I started writing this two years ago. At first I didn't finish it because I couldn't think of a good ending, and then I always wanted to wait until Christmas… this year I finally thought of a way to end it, but it involves tacking on two more chapters – whoops! I'm hoping I can get the next two chapters up in the next week or so (which will be kind of in line with the timeframe of the story…) but famous last words and all that…

If you'd like to know what shoes Jess gets, they're Gwynnita Gomme Neptune shoes in the Louboutin Spring/Summer 2014 collection (£495…)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Three glasses of Veuve, two sprigs of mistletoe and pair of Louboutin heels or, How Becker Finally Figures It Out

Part One – A pair of Louboutin heels

Becker hated Christmas shopping. Shopping wasn't really his thing in general, but in the run-up to Christmas every annoyance shopping brought was exacerbated by about twenty times. The crowds, the screaming kids, the queues, the tacky lights… just the thought of it all made him shudder. The last couple of years he'd done all of his shopping online, but somehow he'd allowed himself to get talked into a trip to Westfield by Jess. Westfield. He wasn't sure how it had happened – there'd been perfume, and big smiles, and she'd been holding his arm… and then he'd found himself agreeing to go along.

Then the rest of the team were going too. Then they were all splitting up to get their shopping. And so Becker was suddenly alone, in Westfield shopping centre, two weeks before Christmas.

It was horrific.

Since he was there, Becker made a concerted effort to do some shopping, but got as far as a scarf for his mum before completely giving up and ducking into a coffee shop to wait out the hour and a half left until he was due to meet up with Jess and the others. If he had any sense he would have text her to say he was going home, but he didn't. He drank his coffee and tried not to think too hard about his reasons for staying – he preferred to assume he just didn't have any sense than the real reason that he was valiantly ignoring.

Finally, it was time to head to the rendezvous. The shopping centre had emptied a lot in the time he'd been hiding out – they hadn't got there until quite late into the evening since they'd come from work anyway, and most of the shops were going to be closing in about ten minutes or so. Abby and Connor were already waiting by the escalators they'd parted by earlier, several brightly coloured shopping bags at their feet, but there was no sign of Jess, Matt or Emily.

Abby spotted him first and smiled as he approached. "Hey."

"Hey," he returned. "All done?"

"Yep," Connor said. He glanced down at the solitary bag in Becker's hand and smirked. "Wow, you've gone all out," he said sarcastically.

"Whatever," Becker said shortly. He looked around, but couldn't see a sign of the others.

Abby saw him looking round. "Matt and Emily are upstairs buying an iPad, I said we'd go and meet them up there when we've got Jess," she told him.

Becker nodded. "Where is Jess?" He asked, turning back to Connor and Abby.

Abby nodded towards the shop they were standing in front of. "Where do you think?" She asked with a grin.

Becker looked and saw that they were standing in front of a shoe shop. It wasn't a chain Becker recognised, and the window showed a display of colourful, eccentric high heels, every one of which he could imagine on Jess' feet.

A shoe shop. It was like Jess' mother ship. He knew he should just wait outside with the rest of them, but he couldn't resist the temptation to observe Jess in that kind of environment, and probably collect good teasing fodder. In fact it would make the whole trip worthwhile. He smirked and started towards the shop. "I'll go get her."

Abby and Connor both smirked at him as if they knew exactly why he wanted to go into the shop. They probably did.

At first glance the shop looked empty. Becker could hear some noises coming from round the corner and he headed for the back of the store, where he found Jess. There were about ten or twelve bags of varying size on the floor by a padded bench, and the heels Jess had been wearing that day were lying discarded next to them. Jess had her back to him, and was standing in front of a full-length mirror, studying her feet.

Becker looked down and saw that she was wearing a pair of high-heeled strappy sandals. Most of the straps were purple but the ones across her toes were white and the body of the shoe was turquoise, and he could just about see that the soles of the shoes were bright red. To be honest, he didn't know why Jess was even bothering to try them on – they were clearly made for her.

Jess looked up and saw him in the mirror. "Becker! What are you doing here?" She spun round to face him, her eyes wide.

"Looking for you," he said. "You going to buy those?"

Jess sighed. "No, there's no way I could afford them, especially not this month," she said, looking down at the shoes with a forlorn expression. She sighed again, and looked back up at him. "I won't be long, I'll meet you outside."

"It's okay, I can wait," Becker said.

Jess glanced at something behind Becker and then back at him. "Seriously, I think you should wait outside," she said. "This is boring."

Becker smirked – she was clearly trying to get rid of him to escape the inevitable teasing about shoes. "I'll survive," he said.

Jess glanced back again, and shifted from foot to foot. "Becker really – trust me, please go," she said seriously.

Becker frowned at her change in tone. "Why?" He asked suspiciously. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the thing she'd been looking at was a door, which presumably led to the back rooms of the shop.

"I'll explain later," Jess said, her voice sounding kind of urgent now.

Becker didn't know what was going on, but Jess was clearly uncomfortable or nervous about something, and he didn't think it was the thought of him teasing her. One thing was for sure – he wasn't about to leave her while she was like that. "I'm not going anywhere," he said decisively, folding his arms over his chest.

