Page 37 of Last Christmas in London

I’m officially a friend?

I felt a warm glow in my chest. ‘Can you just look after it until I get back?’

Ethan looked at the boxes and then nodded. ‘Sure thing. I might even come and watch if I’m done with my set in time.’

‘But who would watch my stuff?’ Simon froze.

Ethan laughed mischievously. ‘I’d have no shortage of volunteers to help me bring it over, don’t you worry.’

‘Don’t you dare tell anyone about this,’ Simon said, clapping him on the back in reluctant thanks.

Ethan smiled and turned his head slowly in the direction of his microphone as I grabbed Simon by the wrist and quickly pulled him away.

‘Okay, fine. I won’t tell the other buskers that Simon’s running in the Great Christmas Pudding Race,’ Ethan’s voice reverberated out of his speakers and almost immediately the buskers patiently waiting for their sessions under the cover of St Paul’s Church began to jeer. Their cheering followed us as they shouted, ‘Go for it, Simon!’

‘Thank you,’ I said quickly, to distract Simon from the echoing jeers of his fellow buskers, brushing his hand with my fingers as I handed him a few last coins.

His hand closed around mine for a second, his thumb grazing my knuckles, before he pocketed the coins. ‘You owe me for this one.’

I laughed, the sound breathier than I intended. ‘I know. And I’ll make it up to you. Promise.’

‘Good,’ he said, his voice lower now, his eyes locked on mine. ‘I’m counting on it.’

His words hung between us, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe.

I grabbed his hand properly, giving it a playful tug to break the moment. ‘Come on – Christmas isn’t going to save itself.’

His fingers curled around mine, holding on just a little tighter than necessary. ‘Lead the way, Jovie.’

Chapter 12

‘It’s a little snug, but it will have to do,’ Josh said, pulling up the hood of the Grinch costume on Simon’s head. ‘Right.’ He clapped his hands managerially. ‘Are we ready?’

Other teams around were gathering and were equally energetic in their pep talks.

‘Almost,’ I said, taking the green face paint from Megan’s waiting hand and dampening the sponge in a little tub of water in the other.

‘What is that?’ Simon asked, looking from me to the neon-lime face paint.

‘I will personally donate £100 to Crisis,’ I said, rubbing the sponge in the paint before he could object, and slathering it on his chin. He went silent at once and noticeably pouted, which was actually quite helpful in the paint application.

‘What’s our team name, Josh?’ I asked Josh over Simon’s shoulder, as I ignored his playful glare.

Josh turned from speaking to one of the Santa organisers and, with a dramatic arm flourish, announced he had registered us as Fab-YULE-Us.

‘I had nothing to do with it,’ Megan pointed out, looking at her phone once more, willing for a message from her husband that had still yet to arrive.

‘What? It’s perfect,’ Josh exclaimed. ‘Much better than the others.’

‘What are the others?’ Simon asked curiously, as a race marshal came by asking for us to get into position as the celebrity of the day – a winner of the recent Celebrity MasterChef UK – was about to come on stage to start the race.

I hastily dropped the face paint into a Tesco Bag For Life, not remembering that my crossbody bag was stashed inside until it was too late, and prepared to get in line to get a tray and a Christmas pudding.

‘Well,’ Josh began as Megan, Simon, and I hastened to get to the start of the race. ‘There’s the Jingle Belles, an all-girl team with a seventy-plus-year-old, so we’ve got them beat. Then the Parumpapumpums, who I think we’ll need to watch out for.’

‘Yeah,’ Megan interjected as we were jostled towards the starting line. ‘They were shouting Christmas slurs like “I will deck your halls!”’

‘And the ever-so-imaginative “We will sleigh you!”’ Josh added, rolling his eyes in horror – forgetting that he had named our group the Fab-YULE-Us. We were not innocent of pun murder.