That’s how I find myself skating with Gabe, his large hands dwarfing mine as he guides me with gentle confidence.
“You’re getting better,” he observes.
“Low bar,” I laugh. “I started at ‘complete disaster,’ just trying not to embarrass myself too badly.”
“Impossible,” he says, and there’s something in his tone that makes me look up. His eyes are fixed on mine, intense and warm. “You’re perfect.”
I nearly trip over my own skates. “I’m really not.”
“Agree to disagree.”
Unlike Everett, who skated backward to pull me along, Gabe skates beside me, one arm around my waist to steady me. The solid warmth of him against my side makes it hard to concentrate on keeping my feet under me.
“Don’t look at your feet. Trust your body to find the rhythm. Like walking in slow motion.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I mutter. “You’re literally built to do this.”
His mouth quirks at the edge. “You’d be surprised. I was the clumsiest kid on the team until about age ten. Used to fall so much my mom wrapped me in extra padding.”
That startles a laugh out of me. “You had a hockey mom?”
“For sure,” he says, the arm at my waist tightening for a second as he guides me around a curve. “Single mom, actually.Worked nights at the hospital so she could take me to practice after school. She was…” He trails off, just for a beat, eyes distant.
“She was awesome,” he finishes, softer now.
I hesitate. “Does she still live here?”
He shakes his head. “Passed away—right before I left for the city.” There’s a faint tremor in his voice. “That’s part of why I left. Too many memories in a small place.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve seen Gabe look vulnerable.
He shrugs, but not unkindly. “Thanks. Took me a while to stop feeling like I was letting her down by leaving. But then I met Finn, and—” He pauses, glances over at the other side of the rink, where Finn is currently trying to impress Charlie with a wild, windmilling move that nearly takes them both out. “—I realized she’d want me to be happy, even if that meant starting over somewhere else.”
“I’m sure she would,” I say, squeezing his arm. “Is that how you became friends with Everett?”
He nods. “Everett and I played on the same team.”
I try to picture teenage Gabe and Everett, already tall and strong, racing across the ice. The image makes me smile.
“What?” he asks, catching my expression.
“Just trying to imagine you as a gangly teenager with hockey pads.”
“Who says I was gangly?”
I look up at him, ready with a retort, but the words die in my throat. His face is so close to mine, eyes reflecting the Christmas lights strung around the rink, and for a heartbeat, it seems like every sound drops out. The only thing in the world is the possibility of his lips on mine. I feel the warmth of him everywhere we’re touching. Gabe’s gaze flickers to my mouth, while my heart hammers.
My brain screams, abort, abort! But my body is traitorously leaning in. For a moment, I think he might kiss me, right here in the middle of the town square with everyone watching.
“Get it, Melody!” Charlie calls out from where she’s doing backward figure eights.
It breaks the spell.
I jerk back so fast I nearly topple again. Heat spikes up my neck and floods my face, and I want to melt into the ice and never be seen again.
Oh my God, I almost kissed Gabe, right here in front of his boyfriend? What is wrong with me?
I turn guiltily to Finn, who’s wobbling dangerously, having apparently been abandoned by Everett, who’s now talking to the mayor near the edge of the rink.
