“I’ve never gotten to kiss a boy I liked in this room before,” I said as he finally broke off. “This is allveryexciting.”
“Don’t get too excited.” Andy laughed. “Show me London, and then we can do a bunch of other stuff you’ve never done in this room before.”
I could hardly wait to show Andy as much as I could of London. I wondered if he could fall in love with my city the way I had with his.
I hoped so. One day I might well need to choose between taking him back here, or leaving him behind in New York.
If he could love this place like I loved it, then perhaps it wouldn’t break his heart to come here. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to lose him one day after all.
“I am yours, and London is yours,” I said. “What do you plan to do with us?”
* * *
The low,rumbling moan Andy made was enough to make half the population of London look at us, and for once in my life, I didn’t care. Let them look.
They’d see me with the most beautiful boy in the world, making him thoroughly happy.
“This is the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had,” Andy said, swallowing his mouthful and curling both hands around the cup like it was something precious.
I laughed, holding my own cup close to my chest as I guided him across the street.
The air was crisp, the clouds hanging low, our breath fogging up in front of us as we walked, and I couldn’t have been happier. Christmas lights twinkled in shop windows and on public trees, harried professionals in sharp suits shuffled past us laden down with parcels in the mad rush to do their Christmas shopping before they went home to their families for the year.
This,thiswas Christmas. This was what Christmas had always looked like to me.
“It’s not bad, is it? I’d forgotten how much I missed it.”
Andy hummed with happiness again at his second sip, falling into step beside me, close enough for our shoulders to brush together.
“It’s a lot less depressing than the coffee,” Andy said.
I laughed, remembering the look on his face when he’d sipped the cup we’d picked up at the train station.
“I’ll take you to Rome one day,” I promised. “The only decent coffee in the world, if you ask me.”
“You’d take me to Rome?” Andy looked at me, eyes wide.
I shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I? Now that you know I can more than afford a holiday, we ought to go on them together. Father keeps a little cottage in the south of France, too. He’d be thrilled to let us have it for a couple of weeks.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Andy said, wrinkling his perfect nose.
“I will beg on my knees if it helps,” I said. “I want to spoil you. Please. It’s the only way I know of showing affection.”
“You know a couple other ways,” Andy said, a wicked little smile playing around his lips.
I snorted, happy to drop the subject of future holidays.
For now.
Now that I had him, I planned to work my way around to giving Andy every nice thing I could think of. Not because I thought he needed that to want to be with me, but because he deserved to be treated like a prince, and no one had ever done that for him.
Andy paused as we passed by a brass band playing Christmas songs on a street corner, eyes alight with wonder like the children standing in front of us, mittened hands clasped around those of their parents.
I’d never thought of myself as the kind of person who enjoyed public displays of affection, but I couldn’t stop myself pressing a kiss to his temple, and the way it made him laugh converted me instantly.
I would have kissed him in front of the whole world to make him laugh like that.
“This is maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever said, but I didn’t realize London was sobig,” he told me as we walked on, staring up at the buildings lining narrow streets. “Some of these buildings have dates on them that start with a sixteen. I’ve never seen that before.”
