Rae held the ladder straight while Finn wrestled with the decoration boxes and brought them down from the loft.

'What time did your dad say he was getting back?' she asked as she looked up towards the loft opening and stepped up a few rungs take one of the cardboard boxes Finn lowered down while he closed the cover back over and stepped back down.

'Tomorrow after eight, just thought I'd save him a bit of bother.' Finn stepped down from the last rung and took the box out of her hands and padded downstairs to the living room.

He put everything down on the floor beside the tree he'd spent most of that Friday night wrestling into the corner getting branches to the eye and swearing for most of it. No wonder his dad hated doing it.

He and Rae opened the boxes out and spread the tinsel and lights on the floor just in front of the couch beside the tree. Rae took the set of lights out from the top and sat on the couch to untangle them. Patience might have been a virtue but Rae swore under her breath and stretched a strand out. She continued to tug at the mass of cable and pulled at the plug end and put it to one side in annoyance.

'Give it here,' Finn motioned towards himself and she passed him the tangled cable of Christmas lights. He took it in his hands and started uncoiling and weaving the lightbulbs under and over as he worked to straighten the cable out into a line and started wrapping the string around the tree.

'You don't put the lights on first, tinsel's meant to go on first,' Rae stopped him. Finn looked over and paused, 'cause then it doesn't block the colours.'

'Does it matter?'

'If you don't want it to be rubbish.'

'Right, fine. We'll do it your way then.' He stripped the tree back down and took the stands of tinsel she passed and wound them round in sections followed by the lights over the top of it.

Finn shifted the couch out a bit and plugged them into the socket beside the record player. He flicked the switch on, pushed the couch back against the wall and moved to stand beside Rae to take a look.

'Yeah, looks alright,' she said and gave it and Finn a look of approval. The two of them dug into the other box for the rest as the lights flashed on for a few seconds then flickered and stopped. Finn huffed and went back over to the tree. 'One of the bulbs is probably dead,' he wound the lights back off from the branches a third time and coiled them around his wrist and elbow in a loop.

'There's spares in here somewhere,' he sat down on the floor and rooted around the boxes to pull out the extra bulbs scattered at the bottom and plugged the lights back in to look for the dead light.

Rae left him to it and went to the kitchen for a bottle opener. She had only gone all of five minutes when there was a sparking sound and everything suddenly went dark with a thunk and a whir. Oh shit, he's electrocuted himself.

'Finn?' He didn't answer so she shouted louder, 'Finn,' still no answer. Rae stumbled through the front of his flat, fingers fumbling along the walls towards the stairs carefully so she didn't trip over her bag she left nearby, or more likely her own feet, and tried to get back to the living room from memory. She cursed into the darkness as she tripped over something in the hall a few seconds later, kicked it out the way and fumbled with her arms stretched in front of her to find a wall or a door to figure out where she was.

Rae got to where she assumed was the end of the hall. She could see the small bit of light through the frosted glass in the front door and made a beeline towards it when she walked into something solid.

'Fuck's sake,' she hissed just as Finn's voice cursed under his breath in the darkness and she felt him shift out of the way.

'What're you doing?' Rae crouched down to where he was at the end of the hall by the stairs.

'Sorting this.'

'I was shouting on you.'

'Hang on,' he grunted quietly as he clicked the circuit board switches in the cupboard under the stairs on and off to no avail.

'Thought I'd come in and find you fried into the carpet or something.'

Rae could hear him smirk at the idea. She couldn't see his expression in the dark but she could almost sense his eyes looking towards her. 'Sorry.'

'You alright?' She sat down on the carpet and moved her hand along the floor to find him. 'Didn't mean to knock into you.'

'Fine. Sorry I never answered,' his hand found her wrist and she could feel his fingers trail down to find hers and give them a light comforting squeeze. 'Think I've blown a fuse or something. Can you go into the kitchen and grab us the torch? It's under the sink.'

'Yeah, hold on.' She slowly rose from her crouch and ambled in a wobbling gait towards the general direction of his kitchen while Finn flicked on one switch after another on the board under the stairs.

The light from the moon seeped in kitchen window and pooled in like a spotlight in the otherwise dark room. The amber light from the streetlights provided some light and Rae could just about make out where the cupboard under the sink was. She opened it out and felt around for the torch and eventually wrapped her hand around the handle and clicked it on, making her way back through to the hallway.

The light was a bit rubbish. The beam was about the size of a cardboard toilet roll. Rae could just about see a hand in front of her and that was about it, but it was better than nothing. She directed it onto the floor to avoid falling and as she got back she could just about make out Finn's figure as he turned to her.

