There are maybe fifteen other people skating. Couples mostly, holding hands and laughing, their breath fogging in the cold air as they circle the rink in slow, easy loops, plus a few families with young kids who are clearly up past their bedtimes, but too enchanted by the lights to care.
Music plays from speakers hidden somewhere in the trees, something instrumental and wintery that makes the whole scene feel like we’ve stepped into a snow globe. Into a world where nothing exists except this moment and this place and the person beside you.
We rent skates for Theo at the little wooden booth near the entrance—the woman working there clearly charmed by his smile—and I already have mine laced up by the time he sits down on the bench beside me.
Once we step onto the ice together, I’m immediately comfortable, my body remembering the balance and the glide from all those years of skating as a kid. The lessons my parents paid for because they wanted us to be well-rounded.
It comes back to Theo quickly too. Within a few laps he’smoving with confidence, his stride lengthening, his posture straightening into something that looks almost professional. Muscle memory kicking in after all these years, his body remembering what his mind had set aside.
“You’re good at this,” I tell him, watching him take a corner with surprising grace.
“It’s been years,” he says, but he’s grinning, clearly pleased with himself, a boyish delight on his face that I don’t see often enough. “It feels good though. Better than I remembered.”
We fall into an easy rhythm, skating slow laps around the rink with my hand in his, our breath fogging in the cold air, the lights twinkling above us like we’re inside a fairy tale.
I pull out the thermos and pour us each a cup of mulled wine into the little camping mugs I brought, and we drink it while we skate, carefully, laughing when we almost spill. The spiced warmth spreads through my chest, cutting through the chill of the night air, making everything feel softer and more golden.
Theo tells me about playing hockey as a kid. How seriously he took it, how he’d wake up before dawn for practice and never complain because he loved it that much. The dreams he had of going professional before reality and responsibility intervened.
I love hearing this side of him. The version of Theo who wanted things just for himself before he learned to put those wants aside.
“Do you miss it?” I ask, as we glide past a couple attempting a very wobbly spin together, the woman shrieking with laughter as her partner barely catches her.
“Sometimes,” he admits, his voice thoughtful. “I miss the feeling of it, you know? The way everything else would just disappear when I was on the ice. It was the only time my brain would actually shut up.” He squeezes my hand, his fingers warm despite the cold. “This is the first time I’ve skated in probably fifteen years. I forgot how much I loved it.”
“We should do this more often,” I say. “Make it a thing.Ourthing.”
“I’d like that.” He smiles at me. “I’d really like that.”
We skate in comfortable silence for a while, the music swelling around us, the lights casting everything in a soft romantic glow. The other skaters become background noise, pleasant but irrelevant, just shapes moving at the edges of our private world. At some point Theo’s arm slides around my waist, pulling me closer as we move together, and I let myself lean into him, let myself enjoy the simple pleasure of being here with him, of having created this experience for us.
He kisses me while we’re still moving, a brief press of cold lips that warms quickly, tasting like mulled wine and winter air. When he pulls back, he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters. Like everything else—the lights, the music, the other skaters, the entire universe beyond this rink—has simply ceased to exist.
“This is one of the best surprises anyone’s ever done for me,” he says. “You know that, right?”
“Well, I try.” I smile and kiss him back, letting myself sink into the moment, and for a second everything feels right. Exactly the way I wanted it to feel. Romantic. Spontaneous. Perfect.
But there’s a dissonance in my chest that won’t go away. A static underneath the music that keeps pulling my attention somewhere I don’t want it to go.
That image of them sitting so close when I walked in. Years of marriage, a child together, a history I’ll never fully understand no matter how many stories Theo tells me, no matter how many pieces of his past he shares. There are parts of him that belong to that history. Parts I’ll never be able to touch.
And now Victoria’s maybe moving back and talking about change and presence and being the mother Chloe deserves. If she follows through, she’ll be everywhere. A permanent fixture in the landscape I’ve been trying to build my future in.
I picture it without meaning to. Theo and Victoria and Chloe around a dinner table, candles lit, laughter filling the room. At Chloe’s school play, sitting together in the audience, proud parents united. Standing together at some future graduation, a family restored, the broken pieces finally put back together.
And me? Nowhere in that picture. Because maybe I’m the thing that doesn’t fit. The complication. The obstacle standing between a little girl and the mother she needs, between two people who share a child and a history and something that might not be as finished as I thought it was.
Maybe Victoria wasn’t just being catty at pickup. Maybe she saw something I’ve been trying not to see. I’m the woman ten years younger stepping into something that was already complete without me. Something that broke but might still be fixable. Two people with history and a child and all those years of knowing each other in ways I never will. Two people who might, if given the chance, be able to heal what they shattered. To make it work this time.
Where does that leave me?
Theo pulls me closer as we round the curve of the rink, his arm secure around my waist, the lights twinkling overhead like promises. The music swells, something hopeful and bright, and he presses a kiss to my temple. I lean into his warmth and smile and tell myself to stay here, in this moment with this man who loves me.
But my thoughts keep spinning, spiraling into darker corners, even as my skates glide smooth and steady across the ice.
CHAPTER 25
Theo
