I passed him my other foot and he laced those up too. When he was done, his hand moved up my calf slightly in a caress that had my face heating, but then dropped it, remembering where we were.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I stood, forgetting the guards were still on and almost slipped. Ellery caught me, his hand going to my hip and the other to my arm.
“You have to take the blade covers off,” he said. “They stick into the soft ground.”
“Are you mansplaining walking to me?” I asked.
“It seemed you might need someone to,” he said jokingly.
I pushed him and he stumbled a bit, laughing. “Let’s go.”
We headed out to the rink. We got here early so it was fairly quiet.
“Let’s race!” A voice said from behind me, and Samuel came barreling through the entrance and ran out to the ice, running in a lap before hockey stopping and spraying ice all over.
“Always such a show off,” Rachel said as she skated out onto the rink gracefully.
Today she had on a pink puffer jacket, ear muffs, and matching mittens. Her hair was in two space buns on the side of her head.
“Here,” Ellery stepped onto the ice and held out his hand. “I can help you stay up.”
I held onto his hand and stepped onto the ice. Though I hadn’t been skating since last year, I’d been going to the local rink since I was a kid. While I couldn’t do fancy turns or anything, I could go and stop easily, and skate backwards.
He started explaining the steps of skating to me and I followed along, pretending I was listening intently.
“Like this?” I asked, pushing off one foot and sending myself forward.
“Exactly,” he said. “And you just want to make sure you’re not leaning too far forward. Like the opposite of skiing.”
“Got it.” I started pushing off slowly at first.
“You’re really good,” Ellery said encouragingly.
“Thanks,” I said. I skated a bit faster, finding my feet after a year of being off and moving comfortably.
I crossed my feet over as I took the turns, drifting easily around. I assumed Ellery was still behind me, but as I rounded the rink I realized he was stopped a few feet from where we started, arms crossed.
I approached him and did a quick T stop a few feet in front of him.
“You know how to skate don’t you?”
I gave a guilty smile. “I might have been a few times.”
He laughed. “Well why didn’t you just say that?”
“You assumed I didn’t, and I wanted to impress you.”
“Consider me impressed,” he said. “You probably skate better than me.”
“Probably.”
He bumped me slightly. “Don’t start.”
“Oh, I’ll start,” I said.
He pulled me closer and landed a quick, casual kiss on my lips. It was the first time we’d kissed in public, and I wasn’t expecting it.
