frame so I can hang it in my room.”
“You really like it that much?”
“Yes,” he says fervently, leaning forward to kiss her, his other hand cupping her face.
When they’ve exhausted their enthusiasm for kissing for the moment, Lockwood passes her two rectangular packages wrapped in silver paper. She eyes the smaller package suspiciously. It’s exactly the size box that might contain a necklace. Or earrings. Or a bracelet.
“You promised, Lockwood,” she says, giving him a threatening look.
“There’s no jewelry, I give you my word,” he says, laughing and holding up his hands.
Lucy rips the paper off the larger box first, making a mess of the elegant wrapping. “New slippers!” she says with delight. Her old ones are almost completely worn through, but she would have put off the purchase for months.
Lockwood nods, looking pleased that she’s happy with her gift. “You needed them. And there’s one more small thing just for fun.”
As he promised, the smaller box isn’t jewelry. Instead, it’s a cassette tape with a white label. Lucy’s Mixtape! Love, Lockwood, it reads in his neat script. The words make her stomach do a little flip.
“You made me a mixtape?”
He shrugs casually. “I thought you might like it. Just some of my favorite songs. We can play it later if you want.”
She surprises him by tackling him in a fierce hug, feeling a lump rise in her throat. “Thank you.”
“I hope you’re still this enthusiastic once you’ve listened to it,” he murmurs into her hair.
Later that evening, they are sprawled out on the floor next to the tree, pleasantly full of turkey and slightly tipsy from a bottle of wine Lockwood found in the cabinets, when Lucy pads over to the stereo and slides the mixtape in.
Without her even asking, Lockwood starts detailing his reasoning for each song. There are the usual suspects—The Smiths, The Cure, Queen—but there are some surprising choices as well.
“My mum adored Fleetwood Mac,” he says, turning on his side to face her and propping his head on his hand as “Everywhere” streams through the speakers. “She passed it onto Jessica, and she used to drive me batty by playing Rumors on repeat. I’ve always had a soft spot for this song, too.”
Soon it segues into “All My Life” by the Beatles. “And dad preferred the Beatles,” Lockwood supplies. “He had all of the albums, of course, and strong opinions about them from what Jess always said.”
Lucy has gathered some of this information already from the stack of worn records in the library, but it’s more meaningful when it’s freely offered. A gift like this from the boy who once fiercely guarded every bit of his past is more precious than almost anything else Lockwood could have given her. It feels like a little window into his heart.
Eventually, they migrate to the kitchen to do the washing up. Lucy dutifully brings the stereo along with them while Lockwood washes and she dries. They finish just as “Fly Me to the Moon” starts playing.
“Sinatra was dad’s other great musical love,” Lockwood says, grinning again as he hums along. “And I don’t mind him either.”
Before she realizes it’s happening, Lockwood has pulled her away from the sink, and he’s spinning her in a circle.
“Lockwood,” Lucy laughs, as she raises an eyebrow at him. “What’s this?”
“This is the last song on the tape, Lucy. We have to make the most of it.”
After the day they’ve had and all he’s shared, she has to indulge him in a dance. It is Christmas after all.
“So, do you still like the mixtape now that you’ve listened to it?” Lockwood’s arm bands around her waist, as his other hand intertwines with hers.
“I do,” Lucy says, her voice sounding far rougher than it has any right to be as she looks down at her new slippers. “I really do. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.”
“I’m glad.” Lockwood smiles at her, gentle and soft, just like the jumper he hasn’t taken off all day. “Happy Christmas, Luce.”