'Think I've fried one of the relays.'

'Brilliant' she let her arms drop to her sides. 'What now?'

'Just need to keep messing about with them till something clicks.'

'Here,' she tried to pass him the torch but his hand swiped at the space just next to her.

'I can't find your arm.'

'I'm at the wall, here,' she moved closer and crouched down to where he was when he made contact with her with his arm outstretched behind him.

'Finn.'

'What?'

'That's not my shoulder,'

'Sorry.' Finn pulled his hand back and that just brought the sound of snickering from the pair of them as Rae passed him the torch properly the second time and looked back out towards the kitchen. The house darkened once again and Rae could hear him moving over her shoulder as he worked to fix it.

It took about twenty minutes to find the right switch and as the lights and electrics surged back to life Rae let out a small cheer. Finn went back into the living room and plugged the lights back in. Rae gave him a thumbs up after a job well done and helped with the tinsel and baubles for the rest of the evening.

The rest of the spare decorations rattled around in the box save for the star saved for last. Finn scraped it up from the bottom of the cardboard and struggled with the top branches of the tree for a few moments and stepped back with a grunt of frustration before trying again without much success.

'I'll get it, give it. Give it here,' Rae called over.

'I've got it,' he continued to reach up but just missed the top of the tree again. Rae sat back on the couch and rolled her eyes at him. 'Just give it over. I'm taller than you.'

'That's brilliant Rae, a whole inch,' he mocked and sent her a glare.

'Just pass me the bloody thing,' Rae held out her arm expectantly and Finn shook his head at her and passed it over. Rae took it and got up to reach up her arm to push the star down but missed the first time around. She reached up and stood on her toes a second time and just about managed to get it settled onto the top without toppling. Rae stepped back to admire her handiwork and the pair of them opened up some drinks in celebration.

'Looks alright,' Finn moved back towards the door to get a better look.

'We did ok,' Rae looked the tree up and down again and then went to put the box away when something caught her eye tucked into the cardboard folds on the bottom.

'What's that?' Finn came over to see what she was looking at and shrugged it off bashfully.

'Nothing, it's just some stuff I brought home from school and that.' Finn got up to put the box away which just made Rae more curious.

'Let me see it a minute,' Finn went to move away but put it back down as Rae took the small paper outline of a hand with googly eyes, a red circle drawn on the thumb and brown coloured in fingernails and a red ribbon to hang it up. 'What is it?'

'It was meant to be a reindeer.' Rae looked it over, unable to see it.

'There's the antlers there,' he reached into the box again for two brown pipe cleaner antlers and stuck them back on till the ageing cello tape gave up and they fell off again. His dad kept everything, no matter how rubbish it was and Finn secretly loved him for that.

'When'd you make that?' She turned it over to read the writing. 'Finley Nelson nineteen-ninety-five,' she joked.

'Give over,' he laughed. 'I was six.' He made it the same year he got his first bike.

'We never got to do stuff like that,' Rae looked at it again and let the ribbon twist on the end of her hand. 'We just glued over a load of pine cones with glitter onto paper plates and a bit of glitter. Ours were always a bit crap.'

At some point they had stuck the record player on beside the couch and settled in for the night and their usual mikey taking developed from light-hearted quips at each other's expense to light shoves and eventual lingering hands and touches.

The door went all of twenty minutes after and Finn reluctantly left the couch to answer the door. Rae looked out from the window to see Chop saunter in past Finn through the door wearing a headband topped with a spring with some plastic mistletoe attached followed closely behind by Izzy with her elf hat.

'Thought you could sneak having an empty past us did you?' Chop grinned at the pair of them and held up two carrier bags of booze and a take-away.

Chloe followed in not long after with a glittery bobble headband with Archie who was just behind them all and closed the door with a thunk. He joined them in the living room last and sat himself down beside Rae and took off his Santa hat leaving it on the arm of the couch. Chloe perched on Rae's other side and pushed away her headband on one side as it dug into the side of her head.

'Hiya,' she greeted her, Rae smiled and looked over towards Finn who had a face like a sour lemon at being interrupted.

'Right then lads,' Chop announced putting his carry-out bottles and cans in the middle of the rug on the floor. 'Get this lot down you and we'll get this started.'

Izzy took something out of the plastic bag and reached towards Rae to put on a slightly wonky halo onto Rae's head and leaned back to admire her handiwork with a smile.

