Free Loving Danny by Hilary Freeman Page B

smiled coyly at each other, acknowledging that each of us saw a place for the other in our future, but not wanting to spell it out for fear of appearing too forward.
    While we’d been in the park the sky had darkened considerably, and the clouds had brought with them an icy, damp wind. I didn’t want to put my cardigan on properly because, suddenly
self-conscious, I was sure the chunky wool made me look fat. Instead, I draped it over my shoulders and chided myself for not wearing a coat. Danny noticed me shivering. He was only wearing a
T-shirt and thin leather jacket, yet he appeared immune to the cold, as men often seem to be. ‘I’ve brought another blanket along,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we wrap it
around us?’ He clambered up and went over to the basket, pulling out a soft, cream alpaca throw. I raised my eyebrows. If there was one thing I knew about, it was fabrics, and this was no
picnic blanket.
    ‘This is my mum’s, actually,’ Danny explained. ‘She’d go mad if she knew I’d brought it, but she never uses it herself. Why waste it, eh?’ He sat down
next to me and draped the throw over us. It was only then I realised how much I’d been longing for this contact again. He was so close that I could feel the warmth of his body, and the
anticipation of another kiss began to grow within me. I would have been happy to sit there with him like that for hours, but, within minutes, it had begun to drizzle, then to rain heavily. Fat
droplets of water trickled through the sides of the gazebo, causing the ribbons, which Danny had so artfully arranged, to bleed red, blue and yellow.
    ‘Shit!’ he cried, as a globule of yellow water stained the throw. ‘We’d better make a run for it! This rain is practically horizontal. There’s a shelter over there.
I’ll come back for the picnic stuff later. Are you ready to go?’
    ‘OK,’ I said, picking up my bag and holding my cardigan together at my neck. He grabbed my hand and started running. His legs were so much longer than mine that I was being dragged
along, my feet barely touching the ground.
    ‘Stop a second,’ he said, laughing at me. ‘I’ve got an idea. Climb on my back.’
    He bent over and I jumped on his back, flinging my arms around his neck as he grasped for my legs. I was aware that it was a long time since anybody had given me a piggyback and, the last time,
I’d been rather smaller and lighter.
I hope he doesn’t think I’m a heifer
, I thought. As we moved, I was half on, half off, pulling Danny’s T-shirt from his shoulder
and accidentally kneeing him in the small of his back. Despite my discomfort, the sensation of his strong, muscular body beneath mine was tantalising. We were both giggling hysterically, becoming
wetter and wetter and more bedraggled, and no longer caring.
    Danny tipped me off his back at the entrance to the shelter. For a minute we just stood there laughing at each other. ‘Whose stupid idea was it to have a picnic in October?’ he said,
raising his eyebrows in self-mockery. ‘Now what do we do? We’re both dripping wet, the food has gone swimming and I don’t think there’s much chance of getting served in
here.’
    We looked around us. The shelter was like a bus stop – a small metal hut with no front and a bench inside – except no buses would ever stop there.
    ‘Hang on,’ I said, as a realisation struck me. ‘I’ve got a towel! See?’ I pulled the towel from my bag and handed it to Danny. He took it gratefully, rubbing it
over the top of his head and then across his face. He looked so cute wet, with his hair sticking out in all directions.
    ‘Here, let me,’ he said. He delicately pressed the towel to my face, wiping the droplets of water from my nose and my chin. The feel of his fingers on my face, even through the
roughness of the towel, was thrilling and I stifled a sigh. Then he gathered my hair together at the back and wrapped the towel around it like a headdress.
    He chuckled.