Page 83 of The Breaking Point

I shivered. I could only hope he would. At my excited expression, he just sighed.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” he said, almost to himself.

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Are we going back to your place?” I asked as Brady began driving.

“No.”

“A hotel?”

“No, Grace.”

“Okay, well, if it’s a motel, then I might still say yes, but you could spring for something nicer, you know. Seems kinda cheap of you.”

Brady rolled his eyes. “I’m taking you skating. At a rink. No hotel, motel, or Holiday Inn.”

I was disappointed, but I didn’t protest further. At least Brady wanted to spend time with me. And whenever he gazed at me, I could see the heat in his eyes.

He wanted me. If we did go to his place, I knew he wouldn’t have the self-restraint to keep refusing me.

“You never would go skating with me, would you?” Brady remarked after we’d gone inside the rink.

To my surprise, he had keys to the place from the owner himself. Which meant that we’d have the entire rink to ourselves.

“How exactly did you manage to get the owner to let you have keys to this place?” I asked, incredulous.

Brady grinned. “His daughter is a huge Blades fan.”

“Of course she is.”

Brady, though, seemed intent on getting me onto the ice. Ironically, I’d never really learned how to ice-skate, despite the fact that Ben played hockey.

“Do you want figure-skating skates or hockey?” Brady asked me as he went behind the desk to get skates for us.

“Um, your choice.”

“Hockey skates it is.”

When we finally got onto the ice, it took all of ten seconds before I fell on my butt. The first time, Brady caught me before I fell too hard. The second and third times, I nearly pulled Brady down with me.

“How do you not know how to skate?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I never got around to it.”

Brady showed me how to skate, where to put my weight, and how to stop. He also told me that it was mostly about confidence. If you were overly worried about falling, you would.

“When you learned how to ride a bike, you probably were afraid of falling over, right?” asked Brady as he held my arm for a slow skate around the rink.

“I threw a fit when my dad took away my training wheels,” I said with a laugh.

“But when you finally felt like you could ride your bike without worrying about falling, you didn’t.”

“So I should just not worry? Wow, great advice,” I said.

Right then, Brady let me go. I nearly fell but managed to keep my balance this time. I kept skating, slowly gaining confidence with every second that passed without wiping out.

By the end, I felt more confident that I could learn how to skate. But even as I gained confidence, I had a hard time enjoying the ice.

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