Page 77 of Ice Bet

“Why do you skate?”

I heard her head roll over on the ice, but I couldn't look at her. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “I mean, before everything happened with the guy I’m going to hunt down and murder one day…”

I chose then to look at her, and I raised my eyebrow. She rolled her eyes.

“Why did you skate before all of that happened?”

“That’s easy. Skating felt right.”

“Right for who?”

She was quiet for a second. “Me…I guess. Why? What are you getting at?”

I leaned back and rested my hands against the floor before the icy bite worked itself down to my bones. “And who did you skate for after?”

“After…?”

“Yes,after.”

She knew what I was implying, and if she made me say it out loud, she’d see just how much it bothered me knowing that someone touched her without permission. I was well aware that it happened in the past, but to my benefit, I only found out about it recently. I wasn’t over it.

Riley’s neck moved with her swallow, and her eyes bounced all around the rink as she thought about her answer. She slowly turned, and her eyes were glassy. She blinked once and then twice before opening her mouth and whispering, “I see your point.”

“Skate foryou,” I said. “Don’t try to prove something to him or try to fix what happened in the past. Don’t skate to prove something to Gray, because if he broke it off with you over the fact that you stopped skating in the first place, then he’s the biggest fucking idiot in the hockey league.”

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Don’t skate for your parents to make them proud, because as much as your dad loves you, he’s already proud. And don’t skate for the figure skating team, because none of those people matter when it comes to what you want. You were afraid you’d get lost in the demands of figure skating again to prove something to everyone else, but if you just skate for yourself, that won’t happen. The only approval you need is yours.”

I reached over the ice with my thumb and pulled her bottom lip out from her teeth. Then I ran my finger over the little indents and said, “Skate for you, and you’ll do fine.”

The only indication that she heard what I said was a slight nod after I dropped my hand. We sat in silence for so long that it made me feel things that I had no business feeling when it came to her. I rested my palms against the ice again, but this time it was to ground me because the hold on my control was slipping the longer I listened to her soft breathing.

Fuck. Do something.

“Can I ask you one more thing?”

She slowly sat up and met my eye. “Yes.”

It was a poor attempt to irritate her, because maybe if I did, she’d get up and leave, and I wouldn’t have to fight with myself about whether I should grab on to her hand and drag her closer. “Does it make you mad that I won our bet? We both know how you hate to lose.”

A laugh abruptly flew from her mouth, and I smiled.

She stood up on her skates and skated a circle around me with her arms crossed. She was adorably annoyed with her nose scrunched and her cheeks flushed.

“You’re annoying when you win.”

“And you’re cute when you lose.”

The next thing I knew, I was being pegged in the head with a hair tie. I snatched it up before standing and towering over her. I held the thin elastic in between my fingers and dangled it above her face. “Was that supposed to hurt?”

Her lips smashed together to smother a laugh. She failed, and her giggle made my heart skip. “It was either that or take my skate off to throw instead.”

I lifted my hand higher so she couldn’t reach the hair tie when she tried to snatch it. “Wow, an entire skate?”

She shrugged. “I decided to use my hair tie because if I hurt you with my skate and you couldn’t play on Friday, my dad would lose it. Beating Rosewood was his New Year's resolution this year.”

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