A/N: The third installment of my December challenge to post a story every week in December. It was a struggle to settle on a story idea and I wasn't sure I'd actually get anything written. I didn't set out to write a modern story but that's what I ended up with. It seems I only write modern ones at the holidays. I hope you like it and I'd appreciate any reviews.

When none of the building's tenants answered their buzzers, Tom pounded his fist on the heavy wooden door in frustration. He might have given the door a swift kick also but with one foot already throbbing from the fall he had taken he didn't dare chance injuring the other one. Finally giving up that anyone was home and accepting the fact that he was locked out of his building without his phone or his wallet, he lowered himself to a slouching position on the covered porch with his legs dangling down the steps.

Pondering what few options he might have, Tom sat with his elbows on his knees and bowed head resting in his hands until he realized blood was trickling down his chin from the cuts he had sustained on his hand when he had fallen. Mumbling a few choice curses Tom used his sleeve to wipe his chin. The day had started miserably when he had overslept and had gone downhill from there. He was very late for work, his editor had been brutal and ruthless on the important article he submitted causing Tom to walk out of the office in early afternoon. Arriving home still seething, Tom had hastily thrown off his work clothes and quickly donned his jogging clothes and in his haste had left the flat without his keys, phone or wallet. Thinking a long jog would clear his head, he found instead his mind playing over and over again the meeting with his editor. Thus not really paying attention to his running he had tripped and fallen on the gravel path. It was just one more notch on his lousy day.

The bright December sunshine was fading quickly as the afternoon latened causing a chill that was beginning to penetrate Tom's sweat pants and top. Briefly wondering how long it would take for the chill to become downright freezing, he thought maybe this wretched day would just end by his freezing to death on the front porch of his six unit building.

Wallowing in his misery, Tom wasn't even aware of her presence until he realized the sudden darkness wasn't the onset of sunset but rather the shadow of someone standing in front of him.

"Excuse me but you're blocking the entrance."

Ignoring the hint of annoyance in her voice, relief pored over him as he realized finally someone from the building was home. That his benefactor was the beauty from the first floor brought a smile to Tom's face. She had only moved in a few weeks ago and their only conversations had been brief comments as they passed each other on the way in or out of the building and to his dismay and discomfort he was usually in the company of a date. Struggling to stand up, he reached for the railing to help steady himself.

"Are you alright?" he heard a tinkling of concern replace the annoyance in that husky voice with the oh so posh accent.

"I had a bit of bad luck on my run" he said as he automatically wiped the blood on his cheek. "And then just to make it …" he stumbled "I limped back here and found I've locked myself out."

"You really should take your phone when you run. You'd be surprised how many people find themselves in need-"

Tom tapped his head as he quickly blurted out "Take my phone … wow … I never would have thought of that" cutting her off in midsentence.

She gave him a look that would cut glass before sidestepping around him and unlocking the front door. She was halfway up the stairwell before he hobbled into the foyer.

"Look I'm really sorry. Locking myself out just capped what's been an utterly sh… terrible day."

She paused on the stairs, her back to him. Finally turning her head towards him she stated with no warmth in her voice "I guess you're locked out of your flat too."

He shrugged his shoulders and gave her that lopsided grin that so many women found charming.

"I guess it would be more comfortable waiting in my flat than here on the stairs. You really need to put some ice on that foot."

Ten minutes later he was settled on her comfy sofa, his foot propped up on a matching ottoman and an ice pack hopefully relieving any swelling on his ankle. Even better to Tom's thinking was that she was sitting next to him, so close he could smell a hint of lavender, treating the cuts on his hand. He watched in amazement as her tweezers picked out a few pebbles before gently cleansing the cuts and then wrapping his hand in clean gauze.

"You're very good at this."

She looked up at him and smiled. "Well I am a nurse." Seeing the surprise on his face, she ran her hand down the side of her blue flowered scrubs "certainly you don't think this is some fashion statement."

She chuckled seeing him actually blush. He really was quite handsome she thought.

"Oh so that's why you have the weird hours?"

"Weird hours?" she sounded perplexed.

"I mean I've seen you in the hallway at all hours … well it doesn't seem like you come and go at the same time every day … not that I'm keeping track" Oh geez he sounded like some stalker he thought.

He quickly turned his face away from her and locked his sight on the enormous bare Christmas tree that took up the corner of the large room. Now he knew why there were droppings of pine needles in the hallway and stairs yesterday. "That's quite some tree you have there."

She looked at the tree and smiled, a smile that lit up her face. "It's beautiful isn't it?"

"Well it's nice but don't people usually put lights and ornaments on it?"

"I thought I'd go for a simplistic look this year."

Looking at the tree, utterly perplexed as to why someone would want a bare tree, he crinkled his brows and uttered "oh" before she started laughing.

She stood up and walked over to some tall baskets that were on floor next to the tree. Reaching into one she pulled out a silver snowflake. "I was going to decorate it yesterday but I got called in to do an extra shift."

He looked at her and grinned. "Maybe I could help you while I wait for one of my flat mates to get home."

But Sybil insisted that he had to stay off his foot so he watched her as she set about decorating the tree. In his younger days he, along with his siblings, had helped his Mum decorating the family tree but that was a totally haphazardly affair unlike the one taking place before him now. With Sybil it was an excruciating affair with her agonizing where to place each and every ornament.

"I never realized one had to be so exact in the placement of ornaments" he finally commented as she placed, removed, placed, again removed, and then finally placed a glass bulb not more than two inches from its original setting.

"I suppose you'd just hang them wherever?" She turned to look at him "what if all the red bulbs are together or you have big blank spaces with no bulbs?"

