“Yes.”
His smile widened. “You’re using that as a selling point?”
“Itisa very good piano.”
He laughed, the sound easy and unguarded. “All right. You’ve convinced me.”
I grinned. “I was confident I would.”
The carriage began its slow descent, the sounds rising to meet us again.
“Don’t forget the glass jug.” I handed it to him. “You paid five euros for that.”
“I thought I might keep it as a souvenir,” he said with a smile. “My first Christmas market.”
I chuckled. “It can join my collection. There are already three of them in a cabinet at home.”
Once we’d got out of the carriage, we made our way back into the heart of the market, the cold biting enough to make me yearn for the warmth of more Glühwein.
Kieran stopped at nearly every stall, peering at everything and commenting on most of it.
“This is dangerous,” he said, examining a game carved from wood.
“In what way?”
“I’m going to spend money I don’t have on things I don’t need.”
“That seems likely.”
He shot me a look. “You’re supposed to stop me.”
“I see no reason to interfere.”
He laughed, then gestured to the game. “What do you call this in German? It’s Ludo in English.”
“Mensch ärgere dich nicht.”
He blinked. “That’s a mouthful.”
I laughed. “It translates as ‘Don’t get angry, man’.”
He shook his head before putting it down and reaching for my hand.
We drifted further into the market, the crowd thickening, voices rising and falling around us, the air warmer here from the press of bodies and the glow of the stalls.
Kieran paused at another wooden display, picking something up and turning it over in his hands with interest. The scent of cinnamon and sugar cut through the cold, laughter spilling from somewhere behind us. I bought us two cones ofKaiserschmarrn,without telling him what it was, and watched his face as he ate the fluffy, torn pieces of caramelized pancake, the sour cherry compote catching him off guard.
His eyes were huge. “Oh my God, whatisthis?”
“Do you like it?”
“No,” he said, reaching for another bite. “Iloveit.”
I chuckled. “Then I could tell you anything, and it wouldn’t matter if it was the truth or not.”
He blinked. “Except you are the one person I expect the truth from.”
That hit me hard.