Flirting with success

Chapter 27

The entire evening Jill was like a kid at Christmas. She just would not settle. For me, as I got older Christmas lost its appeal. It just became an opportunity for civil war to erupt in my family. Last year wasn't so bad as I chose to spend it with my Bristol teammates. Lauren came back from Manchester for the holiday which was nice because we all missed her. I don't think it was us necessarily she came back for i think it was mostly Ellie she wanted to see. Nonetheless she was there.

For Christmas Eve, i normally have gammon and chips. This was not a thing in the Netherlands instead we had a fish dinner followed by some treats called Speculaas. They were bloody fantastic. After dinner we played some games. The first being charades. This maybe wasn't the best game to play when you didn't speak the same language as each other. There were moments where they reverted to speaking Dutch but only briefly. I didn't mind this because I was in their home. Whenever this did happen it didn't affect me that much because Jill was quick to translate anything that would have otherwise gone over my head.

Eventually the evening came to an end and we went upstairs to Jill's room. Jill had moved away from home at a young age when she transferred from FC Twente to go abroad to Bayern Munich. This meant that much of her childhood furniture was still in her room. Unfortunately for us it also meant that we were going to have to share a single bed. Don't get me wrong I love being snuggled up to Jill but I wasn't looking forward this nights sleep.

We started to quietly go through some of her stuff and she told me stories about where she got various things. We found some medals each with a story. I loved how passionate she was about all of her achievements no matter how small they were. There was an old shoebox in the bottom of one of her draws. I opened it and saw a load of photos of Jill from a couple of years back. There was another girl in each of the photos. I turned towards her and showed her and asked about the story behind this. She snatched them away from me and immediately burst out in tears. I didn't know what I had done wrong.

"It's not you, don't worry you didn't know" she said trying to reassure me

"Are you okay? Who's the girl?" I asked

"The girl who broke my heart, the reason why I struggled to trust anyone. At least until I met you"

"Why did you keep them?" I wasn't sure if I wanted to know the answer to this

"I suppose some part of me thought we would eventually get back together. When I left to go to Bayern I thought she would chase after me but she didn't. She stayed here and got together with the girl she cheated on me with" at this point Jill was shaking "I don't want her back anymore, you're the only one I want now. I forgot I even had these"

I felt reassured. I believed Jill. "Your first love always hurts the most I suppose. I'm just lucky I'm still with mine"

We tried to not let this effect us. When we got into bed I went to spoon Jill to comfort her. In all honesty we didn't have much choice but to be up close with one another. She couldn't lay still. She was up fidgeting the entire night. We didn't get a wink of sleep.

When morning came round the Christmas spirit and consequent excitement cheered Jill up. She suddenly went from down in the dumps to the happiest person on the planet. She hatched a plan to sneak downstairs and have a nosey at the presents. She was lucky that she had any under the tree bearing in mind we weren't planning on being here. "There's one for you" Jill said

"Me?"

"Yeah, it must be from my parents"

"That's so sweet of them" I said "I doubt very much my parents have got you anything. I'm not even convinced I will have a present from them"

"What are you planning on doing with you family?" Jill questioned

"In all honesty I don't know"

"What don't you know?" Said Jill's mum as she arrived in the lounge still wearing her pyjamas.

I took the opportunity to explain what happened with my family when I went home recently.  It made me quite emotional. I can't believe that I'd been in this house less the 24 hours and I'm already opening up to her mum. I didn't regret it because I was met with the most love. She gave me a big hug.

"It will be alright. And I can promise you this. Any mothers love for her child is unconditional. I haven't told Jill this but when I first found out I was worried for her. Not because I didn't approve but because I know others wouldn't. Give your mum a chance to prove you wrong. But just know if she doesn't you've always got a spot in my family so long as you don't hurt my little girl"

Jill blushed whilst I sobbed onto her mums shoulder.