“I understand that, but I don’t think it’s healthy to stay in all the time. Why don’t we go for a walk tomorrow night? There’s a lovely short trail out by the forest that’s well lit.”
Jessica taps the side of her mug. Her fleeting smile answers truthfully. “I’ll see how I feel.”
She’s not going.
“It’ll be good for both of us. Maybe we could start running together. Your doctor said physical exercise would be great for you, and from what I’ve seen on TV, running looks fun.”
I watch in silence as Jessica absorbs Indie’s idea. Her eyes are tense. “Maybe.”
For fuck’s sake, plan something with your daughter! Who can’t be bothered to go on a short walk?
Indie drops it, knowing she’s fighting a losing battle. Her mum isn’t ready.
Forty-Six
Indie
“We’re ice-skating?” I ask as Spence pulls up outside the closed rink.
At least I hope we are because I’ve never tried snowboarding or skiing. Not sure I want a broken bone.
“We loved it here.”
My heart soars. “I haven’t been back since you went to LA,” I tell him. Same as the beach. These things are ours, and I could never come with someone else.
His smile is blinding.
“Come on, beautiful, let’s skate.”
He gets out before I can state the obvious.
“Erm, Spence,” I say, jumping out of his ridiculously large car. “It’s closed.”
“Not to us.”
Oh my God, is he for real?
“Wow, Hollywood. You actually paid the owner, didn’t you?”
He shrugs and locks his car. Wrapping an arm around my shoulder, he says, “The manager was only too happy to take ten grand.”
“Fuck off!” The words burst from my mouth. Spencer winces, as if he’s let out a secret he’d planned to keep. “Seriously, what the fuck?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear so much, babe.” He unlocks the double doors and lets us inside. I follow in a bit of a daze, trying to figure out how I feel about this. A lot can be done with ten thousand pounds.
“You paid ten thousand pounds to take me skating. Are you mental?”
He locks the door behind us and switches on the light. “That’s not very PC, Indie.”
“I don’t care. What the hell?”
“Well, you do make me crazy. Let’s get you some skates. We have two hours, and we’ve already spent about three hundred quid.”
How much money does he have?
I don’t want to know, not really, but spending ten grand on two hours of skating has me curious.
He takes my hand, oblivious to the freak out happening in my head.
“Here’s a five, tiny feet.” He hands them over, chuckling when I glare at him.
At least I get awesome deals in shoe sales.
I slide the skates on my feet and do fasten them tightly. “Spencer…”
“I’m not going to apologise for spending, Indie.” He has a look of defiance when I face him, like a child.
“It’s a lot of money.”
“Our lives are going to be different. We can’t do this sort of thing without a lot of attention. I don’t mind paying out. I’m not prepared to miss dates like this with you.”
Okay, my heart. I try to suppress a smile because I’m supposed to be annoyed still.
He holds out his hand, and I take it, grinning from ear to ear. “I guess I’ll let you off this once.”
His lips brush mine as we stand very still on our skates. “Is that right?” I push up to kiss him, but he backs away.
“Oh, is that how we’re playing it, Spence? Because I can guarantee that you’ll give in and kiss me first.”
He raises his eyebrow like an evil villain. “We’ll see, Miss Croft.”
“What does the winner get?”
His smile stretches, and now he really looks like a villain. “I win, you blow me in the middle of the ice rink. You win, same deal.”
“Spencer! They have CCTV.”
He shakes his head. “Not for the next two hours.”
“Thought this through, haven’t you?”
“Rules were going to be first one to fall over, but we’ll add kissing, too. I can’t wait to get you all riled up and on your knees.”
Goddamn, how quickly he can make me breathless. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
There is no way I’m losing.
He holds my hand as we take a few awkward steps from the bench to the rink. I push off, still clinging to him, and we glide on the ice.
We’ve been enough times to not suck. We can’t do anything fancy, but we can skate in a circle, turn and stop without falling. Well, I can. Spence still falls over a few times.
“When are you going to London?” I ask as we glide.
He has appearances coming up in our capital. He’ll be in LA for a while, and then have to fly back for a few days. I was thinking of meeting him there.
“The very end of February. You want to come?” His eyes are full of hope.
“I’ll meet you there for a couple of days.”
“Yeah?” he asks, smiling like fool.
“I’ll let you pay ridiculous prices to take me on a date. Don’t you dare spend thousands again, though.”
Ten grand. I still can’t wrap my head around it. The manager is probably still laughing.
He turns on the ice so that he’s skating backwards, facing me. His eyes widen a fraction as he wobbles, but he somehow manages to stay upright.
Please fall on your arse or kiss me.
“Thousands for a date with you is not ridiculous.”
“Very smooth, Hollywood. Was that in a script?”
He holds his heart as we slowly circle the rink. “Ouch, Indie. These are all my own lines.”
“Hmm, something happened to you out in LA. You didn’t say these things to me when we were together before.”
“One: we were together for two weeks. Two: I was seventeen and nervous as fuck.”
My body tingles all over thinking back to teen me who was obsessed with him, constantly counting down the hours until I saw him next. Nothing has changed; he still makes me giddy.
“Really? I made you nervous back then?”
“You
