CHAPTER FIVE #2
Jake is here, though. With me.
The only time I don’t have Jake’s full attention on the ice is when he helps other people who have fallen.
Marshals skate around in red shirts for this very purpose, but Jake beats them to it half the time.
One of his rescues is a grown man who says something to him in Italian, laughing, and Jake replies.
Also in fluent Italian. Because of course he does.
He skates back to me and I push away from the wall towards him with more confidence than skill.
Instantly, I start to wobble, and the moment turns into slapstick.
I bend at the waist to try to slow my momentum, which throws off my center of gravity.
I whip upright, but it’s an overcorrection.
My hips lurch forward as I windmill my arms. Right now, I’m the cliché.
I get a glimpse of Jake closing in. The only thing that would make this worse is if I take him down with me, so I try to wave him off.
My brain wants me to say, “You don’t have to catch me,” but what comes out of my mouth instead is a high-pitched “Yeeeee” wailing over the music.
It echoes across the courtyard. When I wrench my body sideways in an attempt to brute-force my way back to the wall, I go down hard, wrist-first.
Jake comes to a stop with his back to the oncoming skaters, crouching like he’s shielding me.
Gently, he lifts my knitted beanie away from my eyes and tucks a lock of my hair back underneath.
The pad of his thumb coasts across my cheekbone like he’s brushing something away. He ducks his head and says, “You OK?”
“Oh, totally.” The fall knocked the wind out of me, so it comes out as a croak.
“Fascinating interpretive dance,” he says.
Despite the pain in my wrist and my hip, I can’t help laughing. “I call that one ‘The Skedaddle.’”
“You looked like a marionette whose puppeteer was being attacked by bees.”
I lean forward and laugh harder. Jake has a hand on my knee. I brace my palm against the ice to try to sit up, but the pain in my wrist makes me hiss in agony.
“Let me see.” Jake takes off his gloves and lifts my hand, gently working his fingertips under the cuff of my coat and into my glove to slide it off.
He eases each of my fingers free, careful not to tug my wrist as he does.
Suddenly, I have a very intrusive, very hot image of him on his knees in front of me in a dark room, languidly stripping knee-high socks down my calves—
“Looks OK.” His voice is a rasp. Like maybe his imagination and mine went to the same place.
My hand is cradled knuckles-down in both of his.
He skims his thumbs over my skin, one along the heel of my palm, the other over the pad just below my own thumb.
There’s nothing clinical about this. It’s an exploration, and my hand is the first part of my body he’s getting to map.
All the fine little hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand up so fast it’s almost painful.
An ice marshal skates over, and the spell is broken. “You all right there?” He’s cute, with a septum piercing and a few tiny jingle bells attached to the ends of his chin-length locs. “Never heard a person make that sound before. And I’ve seen a lot of tumbles.”
Jake chuckles as he stands to help me to my feet. The marshal takes point opposite him.
“Well,” I sniff. “That’s how we do it in America.”
They both lightly hold my elbows and usher me safely to the exit.
After we turn in our skates, Jake and I go to the rinkside lounge.
Inside, the air shimmers with cozy heat.
It doesn’t feel like we’re in a temporary pop-up—it feels like we’ve just entered a 1920s speakeasy or a modern bootleg bar.
Dim lighting, crimson carpet, walls covered in black velvet.
Mini curtain lights in alternating silver and gold drape along the ceiling.
The only other light comes from candles on each of the small tables and a slim Christmas tree covered in red and gold vintage bulbs.
Jake buys a hot chocolate for each of us. The paper cups overflow with big marshmallows in whipped cream and sprinkled with cocoa. A gingerbread cookie nestles between them.
“Oh, wow.”
Jake carefully sets the cup in front of me. “Is that a good wow?”
“It’s a wow wow, that’s all.” I wrap my hands around the cup to soak in a bit of extra warmth.
“The wrist OK?” Jake says.
“Well, I can lift this cup, so I should be able to lift my morning coffee. I’ll survive.”
He sips his hot chocolate, and it leaves a wisp of cream on his upper lip. He quickly swipes it away with the tip of his tongue. “I’m sorry you fell. I’d have chosen somewhere else if I’d known—” He cuts off. “Ah—”
I peer at him through lowered lashes. “Hmm? If you’d known what, Jake? If you’d known I’d cosplay Bambi on the ice?”
He chuckles and looks away. “I suppose I assumed everyone in New York City skates in the winter. Rockefeller Center, Wollman Rink. They’re lovely.”
“Do you spend a lot of time in New York?” As soon as I say it, I cringe inwardly. We haven’t gone beyond surface-level conversation yet, and it feels presumptuous for me to disturb our casual equilibrium.
“Not as much as I used to.”
It’s a nothing answer. In a way, I’m grateful, because it means we get to continue floating comfortably at the surface. But it’s also vague enough that it ignites my curiosity like a spark on tinder. I swallow it down. “Well. I don’t subscribe to the festive-season clichés, remember?”
Jake rests his forearms on the table and cradles his cup in his hands. He stares down at it for a beat. “Bet I can change that.”
I laugh. “Jake, if Christmas in New York City isn’t enough to make me appreciate the festive season, no place will.”
For a moment his attention is riveted on my mouth, then he raises his eyes to mine. With a languid smile, he says, “Care to wager? I bet I can make you fall in love with Christmas.”
“Wait. Listen.” I point towards the speakers playing a cover of “Snow Is Falling in Manhattan.” “We’re at an iconic London spot in December, and they’re playing songs about New York.
How can London be a superior festive city if it doesn’t even have its own songs?
There’s ‘Bells of New York City,’ ‘First Snow on Brooklyn,’ ‘Holiday in Harlem’—”
“All right, all right,” he laughs.
“Tell me, Jake,” I tease, “how many songs about Christmas in London are there?”
His eyes are hooded, but his lips hitch sideways in an amused smile. “You’re just making me more determined.” He gets his phone out of his pocket and extends it across the table to me. “Give me your number, and we’ll start tomorrow.”
His quiet confidence is a huge turn-on. I watch him over the table with a knowing smile before taking his phone to tap in my name and number. Jake’s fingers deliberately trail over the back of my hand when I return it, and the sensation races up my arm, into my chest, throughout my belly.
“What do you get out of this?” I say.
Jake tucks his phone away. Lifts one shoulder. “The satisfaction of being right.”
I answer with a flirty shrug of my own. “Works for me.”
I can’t deny that something about this man lights me up inside. Even though I didn’t come to London to fall in love, I’m certainly willing to let Jake Frost try.