Page 28 of Just A Dash of Holiday Magic
“What was that?” she asks.
“I said let’s go!”
“It’s nothing like riding a bike,” Nikki shrieks as she wobbles on the ice. She is adorable, looking like Bambi as she tries to keep upright.
Hockey is a staple in our small town, and skating is in my blood. So I can't help but skate around her, showing off my moves.
“I told you,” I chuckle.
"Will you just—" she holds out her arms to me, and I take them.
I pull her along, making sure that she won’t fall. “Better?”
“Yes, this is how I remember it.”
“What would you do without me?” I ask but regret the words as soon as I say them.
I already know the answer. She is fine without me. She always has been since the day she left for college and never looked back. The ache in my chest from before intensifies like a sledgehammer is trying to obliterate it.
"Where are you taking me?" she asks as I pull her over to the edge of the pond.
“I have to get going.”
“Already? I thought—”
I shake my head. “This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Wait." Nikki tightens her grip on me as we reach the edge, not letting me go. "What just happened? We were fine a minute ago, and now you want to leave."
“I know the feeling." I pull from her and walk over to the bench where our boots are sitting.
I tug at the laces, needing to get out of here as soon as possible.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means what I’m doing now is a fraction of what you did to me all those years ago. I’m just trying to minimize the fallout this time around. Because I don’t know about you, but the lines of what this relationship is and isn't are getting pretty blurry."
“You knew that my plans were always Stanford. Did you honestly want me to give them up?”
"I would have given up everything to be with you." I pull on my boots and stand to face her. “I had a ring and everything. You were it for me. You still are. But I can’t lose you again. It took me a long time to get where I am. I won’t survive losing you another time.”
“You would have come with me?”
“I would if you had asked me.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well, now you do.” I step around her and head off from my truck.