Jess stared at him for a moment before straightening her shoulders and pursing her lips into a defiant expression. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she said cryptically.

Becker raised an eyebrow at her sudden change in demeanour, but before he could say anything else the door behind him opened, and Becker looked round to see a man walk out carrying a shoebox. He was wearing black skinny jeans, pointed patent leather shoes and a dark red long-sleeve t-shirt.

"You are in luck, honey, because we just so happen to have..." the man's voice trailed off as he noticed Becker, and his eyes widened before he smiled widely. "Well hello there, tall dark and handsome," he said. "Jessica, who is this luscious piece of man flesh?"

Becker's eyes widened, and he heard Jess take a few steps towards him.

"Ricky, meet Captain Becker," she said cheerfully.

Ricky raised an eyebrow and smirked at Becker. "Captain?" He repeated. "My my, I do love a man in uniform." He held out a hand to Becker, but not as if he wanted to shake hands – it was more like the way a lady would hold out their hand to be kissed. "Enchante."

Becker really wasn't sure what to do right now. It wasn't so much that Ricky was so blatantly hitting on him that was a problem – it was the fact that Jess was standing right behind him, clearly enjoying every moment. Damn her – she'd done this on purpose. He forced himself not to look back round at her; since he could imagine her smirk all too well this wasn't a sacrifice.

Becker steeled himself and reached out to take Ricky's hand to shake it, but the man caught his hand in an iron grip and slid a step closer to him, so their hands were practically against his chest. Becker resisted the urge to snatch his hand back. "Erm, hi," he said.

"Becker didn't want to wait outside with everyone else – he loves shoe shopping," Jess piped up.

Becker did turn then, to glare at Jess – she was barely holding in her laughter.

"Well that's something we have in common, darling," Ricky practically purred, drawing Becker's attention back to him. His grip tightened on Becker's hand. "Maybe we should find out what else we have in common," he said suggestively, before winking.

Becker was literally lost for words, and was all kinds of grateful when Ricky let go of his hand. He brushed past him to walk over to Jess, who was grinning widely.

"Tell you what, Ricky, why don't you come with us to the pub?" She said. "You said your shift is almost done."

Becker's jaw dropped. What the hell was she doing?

"Hmm, I was supposed to be doing a zumba class tonight, but my schedule has suddenly become very free," Ricky said, looking over his shoulder at Becker and smiling.

"Good," Jess said warmly. She looked over at Becker with a grin. "Isn't that great?"

Becker narrowed his eyes at her. "Yeah," he said flatly.

Ricky put the box down on the bench next to Jess. "So we have the size fives in rose, peach or custard," he said.

"Ooh... peach I think," Jess said. "Thanks Ricky."

Ricky nodded and turned back towards the door – and Becker. He smiled at him. "Back in a moment – don't you go anywhere."

The second the door closed behind him, Becker rounded on Jess. She was grinning delightedly.

"I can't believe you just did that to me," he hissed at her.

Jess shrugged. "I told you to wait outside," she reminded him.

Becker glared at her. "But you didn't have... why did you invite him to the pub?" He demanded.

"Ricky's a friend of mine," Jess said innocently.

"Jess!"

"What? Ricky's a nice guy." She cocked her head to one side and gave him a wide-eyed look. "You could do a lot worse."

Becker narrowed his eyes at her as her lips started twitching. "This isn't funny," he said through gritted teeth.

Jess pretended to think about it for a moment before nodding. "It is."

Becker could see he wasn't getting anywhere with her, and he groaned. "Connor and Abby will never let me live this down," he said.

Jess grinned. "You may be right there," she said. "And Matt will probably find it rather amusing as well…"

Becker groaned again at the thought of Matt's reaction. "You have to uninvite him," he said flatly.

"That would be very rude."

"Then you have to get him to back off."

"Why me?"

Becker glared at her again. "Because this is all your fault and you know it," he growled.

Jess shrugged. "Maybe," she said. "Or maybe I just want to see you squirm all evening."

"Jess!" Becker exclaimed. Jess was grinning at him, and she looked so much more evil than he had ever seen her. She clearly wasn't going to help him get out of this so easily, so his tone turned pleading.

"Please. I'll give you chocolate."

"I'm cutting back," Jess said airily.

"I'll bring you coffee for a month."

"I'm very particular, I like to make my own." Jess looked away from him and sat down on the bench to start to take off the colourful shoes she was wearing.

"I..." Becker bowed his head as he tried to think, and his eyes fell on her feet. His head snapped back up to her face. "I'll buy you the shoes."

Jess' hands froze as they worked to undo the strap of one such shoe. She stared at him. "What?"

"Those shoes," Becker said, pointing at her feet. "The ones you can't afford. I'll buy them for you."

Jess stood up again, leaving the shoes on her feet, and stared at him. All traces of her evil grin had vanished. She looked like she was considering his offer for a moment, before shaking her head. "Becker, they're pretty expensive…"

Becker could see he had her, despite her attempt to appear otherwise. She sounded like she was trying to talk herself out of it rather than him. "It's fine," he said a little desperately. "Really, I'll buy them."