'Now we've all got one.' Not even Finn had been spared who came back from the kitchen sporting a set of felt reindeer ears looking just over the moon, not.

Archie caught eyes with Rae from the door, mouthing to Finn, I tried. He shot him a look and Rae smirked and looked back round to the rest of the gang.

Chloe and Izzy went into the kitchen getting more glasses and plates while Chop rooted around the drawers and came back with sticky notes as Finn continued to sulk.

'Right. We're playing Who Am I? Everybody gets a name on the sticker then you guess who it is, but you only get yes no answers. Get it wrong you take a shot, guess it right an' everybody else takes one. Got that?' Chop reached over to each of them from his spot on the rug and stuck a sticky note with writing on each of their foreheads with. Finn naturally was first.

'Am I a man or a woman?' He asked reluctantly.

'Woman,' Chop answered.

'Pamela Anderson.'

'How'd you manage that?' Chop scrunched his face in confusion and annoyance.

'It was either her or Yasmin Bleath,' he gave the barest of shrugs, 'fifty fifty.'

'We'll you've ruined it now. That's cheating,'

'How'm I going to do that if I can't see it?' Finn took the sticker off and gave Chop a look when it confirmed he was right. 'M'not cheating,' he swallowed the rest of his drink. 'You're just predictable mate.'

'You're going again.' Chop narrowed his eyes but was back to his usual liveliness in seconds.

'No, everybody else does one first, your rules.' Chop just shook his head at him and pursed his lips before he moved on to Izzy.

'Man or a woman?' She asked.

'Man,' Archie called over.

'Am I a real person?' Izzy looked over to the girls.

'Yeah,' Chloe nodded and shifted her foot under her lap.

'Am I famous?'

'Yep,' Rae nodded.

'Have I,' she looked off to the side to think, 'have I got hair?'

'No.'

'Am I old?' Another yes from Archie. After that the questions continued on and Izzy got no further.

'Can I get a clue?'

Chop wavered for a moment but relented and formed his arms into an imaginary rifle and pulled a pouting face as he pretended to fire. 'He's always going "yippie Kay Aye motherf-,"'

'Winston Churchill?'

Chop furrowed his eyebrows wondering how she got that from his impression. He shot her a look as if to say, what are you doing? Archie nearly inhaled his drink which sent Rae off as the others joined in to Izzy's confusion. She peeled the sticky note off and glanced at it to find Bruce Willis.

'Oh right, yeah,' she looked up sheepishly and snickered.

The rest of the game passed much the same way and they all sat back to finish the rest of their drinks. 'What're we doing next?' Izzy asked excitedly.

'We're playing Sardines,' Finn spoke up.

'Thought I was doin' the games.' Chop looked over and put his beer down on the floor beside him wondering what Finn was up to.

'My house.' He looked to Chop who assented reluctantly and sat with has back against the bottom of the sofa on the floor. 'Right, one of us leaves for a bit and hides then everybody else goes looking for them and if you find them you've got to hide where they are. Last person to find everybody's out and they hide the next time.'

'Who's going first then?'

'I'm doing it, you can all go out the back for a bit and then come back on and look, right?'

Finn ushered them out and closed the back door over. Rae could see his form through the glass retreating to find somewhere to hide. The house wasn't that big so it'd last all of two minutes and Rae wondered what he was up to. She followed the rest of the gang and started the countdown from one hundred until they had to go back in and start the search. They got down from one hundred to one in a few minutes and Archie was the first to open the door and start the hunt.

Chloe, Archie, and Chop took over downstairs so Rae took the first room upstairs nobody was in yet. She opened the door out and was greeted by a built in mirrored wardrobe to the right of a double bed and a disused exercise bike covered in clothes. The spare room she'd meant to look must have been the next one she realised when she saw the work shirts and the photo on the bedside of Finn as a boy holding up a sports day medal with his dad who had his arm wrapped over his shoulder. It felt a bit weird being in there, in his dad's room rifling round in places that weren't hers to look. She gave the room a quick onceover, looking behind curtains and under the bed which had a few boxes and a stray pair of socks briefly before she went back towards the hallway to look back outside when she heard something move over her shoulder followed by a voice.

'Psst,' she heard the sound of coat hangers rattling and turned back towards the wardrobe to the wall beside the door.'Rae,' she looked around confused before she saw the mirror panel slide to the left as she got beside it.

'Jesus,' she yelped.

Before she had time to react Finn opened the door out and pulled her inside with him. He pulled a large suit bag behind him so it blocked them from view, just.

