"It's pretty here, isn't it?" Tyler asked, entranced by their surroundings. "I mean,
I'm sure London has its charms, but you can't ice skate with palm trees there."
"Anywhere but here. That was my motto."
"Why? I mean, I know opportunity knocked in London, but I'll bet it banged the hell out of your door and left a dent anywhere you went."
He meant to make her smile and was disappointed when she didn't. They'd had such a good time at dinner; he wanted to stoke those flames.
"London felt just far enough. I only needed one ocean."
He didn't press her for more. Patience was one of his virtues.
"I've always hated the nickname Ty," he said, seemingly out of the blue.
"What?" Alexis queried. She thought she'd misheard him.
"Kids from school used to call me Ty. I never shortened my name; people did it without asking. Even now, I cringe when anyone greets me as Ty. I know I'll never escape the name because it's part of my history, my past. And that's the thing about your past, it always catches up with you, no matter how much you want to bury it."
"But you introduced yourself to me as Ty."
"I assumed that's the name you would remember." He laughed. "That obviously didn't help."
"So you'd like me to call you Tyler?"
Tyler understood that she deliberately missed the point of his story. He caught her eye and held it, intense but not unnerving. "You can call me whatever you like.
Anything sounds good rolling off your tongue."
Reddening slightly, Alexis turned her attention back to the skaters and laughed as a man fell over. "I'll stick with Tyler," she said finally.
"Do you want to take a spin?" he offered.
"No, thanks. I've only been skating once and it didn't go well."
"That's okay. I don't skate either, but I'm willing to make a fool of myself."
Alexis bit her lip, fighting a memory. The truth was that her one attempt at skating had been with Mark at one of the most amazing ice rinks in the world. Although the skating didn't go well, it was the night she'd realized that she was in love with Mark. She'd blocked Somerset House from her memory, but standing in Lottie's Greenhouse brought it all back to her in spades. She could almost feel Mark's arm around her waist.
Somerset House was the most grand and impressive ice rink imaginable. A twelve-feet tall Christmas tree and elegant neoclassical building adorned the backdrop. An English wonderland. Alexis remembered admiring the surroundings while watching skilled skaters dance their circles around the ice.