Page 34 of Off the Pitch

An hour later we found ourselves at the entrance to Winter Wonderland.

After wrapping ourselves in many, many layers we’d piled into Christian’s car and driven to my house in Pimlico so we could grab Kit and catch the tube the last bit of the way, since there was absolutely no parking in central London.

As predicted, it was absolutely heaving and absolutely freezing. Despite my many layers, I would still rather have been at home with Christian, especially because as soon as we’d left his house, he’d automatically separated from me, stepping back to a friendly distance. I wished I could stand beside him and hold his hand, whisper in his ear, and press little kisses to his rosy cheeks.

I supposed I just had to be patient with him and hope that one day he’d feel comfortable enough to let me do those things.

Nobody even recognised him here. There were too many people all paying attention to their own groups of friends or family, not staring at strangers. Besides, Christian was wearing a giant knitted scarf and hat, both in plain colours, so he wasn’t exactly advertising the team. I doubted that anyone looked at us twice. Either that or nobody cared, and given most Londoners’ disdain for other people, I doubted they’d have been interested even if they did know who Christian was.

As soon we got inside, Lily immediately grabbed Kit’s hand and dragged him towards a huge skating rink. Both Christian and I had utterly refused to go skating: Christian because he couldn’t risk getting injured, and me because I wasn’t going make myself look like a twat by continually falling over in front of half of London.

Still, I was glad that Lily had gravitated towards Kit and wanted to include him. I always worried that he was going to get left out, and for all that I joked about being annoyed by him, I did feel something like parental responsibility towards him. It wasn’t as if his own parents had actually ever cared.

“Is there something you’d like to ride?” I asked, trying not to smirk at the dirty thoughts filling my head. Bad David.

Christian snorted, clearly thinking the same thing. That was interesting. His eyes flicked around, trying to take everything in. “I don’t know,” he admitted, chewing his lip. “Maybe. Maybe we could go on the wheel? That seems pretty low risk.”

Oh jeez. He had to pick the one thing I wasn’t overly fond of. Time to suck up my fear and put on a big smile.

“Sure, we can do that.” I instinctively reached for his hand but stopped myself just in time. I forced a grin onto my face. “Lead the way.”

We wound our way through the crowds, occasionally adding something to our list of things to do or eat. Christian wanted a toffee apple and to go down the giant ice slide. I wanted as much mulled wine as I could drink and to ride the carousel. I had a soft spot in my heart for the painted horses and the tinny, fairground music. I remembered riding them as a kid with my mum on a horse next to me, her face lit up in a smile. After my dad died, it seemed to be one of the only things that had made her really smile again.

Once she’d told me it was because he’d taken her on a date to a fair when she’d first met him, and she’d insisted on dragging him on the carousel. At first he’d grumbled, saying it was too girly and childish, but within two minutes he’d been grinning like a kid and pretending to race my mum. She told me that she knew then and there that he was the one for her. When he’d been killed in a motorbike accident when I was five, I think a part of her died as well.

I’d told Christian this story before, and he’d never teased me for liking the ride. As soon as I mentioned it to him when we joined the queue for the Ferris wheel, he just smiled and nodded.

“We can have a race,” he said. “And if I win, you can buy me some candy floss.”

“Done.” Fuck, I wished I could kiss him.

Sooner than I would have liked, we were being shepherded into our little standing pod for the wheel. I was glad it wasn’t one of the old-fashioned little wooden swing-style seats because I would have needed a shit-ton of convincing to get into one of those. Thankfully, the family after us in the queue consisted of about six people, so Christian and I managed to end up with one to ourselves.

Once we started moving, it wasn’t as bad as I’d first feared.

The glass sides of the pod made me feel a lot safer than I’d imagined, and once we got to a certain height, and nobody could see who we were, Christian slid his hand into mine and rested his head on my shoulder.

From this height, we could see the whole fair lit up in a mass of colourful lights against the dark sky. Beyond the fair were the soft lights of Hyde Park and the glow of the streets of London. Sometimes, I forgot how beautiful the city could be.

When we reached the top, Christian pulled me into a deep kiss, his tongue licking into my mouth in hungry exploration. By the time we broke apart, I was panting and flushed, my jeans uncomfortably tight.

“You look a little tense,” Christian grinned.

“It’s your fault,” I said, gently smacking his ass. “You’re such a tease.”

“Me? I’m totally innocent here,” he said, stepping back.

“Yeah, innocent.”

“Be nice, or I’ll make you ride the biggest roller coaster I can find. Or that ride that fires you up into the air.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” he raised his eyebrow, shooting me the same look I’d seen on Lily’s face too many times. It meant trouble.

“Fine, you win.” I rolled my eyes and watched Christian do some form of mini victory dance before we watched the ground come back into view, fingers interlinked until just before we reached the station.

The spell was broken, and we slipped apart, stepping back into the crowds.

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