Page 183 of Ice Dance Hockey

On his feet are a pair of black figure skates. His mackinaw’s gone, and he’s stripped down to his fitted white T-shirt with crisply rolled-up sleeves and jeans, looking like he stepped out of the nineteen sixties. “Where the hell did you get skates from?”

“Skate shop.”

“Can’t believe they carried size gorilla. What are you doing in them?” He didn’t need skates to peel me off the ice.

“You ready to skate, baby?” he says.

“They’re letting you skate with me?” That’s unheard of. It’s the kind of thing that happens on TV, not in real life, but I guess when you’re married to a hockey God, anything can happen.

He smirks with all the arrogance of an Elkington. “The judges are big hockey fans. They want to see what I can do as an ice dancer. There were dollar signs in their eyes.”

Great. It’ll take me weeks to knock him down to Earth after that alone, never mind if we actually go through with this. I twist my lips. “This is sweet, baby, but just take me home. There’s no way you can pull off some of the moves in those jeans anyway.”

“Challenge accepted. C’mon. We’re doing this.”

Scott’s being loaded onto a stretcher. He looks okay, except for whatever’s going on with his left leg.

Rhett scoffs at the sight of the stretcher. Right, hockey players. They could have a whole leg fall off mid-game and they’d somehow manage to skate off the ice on their remaining good leg because they’re lunatics. I roll my eyes.

“You don’t know our new routine.”

“That’s why we’ll do your routine, the one we practiced. My PA’s sending them over the music right now. I like you in this outfit by the way; I’m fucking you in it after we smash this.”

His overabundance of confidence is catching. Could this work? I doubt he’s good enough to help me qualify, but once again, I’m won over. Rhett might be the only human on the planet to win me over again and again. Even if this is just for the hell of it, I wanna do it with him.

“You’re insane,” I tell him, but I’m the one that’s gonna let him drag me to center ice, so I must be insane, too.

“Oh, wait,” he says. “Your lace came loose.”

His massive form crouches to tie my skate lace for me, setting my skate-clad foot on his solid thigh, forcing me to use his wide shoulders for balance as he retightens and ties. Heat rushes over my skin, and my damn heart pounds against my ribcage.

I love him. I love him so fucking much.

“There,” he says, standing and kissing my forehead. “All fi—what are you looking at?”

“I think having my hockey player husband tie my skates for me is my love language.”

Rhett’s chest lifts.

“Ready to catch me, baby?”

“Always, I’ll always catch you.”

* * *

“Well?”

“They said you were decent for a hockey player, but we lost too many points to qualify.”

His face falls. “That’s bullshit. I was on point.”

“I love you, gorilla, but you really weren’t.” I smile. “However, Elkington charm strikes again. They feel they owe their favorite hockey hero a favor and so they’ve based everything on my scores and put me through to nationals.”

They were also confident Scott would have scored high, but I leave that part out so Rhett can enjoy being my hero to the fullest.

Rhett beams. “Told you that I’d never let you fall.”

And he didn’t. While he might lack some of the finer-tuned aspects of ice dancing that only come with exhaustive practice, he was skilled enough at the bigger movements to match me, which helped my individual scores. I knew when I moved that his hands would be there, so I never hesitated and could perform each movement with ultimate grace.

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