Page 61 of Last Dance, Second Chance

Nathan took off his jacket and helped her on with it.

“Now you’ll be cold,” she pointed out.

“I’m fine,” he said with a grin. “Us men are made of stern stuff.”

Jessica laughed. “Sure you are. Shall we head back to the car?”

“If you’d like. I know of an ice-cream parlour around here, though, that’s supposed to be really good. It’s open until ten.”

“That sounds great!” she said. “I’m still too excited to go home.”

“And you think sugar’s going to help with that?”

She laughed again. “Definitely.”

They walked along together, Jessica filling Nathan in about when she lived in London while she was at ballet school. “I was so busy that I never really had a lot of time to sightsee. But I did get taken out to some amazing places by my company for fundraisers,” she said.

They reached the ice-cream parlour, which had a steady stream of customers, mostly theatregoers like themselves.

Nathan had a honey and honeycomb ice cream and Jessica a pear sorbet. They got them in tubs to take away but soon realised that Jessica wasn’t able to walk on crutches and eat her sorbet at the same time, so they stopped at a bench and sat down.

“This is amazing,” said Jessica. “Do you want to try some?”

“Sure,” said Nathan, and they swapped pots.

“How did you even know about this ice-cream parlour?”

“I looked it up,” he said.

“You’ve planned a perfect evening.”

“That was the idea.” Nathan was blushing.

“Well, you succeeded.”

“A perfect evening with a perfect woman.” Nathan swapped pots back again.

“I’m far from perfect,” said Jessica. She shook her head. “Especially after what I said to you when we had that argument...”

“Hey,” Nathan said kindly, turning her to face him. “I thought we’d agreed that was all water under the bridge? We’ve both apologised.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel bad about it,” Jessica said, hanging her head.

“Me too,” Nathan admitted. “I never should have tried to tell you what to do. But it’s over, and we’re friends again now.”

He put his arm around her and she looked up at him. “You’ve got ice cream on your face,” she said, smiling affectionately. She reached up and gently wiped it off.

She stopped, her eyes meeting his. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for her to then lean in and kiss him.

The world stopped as their lips met, sparks flying through Jessica’s whole body as they tentatively gave in to what their bodies craved.

“Wow,” Nathan said when they pulled apart.

“You taste of honey,” said Jessica, grinning.

“That was . . .”

“Amazing,” finished Jessica.

---