‘Oh!’ His correct response startled me. ‘Yours is black. And dark blue is a close second.’
He smiled. ‘You see. We do know one another.’
‘Okay. Favourite song?’
He tutted. ‘Oh come on, Lucy. That’s not fair. I know what it was ten years ago. Jason Derulo’sWant to Want Me.’
‘Yes! It was your favourite too.’
He nodded. ‘It was. Now it’s anything by Sam Fender. I haven’t really been listening to much music lately.’
‘I like his stuff too,’ I said, astonished that we still appeared to have similar tastes. ‘But like you. I haven’t been listening to music as much as I normally would.’
‘Favourite person to kiss?’ Sam asked before pulling me to him again. ‘If it’s not me, I don’t want to know.’
‘Oh it’s you, Sam. It’s definitely you.’
Eighteen
The snow had melted enough for us all to go outside by around three-thirty, but it was still deep, although the handlebars of Sam’s bike were just visible, poking through the snow like dark snowdrops, or crocuses.
The top bar of the handrail on the wooden bridge was also visible although the bridge itself was still buried, as was Midwinter Brook, but a wide dip that followed the course of the brook showed where it ran.
The clouds were heavy, threatening more snow to come and the air was cold, clear and crisp but it wouldn’t be that long until it was dark.
I’d brought my winter coat as well as my jacket, so I wore that now and we went outside to build snow people with Melody, and the rest of our neighbours.
We teamed up. Men against women. Naturally the men cheated, but we women still won, building our snow person first.
‘There were four of you,’ Sam grumbled, but he was laughing.
‘Three and a half,’ said Melody, ‘Because I’m much smaller than you and I could only just reach to put the snow person’s hat on his head.’
‘Don’t be a bad loser as well as a cheat,’ I said.
I threw a snowball at Sam, which caused a male against female snowball fight. We won that too, although this time we were the ones who cheated, by pretending that Noelle was hurt, and then pelting the guys with all the snowballs Adele, Melody and I had secretly made while they were tending to Noelle’s ‘injuries’. None of which she had.
After that, we played, jumping the brook. Well the men did. We women sat on the garden chairs that Marcus and Alec, with Sam’s help, had brought around from their gardens, and we drank hot chocolate, sitting in front of the firepit that Marcus and the guys had also dragged around to the common ground between the cottages and the brook. Adele brought out the chocolate brownies she, Noelle and Melody had made that morning, and we stuffed our faces while the men did ‘manly’ stuff. Otherwise known as doing the most ridiculous and possibly dangerous things they could whilst competing against one another.
‘Remember we’re snowed in up here, and the hospital is miles away,’ I said, when Sam caught his foot on the rail of the bridge while leaping over it. He almost fell on his face but he managed to safe himself and landed on his feet to everyone’s surprise, including his. The others didn’t attempt it, so Sam won that particular, trial.
‘Don’t you just love all these testosterone-driven antics?’ said Noelle.
‘I love some of them,’ I said, thinking about last night and this morning.
‘Me too,’ said Adele.
‘What’s testerone?’ Melody asked, mispronouncing it.
‘Testosterone,’ Noelle corrected, giving a small cough. ‘Ask your dad. He’ll explain it far better than we could.’
‘Are you getting cold?’ Sam asked, suddenly dashing over, crouching in front of me, and planting a quick kiss on my lips.
I’m not sure who was most surprised. Him, me, or the neighbours.
‘Sorry,’ he said, standing up abruptly. ‘I think the cold is getting to me.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said, grinning as I could see from the corner of my eye that Noelle was mouthing the word, ‘testosterone’. ‘But it is getting chilly. It’s so nice out here though, I don’t want to go inside just yet.’