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart," Becker said.

Jess grinned again, but this time it was the delighted, happy smile he was more used to seeing. "Okay," she said.

Becker didn't get a chance to ask Jess what she planned to do to convince Ricky not to come to the pub, because two things happened at once. One, he heard the unmistakable sound of the door handle behind him starting to turn, and two, Jess took one step towards him, placed her hands on his shoulders, went up on her tiptoes, and kissed him.

Becker forgot all about the first thing, and focused solely on the second.

Jess was kissing him. Actually, properly, kissing him. He froze, completely shocked. Well… it wasn't a shock exactly – he knew that she, you know, liked him – he wasn't a total idiot, despite appearances, but he'd never thought that she would actually make the first move. In fact he'd thought that she'd eventually give up on waiting for him to make the first move, move on to someone who was less of an emotional numbskull, and leave him regretting his emotional numbskull-ness for the rest of his life. This, her kissing him out of the blue like this, this was completely… out of the blue.

This all flashed through Becker's head in a couple of microseconds, but even so his next thought was to be astounded at how much he rambled in his head.

The next thought was vague amusement at the fact that the thing that'd made Jess kiss him was him offering to buy her shoes.

Then he told himself to shut the hell up.

Jess was kissing him, and there was only one available course of action to take: Becker wrapped his arms around Jess' waist, pulled her towards him, and kissed her back.

Jess' lips were soft under his, and Becker immediately took control of the kiss, slanting his mouth over hers and pulling her even closer. Jess slid her hands over his shoulders to wrap her arms around his neck and made a sweet noise in the back of her throat that Becker knew he needed to hear again. He couldn't believe he'd waited so long to do this…

"Well."

To be perfectly honest, Becker might not have even noticed Ricky was back in the room if it weren't for Jess' reaction. He barely heard him speak (or rather, had better things to pay attention to) but Jess clearly did, because as soon as she heard him speak she jumped back and turned away from Becker.

"Oops, sorry!" Jess said breathlessly. Becker blinked his eyes open, his hands falling back to his sides, as Jess took a couple of steps away from him and sitting down again on the padded bench by her discarded shoes. She bent down to start undoing the straps on the shoes she was wearing.

Becker still couldn't move.

"We, erm... well, we're keeping it a secret from our friends and so when we're alone... well..." Jess grinned sheepishly at Ricky, who chuckled.

"Say no more, honey," he said. He looked at Becker, who stared back at him with what he could only assume was a gormless expression, and sighed. "Can't say I blame you. Why are all the good ones straight?"

Jess giggled. "Sorry!"

Becker's brain was still on catch-up. Jess had kissed him, and he had kissed her back but… but… she was…

Jess kicked off her shoes, the ones he'd promised to buy her if she uninvited Ricky, and the click of them hitting the floor seemed to snap Becker out of his stupor. She had kissed him to get Ricky to back off. Nothing more. It had been a ruse – her way of saving him, like he'd told her to. It had meant nothing.

"I got the peach ones for you – do you want to try them on?" Ricky was saying, holding out a shoe box to Jess.

She shook her head, slipping her feet back into her heels. "No, I'll just take them," she said. She scooped up the sandals she'd been wearing and held them out towards Ricky with an excited grin. "The Louboutins too."

Ricky's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"Yep – Becker's getting them for me," Jess said.

"He's a keeper," Ricky said, winking at Becker.

"I know," Jess said She looked over at Becker for the first time since kissing him, and her cheeks went pink. Becker could feel the back of his neck growing warm as well as he remembered the kiss and, most importantly, his response to it. He'd kissed her back without any thought that it might not be real, and had made a complete fool of himself.

He'd always thought that Jess had… you know, liked him – but she'd kissed him and gone so smoothly into lying to Ricky that now he wasn't so sure. It obviously hadn't meant anything to her, which just left him looking like an idiot.

Jess looked away from Becker after a moment and followed Ricky over to the till. Becker trailed after them and, once Jess had paid for her peach shoes, used his credit card to pay for the Lou-ma-what's-it shoes. He managed not to wince when he saw the price, but it was a close call.

"So will you meet us at the pub?" Jess asked Ricky as he handed her the bag with her shoes.

"No, I think I'd better go to zumba – I had a mince pie today," Ricky said without a moment's hesitation.

"Well if you're sure," said Jess, doing a good job of sounding disappointed.

"I'm sure. Bye honey." Ricky turned to Becker and smirked. "And bye bye to you too, Captain."

"Bye," Becker managed to reply before following Jess through the shop. He could see through the glass that Matt and Emily had finished in the Apple store and were with Abby and Connor, waiting for them.

"You okay?" Jess said to him just before they left the shop.

Becker looked at Jess again and saw that she was giving him a serious look, clearly concerned by his silence. He tried to regroup – hopefully she wouldn't read too much into the way he'd responded, and would just assume he'd known what she was up to when he'd kissed her back.

He cleared his throat and managed a small smile. "Fine," he said. "Just warn me next time."

Jess raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips, looking amused. "Next time?" She asked.

Becker immediately felt his face heating up again, and he quickly turned away from Jess and pushed his way out of the shop.

TBC