Page 63 of Last Christmas in London

His hand drifted down my shoulder to my lower back, lingering just enough to make my pulse race as I pressed into him further.

‘Times up!’ a voice called off the ice and instinct pulled us apart.

For a long second, we just stared at each other, the world around us fading to a blur of twinkling lights and laughter.

Simon said nothing, his chest rising in shallow breaths as we stared at one another.

‘That,’ Simon finally said, voice a little husky, ‘was pretty spectacular.’

My lips curled. ‘Not bad at all.’

But we both knew it was so much more than that.

Chapter 19

After shuffling off the ice – awkwardly assisted by the marshals, since neither of us could quite remember how to walk, as a result of the kiss or the ice I couldn’t tell – we made our way to the carpeted changing rooms in silence, smiling dorkily at each other, and we unlaced our boots, neither of us quite knowing what to say to the other.

‘You ready?’ Simon asked as I handed over my boots to the bemused-looking cloakroom agent and nodded.

He offered me his hand.

I took it after a beat.

We made our way to the nearby Christmas café. It was open later than the rink, thankfully; it was the kind of place that permanently smelled like a gingerbread house.

‘I haven’t been skating since I was a kid,’ I said as we sat down, cradling a hot chocolate Simon had treated me to. It was drowning in whipped cream and marshmallows. ‘I forgot how much fun it was.’

‘And how hard,’ he added, tipping half a container of cinnamon on top of the cream on his drink before attacking it with a spoon. ‘My mum took me skating once. I was about as useless as I was tonight.’

‘You got the hang of it,’ I reminded him.

He shook his head. ‘She and I gave up after about twenty minutes. Just sat, drank hot chocolate, and watched everyone else fall over instead. It was one of my favourite days with her.’

There was something in his tone – warm but also fragile, as if the memory was holding him together and breaking him at the same time.

I smiled. ‘That sounds lovely.’

I licked my lips to clear the cream off my chin but missed a spot. Simon leaned forward without thinking, his thumb brushing just below my lip. He licked the residue off his finger, completely unfazed.

I cleared my throat, suddenly unable to hold his gaze.

His expression became playfully amused. ‘What about you?’

‘I have memories like that with my mum, but I don’t tend to think about them much.’

Simon didn’t push. He just nodded, the way someone does when they understand something too well.

‘I think about memories more at Christmas,’ he admitted. ‘She’s still such a big part of the holiday season, though it’s been more than ten years since I spent Christmas with her.’ He took a breath as if wanting to saying more, but he stopped himself.

‘You love Christmas, don’t you?’ he asked instead. ‘Even with… everything?’

I nodded slowly at first and then quite passionately. He laughed.

‘I can’t help it. It’s the season that just lifts my mood. Everything seems hopeful, or possible. The year’s coming to a close, fresh beginnings are going to happen.’

He nodded slowly now too, running his finger around the top of his hot chocolate.

‘I do get that,’ he said. ‘But I suppose it’s just a weird time for me. I seem to remember a lot of stuff at this time of year, especially about my mum. And, usually, the small things more than the big ones; like the way she would only use a particular bowl or spoon to bake the Christmas pudding, or how she used to hum when she was thinking.’