Alex watched Quinn sledging down the hill with Zara, holding her on his lap like she was something precious, and she knew she had fallen for him a little bit more. Probably the most important thing she was looking for in a man was that he would love Zara as much as he loved her. That hadn’t really been a factor before when she’d started dating because she’d known she wasn’t really looking for a serious relationship. Yes, she’d been put off by Dave when he’d made it obvious that he didn’t like children, because even dating someone casually would be hard if they didn’t want anything to do with her daughter. But this – not just tolerating her daughter or being friendly, but loving her like she was his own – was everything.
Cheering from Harley, Zara’s best friend and Chloe, Harley’s mum, snapped Alex out of her reverie. She needed to make sure she wasn’t caught looking at Quinn with loving eyes if she wanted to keep what they had a secret.
‘Go on Zara,’ Harley shouted as Zara and Quinn hurtled down the hill towards them.
They reached the bottom of the hill, laughing and shrieking together. OK, the shrieking was definitely more Zara than Quinn but they were both clearly having an amazing time.
‘That was so much fun, I went way faster with Quinn than I did with you,’ Zara said.
Alex thought about whether to have a scientific discussion about why that was the case but, although Zara was a lot smarter than most of the kids in herclass (according to her teacher anyway), she wasn’t sure if she was ready for a lesson on mass, gravitational pull, friction and aerodynamics. And she had promised her daughter there would be no schoolwork that day.
‘That’s because he’s a better sledger than I am,’ Alex said.
‘You should go with Quinn, then you’d go super fast,’ Zara jumped up and down with excitement.
‘I’m not sure I’d fit on the sleigh with Quinn,’ Alex said.
‘You sit on his lap like I do.’
‘I’m probably too big for that.’
‘You can sit on my lap,’ Quinn said, arching an eyebrow at her.
‘Go on. Do it,’ Zara urged. ‘And I can record the moment you fall off on your phone.’
‘What makes you think I’ll fall off?’ Alex said.
‘I think you will. I’ll stay here with Harley,’ Zara said. The way she said that made Alex think she had an ulterior motive to this idea. Harley nodded eagerly.
Chloe nodded too. ‘Go on, I’ll watch them.’
Feeling like she couldn’t say no, Alex nodded and she and Quinn started trudging up the hill.
‘They want to throw snowballs at us,’ Quinn said, when they were out of hearing distance.
‘Oh, is that right?’
‘We can load up with our own snowballs and throw them at them as we fly past.’
‘Good idea.’
They walked up the hill a bit, dragging the sledge behind them.
‘I was surprised that you told Immy about us earlier,’ Quinn said.
‘Yeah. I wasn’t really intending on telling anyone, but Immy knows me better than I know myself. She would have found out very quickly. I’m a terrible liar and I hate lying to her.’
Quinn was silent for a moment and she wondered what he was thinking.
‘Why do you not want to tell anyone?’ he said finally.
She shrugged. ‘Because how would I describe it? We’re not dating, we’re not in a relationship but we are so much more than friends with benefits, so much more.’
‘But it’s no one’s business except ours how we define it. You don’t need to go into details. We just tell people that we’re seeing each other.’
‘But telling people leads to an expectation, especially with us, they know how close we are. “When are you moving in together, when are you getting married, when are you having children?” And I’m not ready for any of those things. I had that, I had all of that, and my husband threw it away. And my heart says I can trust you, you won’t hurt me in that way, but I never thought Liam would hurt me either. I just need time to get my head round this.’
‘I understand.’
