*23rd December*
"Well I'll see you all after Christmas, have a good one and do not touch anything under the tree until at Christmas day." Max told them as got ready to leave the house, having already filled the car with his suitcase and a bag of gifts for his mum and another for his estranged wife.
"Just remember that you're pretending to be happily married, you aren't really." Robyn warned before she enveloped her step-brother in a hug. "Have a good Christmas." She said as she handed him another bag, with presents for Greta, Zoe and Max inside from Robyn and Lofty.
"I'll text you."
When the doorbell rang, she wasn't quite ready to go yet. Zoe Hanna sat in the middle of her living room floor, surrounded by wrapping paper as she tried to make the gifts in front of her look perfect. Sighing as she got up and looked at the mess, she still made her way to the door and let Max up after warning him not to look at anything in the living room. For this Christmas she'd gone all out, convinced somewhere inside that this Christmas could be the making or the breaking of the couple affectionately called Zax by their colleagues.
"Are you going to be long Zoe?" He asked as he grabbed himself a glass of Coke, all the time making sure that he kept his back to the living room.
"I don't think so, I've done the ones for your mum but I just need to finish yours."
"You didn't need to bother, I've signed the ones that I bought for mum, from the both of us."
"Should I do the same?" She asked as she turned to face him and found that he was now staring at her.
"If you want." He answered non-committally. "Have you got a case that I can take out?"
After another hour, they were finally in the car and on their way towards Leeds. The car was filled with an awkward silence between the two inhabitants of the car, a silence which wasn't made much better by the Christmas songs playing on the radio. Zoe silently checked her emails for what seemed like the hundredth time in the half an hour that they'd been driving. Suddenly, the idea of what to come seemed like far too much and yet again she questioned whether she'd made the right decision.
"Are you sure you want me here?" Zoe finally asked, making Max jump slightly. For a moment he thought, and then answered.
"Yes." There was no need for him to expand, and the answer seemed to satisfy her until a familiar song began to play, what made it worse was Max turning the volume up.
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone
I'll give it to someone special
Once bitten and twice shy
I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye
Tell me baby, do you recognize me?
Well it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me
As Max sang along, she felt her heart break, the seemingly innocent song brought back the memories of the night she ruined her marriage before it had even started.
"Zoe, we have 3 and a half hours in the car. It's going to seem like a lot longer if you sit in silence the whole time." Max told her as he stopped singing just as it came to the chorus again.
"What are we doing Max?"
"We are in the car, driving up to Leeds to spend Christmas with my mum."
"You hate me though and honestly I can't blame you, have you thought about how this is going to work?" Zoe asked as she shifted her gaze from where the grass banks that they kept passing to Max.
"Zoe, I don't hate you." He told her as he reached for her hand, while he kept his eyes on the road. "I hate what you did and what do you mean?"
"We'll have to share a bed, we'll have to act like a couple again."