'What you doing in here for?'

'Just wanted rid of them for a bit,' his voice had that hint of mischief and she smiled.

'An' you thought hiding in your dad's wardrobe was the way to do that?' She didn't see or hear the response because there was a clattering of footsteps and he pulled her closer to him and dragged a suit bag over them so they were hidden from sight.

Their faces were inches apart then and neither made any attempt to move despite the small amount of space. Finn reached out and Ran his fingers lightly up the side of her arms and closed the space between them. Her hands searched for him in the dark and she pulled his hands into hers and his lips found hers. Maybe this whole thing wasn't a bad idea after all. Finn deepened the kiss and Rae let out an involuntary moan. Finn shushed her with a small laugh.

The rest of the gang continued to search the house for who knew how long as they waited and the novelty started to wear off as the space became heated. Finn pushed some shirts out of their way for more air.

'What're you looking in the cupboards for? Nobody can fit up there.' Archie's voice echoed from downstairs Rae guessed the kitchen.

'He might be, he's a right sneaky knobhead,' they could hear Chop state as if it were obvious. Actually he had just been taking the opportunity to gather supplies for the next game before Finn could argue with him. He left his stash back down in the living room and resumed the search with fervour.

Chop wandered upstairs and to the bathroom next to the room Finn and Rae had been hiding and jumped into the door as if someone were hiding behind it. He gave up and came into their room second to last. The two of them listened as he pushed the curtains back dramatically to no avail. Rae could just about make out him looking at the wardrobe, but not at them. He gave himself a glance over and fussed with his shirt and hair for a few minutes and Rae stifled a laugh. He left the room and went across the hall towards Finn's room and she could sense Finn shake his head in a silent laugh.

There was noise in the room just then and the pair of them stilled. The only sound was their breaths as they waited for the footsteps to leave again. Someone rooted around in the room longer than the rest and seemed to linger at the door before they paced back inside and Rae looked towards Finn who held the suit bag that bit tighter.

The wardrobe door opened out and Izzy peeked under the coat hangers and spotted the ends of Finn's fingers gripping the fabric and smiled at her find. She pushed the bag aside and squeezed in the middle of them. 'Hiya.'

'Hold that round here,' Finn tugged the edge of the black fabric over towards the mirrored door. Izzy took it and wrapped it round over her arm so they were hidden once again. Chloe followed a few minutes later because Izzy gave them away and sneezed at the dust.

'Let us in,' Chloe hissed and dived in beside the three of them sliding the door shut behind her as Chop and Archie started on the upstairs again. There was next to no space now and Rae hoped Chop and Archie would be quick but they both seemed to be looking everywhere but the bleeding obvious.

The two of them split up and Archie came into the room and started searching the curtains and behind the boxes of records piled up in Mr Nelson's room. He crouched down to look under the bed and the four of them held their breaths as he got up and looked over at the wardrobe. He padded over slowly and pushed the panels apart to find them waving at him sheepishly where they were pressed together side by sides like sardines. Hence the name of the game Rae mused.

'Alright, you're all up here somewhere.' Chop continued rooting about in Finn's room across from them. Archie made to step inside with them but stopped as there was nowhere to go.

'There's no room,' Chloe moved out towards the gap in the door.

'Where am I supposed to go then?' Archie hissed. His eyes went wide and looked to the wardrobe for help. He twisted from direction to direction searching for somewhere to go. Rae and Izzy gestured wildly for him to go under the bed as Chop got closer again.

'Arch, you see anything?'

'Go-go-go-go-go,' they mouthed with shewing movements and Archie seemed to dance on the spot until he panicked and dropped to the floor shuffling along in some sort of sideways limbo under the gap in the bed and pushed the bags and boxes in front of his as best he could. The rest of them closed the wardrobe door over again and waited.

Every now and again there was the sound of Chop jumping followed an 'aha,' to empty rooms as they waited. Izzy let out a snicker that was stifled by Chloe, but it didn't help because the rest of them followed suit every now and again as Chop continued to jump out to no one.

It wasn't exactly the quiet night in Finn had planned but they'd had a laugh even Finn had to admit. Chop was in the room a further two times and walked right past them until Izzy gave him a hint and shuffled her foot. Chop's footsteps came bounding back into the room and he pulled the door open dramatically and peered in at them.

'Caught! Right then out you come then.' Chop grinned as they piled out one by one into the cool air of the room and headed back downstairs for another round of drinks that continued on into the night.