Page 34 of Christmas Romance Galore!
“Same as you — skating.” Nicola’s tone was deadpan, her expression vanilla. She didn’t seem freaked at all that we were meeting the day after we nearly had sex, and that pissed me off royally. Did none of this mean anything to her?
“Really? You never mentioned it last night.” If she was stalking me, I wasn’t amused.
Nicola baulked and my insides flared red.
“It never really came up, did it?” she said. Now her tone was gritty, like this was all my fault.
Thankfully, Holly butted in. “Great to see you guys, but now Melanie’s in one piece, we’re going to get in some more skating.” She offered her hand to me while fixing me with a solid stare. “Shall we?”
I glanced at Nicola, then at Melanie, before taking Holly’s hand. I was grateful to her for offering an easy escape, although still piqued at Nicola’s casual brush-off. I wasn’t sure how we were meant to act with each other now either, but hostile was not the first option that sprang to mind.
Holly’s grip was like a vice as we skated off, faster than before. I didn’t like to point out to her that no matter how fast we went, we’d still just be going round and round in a circle.
The ice rink was suddenly a metaphor for life.
“I cannot believe they’re here too,” I said, glancing at Holly.
“I can’t believe you were talking to her. And that she helped you up first before her own fiancée. She’s got some nerve.”
Holly tightened her grip again and I narrowly missed crashing into a stranded child.
“Hey, slow down,” I said. “You’re hurting my hand and I don’t like going this fast.”
“I just wanted to get away from them — I was trying to do you a favour.”
I squeezed her hand and pulled her back — I needed to make her see things from my perspective.
Holly reluctantly slowed.
“I appreciate that, but you have to let me deal with this my way. This is my mess, my situation, not yours.”
“I just don’t want her treating you like shit, like always.” Holly’s face softened. “You don’t deserve that.”
I saw something in her eyes then, but I couldn’t quite place it. Protection? Chivalry? Love? A merry-go-round of terms whizzed in my brain, but I brushed them aside and pulled her gently into the hoardings. I couldn’t deal with anything else on top of the fact that Nicola was here right now.
“Nice of you to say, but racing around an ice rink isn’t going to affect that either way. Just relax and let’s try to enjoy this, like you said.” Just as the words came out of my mouth, Nicola and Melanie stuttered past us, Melanie grimacing, Nicola looking less than pleased.
“We can definitely skate better than them,” Holly said.
“Very true.” My mind flicked back through my Nicola album and landed on a memory from my youth — Nicola and I skating around our local ice rink, arm in arm. It was romantic back then, and now Nicola was trying to be romantic with Melanie. The morning after she’d come round to seduce me. Anger bubbled up my body.
“I’m going back in.” I skated off, not waiting for Holly and not looking back. I was trapped and angry and not in the right space to be on an ice rink, that was for sure. I scanned the area. Where were they? I glided past three teenage boys in a line holding hands, sure to topple backwards at any moment. Then a small child skating backwards without a care in the world. Then a young couple holding hands, skating together, in love.
And then I saw them. Melanie had found her centre of balance and her body language was far better than it had been a few minutes earlier — she was getting the hang of it, but still grasping Nicola’s arm. She wobbled slightly and Nicola put an arm around her waist. Then she leaned in and said something, and they both laughed.
And that’s when I realised — they were one of the happy couples too. So what that we’d snogged in the last 24 hours? It wasn’t impacting on their day. That made me even more angry.
They were in my sights now, but I wasn’t really sure of my plan. I wanted to disturb their happiness, get my own back. How dare Nicola be smiling and laughing. What about me? What about my happiness and my Christmas girlfriend quest? Nicola showing up had completely blown that out of the water, thrown me off my game. If she hadn’t shown up, I’d surely have bagged a girlfriend by now, would have carried on dating.
But she’d proved a distraction.
Now I was going to be a distraction right back.
I revved forward, going left to avoid a woman in a red ski jacket, then right to skate around a weeping child on the floor, an ice marshal in attendance. They were so close, with their backs to me, still laughing. I could just clip the back of Nicola’s heels and skate off like nothing happened, right? And once she went down, Melanie was sure to follow.
I was five feet away, ready to strike when I felt an arm on mine — Holly. She pushed me left, but in the process went right into the back of Nicola and Melanie. There was a yelp as they fell forward, a crack as all their bodies struck the ice, Holly on top of them, me gawping at the sight. I changed the direction of my skates and swooped in to help Holly.
Nicola was still on the floor, struggling to get up. “Did you do that on purpose? There was plenty of room around, why would you do that?”
