Page 48 of The Christmas Box

Still holding hands, we ease our way onto the ice like a couple of newborn calves learning to walk for the first time. Her ankles bend and I put an arm around her waist to hold her up as I tug her along with me.

“You’re terrible at this,” I say, laughing.

“You’re right about that, too,” she tells me, letting out a pretty giggle of her own.

As I guide her around on the ice, it’s impossible not to feel her nearness and that I like it. I likeher. And if things were different, if I were staying here, maybe I would ask her out. I’ve been reluctant to let myself even consider that, yet as we’ve spent more time together, she’s made this strange visit home a lot more interesting, and a lot more fun, than I could have imagined.

But this isn’t my real life. It’s just…an odd vacation. It’s my past colliding with my present. It’s filling my time while I’m stuck in my old hometown in better ways than I expected—even when she’s making me wear a Santa hat.

Only…is she starting to actually care about me?

And is she the same soft-hearted girl I once stood up at a dance?

I guess there’s a reason for my reluctance—I wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt when the time comes for me to leave.

So this can’t really be any more than it is right now: a nice friendship, sometimes sprinkled with a little flirtation.

Besides, my father is dying. My father is dying right when I’m starting to realize that I no longer hate him. And maybe I never really did because hate is just the flip side of love, right? I’m juggling a lot, more than I even expected when Wally summoned me home.

And so right now, I’m going to just enjoy this moment, enjoy the fact that I’m ice-skating on a sunny day with a cute girl whose attitude about life I admire, enjoy the way it feels to hold her against me. A little time away from the drama is good—and it’s okay if I don’t think too hard about anything but the skating and the warmth and the laughter.

“We’re gonna have to get up a little speed,” I inform her then, “if this is gonna turn into actual skating. That’s the only way to get your balance. Kind of the same way you learn to ride a bike.”

“Okay.” She sounds nervous but brave, still wobbling along next to me.

“I’m gonna let go of you and just pull you along by your hands, all right?”

She nods. “I’ll try.”

I release my grip—even though the closeness was nice—and situate myself in front of her, holding both her hands in mine. I skate backward, slowly, having found it is, indeed, like riding a bike—and I take her with me. She’s stiff-legged, but still on her feet.

“There ya go,” I say. “You’re doing it.”

“I am?” she asks, wide-eyed and pretty, brown locks falling around her face from beneath her thick, knitted hat.

I nod. “Whenever you’re ready, try lifting one skate, just a little, to see if you can start shifting your weight back and forth.”

“Don’t let go of me,” she pleads.

“No worries. I’ve got you.”

She raises one skate slightly, then puts it back on the ice before lifting the other.

“Hey, hey,” I say in celebration. “There ya go.”

I’m still the one propelling us even though I’m skating backward, and I increase our speed just slightly as she finds a rhythm.

“You’re doing great,” I assure her.

She’s smiling at me, clearly enjoying her success, and I’m smiling back, noticing little flecks of gold in her blue eyes that I’ve never spotted before and how her cheeks are pinker than usual from the cold. She looks gorgeous.

That’s when my skate hits a divot in the ice I couldn’t see coming and I lose my balance to go tumbling backward, unwittingly pulling her down on top of me. We land in a tangled embrace, her body pressed to mine from chest to thigh. It’s like our Christmas tree debacle last night, but better—no pointy branches—and even through our winter coats, I feel the shape of her, the warmth of her, as my arms close loosely around her. Our faces, our mouths, are only a few inches apart.

I want to kiss her. It would be the easiest thing in the world to do.

But instead I say, “Not sure we’re quite ready for the Olympic team yet.”

The sound of her sweet laugh runs all through me as I ask, “Getting cold?”

---