Page 70 of Not A Chance

She toed off her boots and set a socked foot in my hand.

“Thanks, Cinderella. We’ll get you laced up and skating by the end of the night.” I winked at her before sliding her foot into the stiff leather of the skate.

“The scent in here leaves something to be desired. But, I have to say, the view is pretty damn good.” I met her gaze to see her smiling down at me.

“Like me on my knees, do you?” I cocked an eyebrow at her while I gave her skate laces a particularly forceful yank to tighten them.

“Yes, I do. As long as it’s only for me.” The snark in her tone melted into a seductive purr. Her eyes never left my face.

“Anytime, anyplace, baby. I could spend hours down here.” I gave her one knee a soft kiss while I held her laced skate flat on the floor. The last thing I wanted was a sharp toe pick in my junk.

She leaned down in a rare moment of quiet, and I brushed my lips over hers before she sat back up again.

“Okay, Prince Charming. Chop, chop with the laces already. We haven’t got all night.” She winked playfully.

I laughed as I dutifully worked on her other skate, lacing it much more quickly than the first before sitting beside her to make quickwork of my own skates.

“Let the embarrassment begin,” she murmured as she pushed herself to standing. Her ankles promptly went askew when she tried to take her first step on the rubberized floor.

“Whoa, Gretzky. Take it easy. Let yourself get used to the feeling of the skates.” My hand hovered behind her back to catch her, and I hoped she wouldn’t notice.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Indie was half a step ahead of me as we moved toward the door, with her focused on taking careful footsteps.

Her answer had my movements stalling. “Seriously?” I was shocked. I was dating someone who hadn’t heard of arguably the most famous hockey player of all time.

She turned her head so I could see her profile and stuck her tongue out at me. “I may not have known anything about hockey before coming to Toronto, but I know who Gretzky is.”

Indie reached the door that led to the players’ entrance to the ice and managed to pull it back without stumbling. I reached over her head and grabbed the side of the door so she wouldn’t lose her balance.

She looked up into my eyes and said, “I mean, his daughter had that beautiful magazine spread for her wedding. Who wouldn’t have heard of him after that?” before she ducked under my arm to get out the door.

The cold seeped through my jeans after landing on my ass for the third time in less than half an hour.

Who invented skating anyway? Someone just up and decided to strap knives to their boots to make an already difficult task to walk on a slippery surface even slipperier?

Ten feet away, Theo skated backward like he wasn’t the biggest show-off in the universe. How dare he make skating look as easy as breathing when he did it.

“You okay, baby?” Amusement tugged at his lips; he was wise enough to keep any laughter inside. “You’re getting the hang of it, I promise. You sure you don’t want me to hold your hand?”

The hands that were currently holding me apart from meeting the icy, concussed fate that waited for me two feet lower? Not likely. Yeah, I should have taken him up on that hand-holding thing when we’d first stepped on the ice, but I honestly hadn’t thought it would be this tricky.

“Yeah, right.” I sulked, still not game to attempt to stand up.

“Well, when I first started CanSkate, the first thing they did teach us was to… fall.” His infuriatingly handsome face made it hard to even pretend to be annoyed with him for very long.

Theo skated around behind me and pulled me (or scooped me; it happened with entirely too much ease) back to standing.

He held out his hand, palm up, not saying anything that would make me admit that I really did want his help. That soft, marshmallowy feeling ballooned in my chest again. It pressed up all the sharp edges of the feelings I kept buried deep.

With a sigh, I put my gloved hand in his bare one.

I wanted to distract him from my hopeless skating skills. Not being immediately good at something rankled. This kind of thing rarely happened to me. I hadn’t failed so spectacularly at something since Emery tried to teach me to paint landscapes. My painting had looked more like Mr. Potato Head than a scene of mountains. I hadn’t picked up a paintbrush since.

There was nothing wrong with sticking with things I was good at.

I turned my head just enough that I could look Theo in the eye. Even with him holding my hand, I didn’t want to upset the gods of balance that he’d just restored by holding me steady.

There was no need to tempt chaos by doing something as crazy as… moving. Breathing seemed like a stretch at this point.

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