"You stand back, look at it and then move things around a bit. Or just cover the gaps with tinsel." He quickly responded. "It's a Christmas tree not a work of art!"

Undeterred Sybil continued to painstakingly hang each ornament. "So is the tree in your flat full of tinsel?"

"We don't have one. We've gone with the simplistic look this year with just a dancing Santa on the entranceway chest."

Sybil rolled her eyes. "A dancing Santa! That's your idea of holiday decorating?"

"It doesn't just dance, it plays Elvis' Santa Claus is Back in Town" Tom smugly nodded his head. "A real classic."

"Seriously that's your idea of a Christmas classic?"

"I suppose you don't think Home Alone or even better Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation as Christmas classics?"

Feigning horror, Sybil clutched her stomach and plopped onto a nearby lounge chair. "So no "It's a Wonderful Life" or "White Christmas" or "Miracle of 34th Street"?

"Never seen 'em" Tom proudly responded.

Sybil shifted in the chair, sitting straight up, her face suddenly becoming serious. "You're not really into Christmas are you?"

Tom's uninjured hand ruffled his hair and he looked away from her. "Not really" he mumbled. In truth he had loved Christmas as a child but then his mum had died when he was twelve and it had never been the same. Now his brothers and sisters were scattered around Ireland, England, and Canada. His dad had remarried and had a new family with a wife that never made her stepchildren feel welcomed even at the holiday.

Sybil was aware of the change in the room, the sudden sucking of the gaiety but while she contemplated what to say the doorbell rang.

"Guess that's the pizza we ordered." She hopped up and dashed to the door.

She bustled about setting up folding tray tables for each of them, one by Tom on the sofa and one for her by the lounge chair, and opening a bottle of wine. She had been surprised by their earlier easy camaraderie and she hoped somehow to get that back. Settling into her chair, she sighed with contentment as she took her first bite of the piazza. It was Tom that finally broke the silence in the room.

"Your flat looks lovely. Decorative but still homey. It's hard to tell you've just moved in such a short time ago."

Sybil looked around the large room with its wooden floor, high ceiling and large bay window. "I knew as soon as I saw this flat that it was the flat I wanted."

She smiled as she looked at Tom "so I take it your place is either decorative or homey but not both?"

Tom laughed. "It's a flat with three, sometimes four, guys what do you think?"

"Mismatched sofas, extra large tv?"

Tom raised his eyebrows. "And a wooden chest with a lovely dancing Santa on it."

"That plays that Christmas classic Santa Claus is Back in Town" Sybil laughing added.

"I like your colorful lights on the tree" Tom nodded as he looked at the tree. He wouldn't say it but he was a bit surprised that she didn't have the all white lights that seemed more stylish these days. "Too many go for those all white lights now."

"I know" Sybil replied "the colored lights are just so much more festive I think." Then she chuckled "more classic I think."

"Gingerbread" Tom suddenly blurted causing Sybil to crease her forehead in bafflement.

"That's a classic Christmas smell don't you think?" he replied. "Although I always liked my mum's walnut cake better." He winked at her "I think it's because it was soaked in whiskey which when I was ten was the only alcohol I was allowed."

"Somehow you don't strike me as the type that always paid attention to rules."

Tom raised his chest so he was sitting erect. "I'll have you know my mum always said I was her little angel." He turned towards Sybil with that dopey grin on his face "but then she said that about my brothers and sisters too."

"No one in my family ever called me an angel. I was always the impish one in my family" Sybil replied a bit sheepishly.

"I bet you're the youngest."

Sybil nodded. "Two older sisters."

Tom lifted his chin. "I think I met one of them on the stairs couple of weeks back. Tall, very slender, dark haired."

"Sounds like Mary my oldest sister."

He cocked his eyebrow. "No sense of humor."

"Oh so you're the one!"

Tom chuckled. "It wasn't really me but my mate Brian. So what did she say?

Sybil waved her hand. "We're getting along well so let's not go down that road."

"So no point in inviting her to our Christmas party?"

"You have a Christmas party?"

"You sound so surprised."

"It's just that you … you …" Sybil was flummoxed that Tom and his flat mates would have a Christmas party. "I thought you weren't into Christmas."

"I'm not into decorating and lights and spending money on presents that no one really wants and-" he stopped abruptly. He was sitting in a room that looked lovely with the lighted tree and boughs of holly entwined with red ribbons draped around the bay window. It was a room that brought forth memories of wonderful childhood Christmases. It was a room that brought forth the magic of Christmas that had been missing from his life for so long now.

"We'll be wearing reindeer ears or Santa hats. Brian has a special one that lights up." He looked over at her and grinned "your sister Mary would look especially lovely in that" to which Sybil rolled her eyes.

"Anyway" he continued "we're Irish. It doesn't take much for us to have a party."

"I'm well aware of that" she quipped and he blushed thinking of the couple of times he had seen her in the hallway or stairs with a drink in one hand and usually a woman in the other. He was embarrassed at the thought he may have even invited her to join the party on one particularly drunken occasion.

"Well a hat isn't required but I hope you'll join the festivities." There was no mistaking the longing in his eyes. Tom thought it was the most delightful evening he had had in a long time and he was sorry when his flat mate JC banged on the door to let Tom know he was home.

At the doorway Tom paused and looked back at Sybil. "Do you have a free evening coming up? I thought maybe you could show me your favorite London light displays."

If you don't know the Elvis' Santa Claus is Back in Town I'd suggest you listen to it on youtube. My other stories for December are A Christmas Story of Robert and His Two Sybils and a new chapter to The Crawley Girls.