Page 14 of Re-Writing Christmas

“Come on,” Donovan said, stepping around me and setting his blades on the ice.“Let’s just go around slowly.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to go slowly,” I replied, taking tentative steps onto the ice behind him.“That’s how you fall over.”

He moved forward a couple of paces so we were both properly on the inside edge of the rink.There were tiny children speeding around as if they’d been born with skates attached to their feet, and adults at varying levels of competence.Some wobbly, some cautious, some laughing as they whizzed around.

Come on, Nova.This is supposed to be a way to remind Donovan about having festive fun.You can’t stay here the whole time.

Before I could move forward, Donovan reached for my hand.It was warm and enveloped mine easily.His touch totally shocked me because...well, he hadn’t touched me before, and I’djustdecided that hand-holding was not going to happen.I looked up at him, and he laughed.

“I can let go if you want,” he said, but he’d already started skating, and I had no choice but to move too unless I wanted to fall over.

“No, it’s fine,” I answered, trying not to sound as weirded out as I felt.Not that his hand in mine was bad.In fact, it was strangely comforting when I was uneasy about my skills.But I was extremely conscious that my heart had started to beat faster, and I hoped it was only because of my nerves about skating.

“I’m guessing when you suggested this, you meant for us to do more than one lap and then go home?”

I snorted, finding my rhythm and pushing thoughts of my racing heart aside.“I didn’t come all this way and pay for just the one go around.We have forty-five minutes, but we don’t have to stay for all of it.”

“Do you have plans after this, or are we just going our separate ways?”

The tone of teasing in his voice was one I was being forced to quickly get used to.I couldn’t decide if he was getting a kick out of my little plan in the way I hoped he would or if he was just humouring me.

“Good question,” I said.“I mean, there are plenty of options.We could check out the rest of Winter Wonderland, go to the Exeter Christmas market, or we could do something else from the list.”

“Let’s see how we get on with the skating first.If you aren’t ready to strangle me by the end of it, we can decide then.”

I risked a look up at him, and his lips were twitching as if he was trying to stop a smile.

He was mocking me.

“It was brave of you to wear a scarf,” I said.“That would be the perfect murder weapon.”

“All this talk of murder is making me paranoid.”

“You were the one who brought it up,” I pointed out.

“True.So, how does this work, then?We have the list, and we have very limited time to fit everything in.”

“That’s why I kept it short.But...”I paused.“Are you still planning to leave immediately after Christmas?Because I’ll be off work until the beginning of January.”

“I haven’t booked a flight yet,” he admitted.“I think I’ll go to Italy once my parents are back from their cruise, but that won’t be until the tenth of January.”

“I’m surprised you’ve considered staying that long.”I meant to sound like I was joking, but I was still a little miffed by his blog post.Hehadn’tsaid anything bad about Dawlish, but it was odd to me that he viewed life here as something to change.That the locals, or more specifically me, should want something more.

“Nova, come on,” he said.“You need to lighten up a little.Don’t take what I wrote so personally.”

“It was less the writing and more the way you give me thatlook,” I told him, unable to keep the distaste from my voice this time.

“What look?”he asked, weaving us through the other skaters with ease.

“Judgy.Like because I don’t want to fly away somewhere exotic that I’m somehow not interesting.”

“It’s not...”

His last words were halted as he lost concentration for a second, slipping, and his ankle seemed to bend at a horrible angle as he let go of my hand before falling to the floor and skidding across it a little.

“Shit,” I hissed, skating across to him where he was doubled over, holding onto his ankle.Other people had, of course, seen him go down.While many had swerved to avoid him, unable to slow down in time, a few people stopped to come to our aid.

One of the stewards had also seen us, and he pushed his way through to attend to Donovan while I watched on, stunned at how fast it had all happened.One minute, we were engaging in our usual frenemy kind of way, and the next, Donovan had hit the ground.

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