Page 64 of Holiday Romance
“The night is young?” He looks up and I can tell he’s suspicious at my change of heart. “I thought you didn’t like London at Christmas.”
“All the more reason to prove me wrong.”
“Molly—”
“Come on. Just for an hour. Before I get tired and cranky. Like you.”
“Funny,” he says, but he moves when I tug on his arm and lead him toward the station.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Andrew relaxes the farther we travel into central London and by the time we get off at a crowded Westminster station, he’s back to his usual self, grinning at the crowds of holiday tourists around us. I hadn’t planned any further than “go to the city, find something dipped in sugar” and after one disorienting moment, we decide to follow everyone else crossing the bridge beside Big Ben, where we soon spy a Christmas market on the south bank of the river.
It’s kitschy, even for Andrew, with quaint mom-and-pop stalls filled with sweet treats and plastic trinkets that don’t fool me as authentic for a second. But I guess it’s notthe worst place to be on a clear December evening. It’s busy, but not so busy that we can’t move around, and once we get past the stalls there are benches to sit at and games to play. A classic carousel spins shrieking children and their indulgent parents around and around, and Christmas pop music plays over the speakers, one hit song after the next.
I buy us both a bag of churros and Andrew his promised hot chocolate as we walk along the Thames and I’m feeling weirdly content and perfectly comfortable, so I don’t even think when the next words pop out of my mouth.
“This would be a great date night.” I go still as soon as I say it, only to double down when Andrew turns to me with a smirk. “It would!”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
“No,” I say childishly, but then, with my conversation with Gabriela echoing through my mind: “Maybe.”
Andrew’s expression doesn’t change, but it takes a moment for him to look away. “This isn’t a date,” he says. “I wouldn’t take you somewhere Christmassy on a date.”
“Where would you take me?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“You’ve thought about it enough that you know you wouldn’t take me here,” I point out and I know I’ve caught him when he goes quiet. “Tell me,” I say, and I shake the churros before him like a bribe. He snatches one in his hand, examining it for a second before he eats half of it in one bite. Men.
“Okay,” he says as we keep walking. “I guess it’s more of what you don’t like rather than what you do like.”
“And what don’t I like?”
“Picnics.”
“I like picnics,” I protest. “I just don’t like insects. Which picnics usually involve.”
“You also don’t like sitting in the sun.”
“I burn.”
“Or paper plates.”
“They’re flimsy.”
“You don’t like picnics,” he concludes. “Youdolike the cinema, so I could take you to some old fancy movie and pay crazy ticket prices, but I’ve never liked things like that for a first date. Why waste an evening sitting in silence when I could be talking to you instead?”
“So, that rules out the theater.”
“Which is handy seeing as you also hate the theater.”
“Now, see, I don’t hate the theater. What I hate are places that don’t let you pee when you need to pee. And sometimes you’ve just got to sneeze. I mean, I’m sorry it’s your big dumb monologue, but you can’t hold something like that in. It damages your brain.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does. I read it online.”
