It only takes him a few minutes to get the hang of the rules and we spend the next forty minutes side by side and playfully nudging each other.
Eventually my alarm blares, the opening chords of the Strictly Come Dancing theme song making me jump.
I fumble with my phone until I turn it off, returning my attention back to the screen.
“You good?”
“Yeah!” I say brightly.
“What’s the alarm for?” he asks, gesturing to my phone.
“Oh, it’s uh—Strictly Come Dancing, the dancing show? I used to watch it every Saturday with my Nanny and so I still watch it even though she’s, well, y’know. When I speak to her on Sundays we talk about it and guess who’s getting voted out that night. I have an alarm when it starts so I don’t miss it.”
Without missing a beat, Jackson saves the game and sets the controller on the coffee table.
“Put it on,” he says, leaning back into the sofa and handing me the TV remote.
“Oh no, we don’t have to.”
I put the remote back on the table. Suddenly it’s back in my hands with Jackson’s larger ones wrapped around mine.
“I want to watch it with you, Rosie.” His hands are so large around mine, and I shiver as his fingertip grazes my wrist. “Unless you don’t want to.”
I blink up at him a few times before I remember what he just asked me, “Uh, sure.”
I switch the TV on and flick through to the right channel. The opening song starts as they start listing all the acts.
“Shall we get a pizza?” He asks, pulling his phone from his pocket. “You do like pizza right?”
Pizza,I think my mouth waters at the thought. “Oh, uhm, it’s not really in my budget.”
Jackson laughs. “Rosie, if you think I’m going to barge into your home and demand you pay for my dinner, I’mdoing something wrong.” He places a hand on my thigh and squeezes. “Plus, you’re cooking my baby, so feeding you is literally my main job.”
“Okay fine,” I acquiesce, as my gaze gets caught on his large hand. “Because your baby is craving a veggie pizza right now.”
I leave him with my order and head to the kitchen, spinning back to him before I cross the threshold. “I still have the wine you brought, but you’ll have to drink it alone.” I gesture to my midriff. “Or you can have a Diet Coke.”
“I’ll go Coke. We can save the wine.” He winks at me as he takes the cold can out of my hands. I almost jump at the tingles that erupt at my fingertips. It’s from the cold can, that’s all, I tell myself.
I settle beside him on the sofa. It is definitely too small for him, his arm stretching across the back showing me the taut line of his side and feeling his hand resting behind my head. I reach forward and turn the volume up.
“Who are all these people?” Jackson asks, taking a sip of his drink.
“You wouldn’t know any of these guys,” I giggle, as a TV Chef, News Presenter and pop culture icons that no one outside of the British Isles would know about dance onto the screen.
He wiggles in his seat along to the music and I can’t help but laugh as I readjust on the sofa with my legs curled underneath me, my knee facing his. “Do you want to know the Taylor rules?” I ask.
“Absolutely,” Jackson says seriously.
“Okay, in the first episode you have to pick your favorite, your winner and your dark horse and then throughout the series whoever has the winner wins.”
“What’s the prize?”
“Well, they play for the glitterball trophy but we’ll just play for glory,” I shrug.
“Oh, I am all the way in, pretty girl.”
“Absolutely not,” Jackson insists forty minutes later around a slice of pizza. “You think two left feet Patrick and Kat are going to win over Thatcher and Julianna? You need to up your prescription, pretty girl, because we should be worried.”
