Chapter 22 #2
“All right,” she said, stepping back, cheerful again because she had no choice if she wanted to keep her heart inside her ribs. “Breakfast, bandages, and then the pond. I found a scarf that will make you look like a very chic snow elf.”
“Sold,” Grace said and pushed the blanket aside to swing her legs over the bed, gingerly setting her feet on the rug. She hissed once, then grinned through it. “I can do knives if you can do patience.”
“I can do patience,” Alix said and was surprised by how true it felt. “Come on. Coffee and kindness await.”
The pond looked like something out of a snow globe — glassy, untouched, the morning light spilling gold over the surface.
The air had that thin, clean bite that made Alix’s lungs sting in a way she kind of liked.
She breathed it in and tried to memorize the sound of Grace laughing nervously behind her.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Grace said, bundled in Alix’s scarf and gloves, wobbling on her borrowed skates. “I just want to be very clear that if I die, my ghost is haunting you forever.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Alix said.
Grace snorted. “Oh my God. You’re insufferable.”
“Accurate,” Alix said, standing up and testing her balance. “Also, it’s perfectly safe. Matt apparently checked the ice this morning. It’s like six inches thick.”
Grace’s eyes widened. “Is that… enough?”
“Plenty,” Alix assured her. “This isn’t Little Women, Gator. You’re not about to go crashing into an icy grave while I dramatically cry and get consumption.”
“Okay, first of all, Beth March is an angel.” Grace still looked unconvinced, peering at the frozen surface as if she could see the depth of it.
Her breath puffed white. She was beautiful — all soft layers and wary eyes — like some city girl who’d wandered straight into a postcard.
“Second of all… I’m not sure I have enough health insurance for this. ”
“Come on,” Alix coaxed. “You trust me, right?”
Grace hesitated. “That feels like a trick question.”
Alix held out her hand anyway. “Then it’s a leap of faith.”
With a muttered, “God help me,” Grace took her hand.
Her fingers were cold even through the glove, but the squeeze was warm, grounding. Alix guided her one slow step onto the ice. Grace’s legs wobbled instantly, arms flailing for balance.
“Jesus Christ. Oh God. Holy Mary and Joseph.”
“You’re really pulling out all the Catholic stops here.” Alix bit her lip to keep from laughing. “You’re doing great.”
Grace shot her a glare. “I need all the divine intervention I can get.”
Bit by bit, Grace shuffled forward until they were both fully on the pond. The surface gave a steady, creaking groan under their skates — perfectly normal, but Grace froze like she’d heard the first portent of doom.
“That was a crack,” Grace hissed.
“That was the ice saying hi,” Alix said. “It does that. Totally normal. Science.”
“That can’t be real science.”
“Okay, wow, I didn’t take you for a religious nutjob who doesn’t believe in science, Gator,” Alix said. “I mean, I know you’re from Florida, but—”
“I believe in science,” Grace interrupted with a huff. “I just don’t trust familial ponds who haven’t been, like, safety checked.”
Alix couldn’t stop smiling. God, she’d missed this — teasing someone who could match her pace, who made every line of banter feel like a spark tossed into kindling. She glided backward a few feet, arms out, the easy rhythm of skating coming back as natural as breath.
“See? Nothing to it,” she said. “Now come to me.”
Grace blinked at her like she’d just suggested flight. “Come to you? You’re moving away.”
“That’s the fun part,” Alix said, coasting backward, matching her speed to Grace’s hesitant shuffle. “I’ll skate backward, you skate forward. Just look at me, okay? I’ve got you.”
Grace muttered something about her inevitable obituary but took a tentative push forward. Alix kept her eyes locked on her — the stiff shoulders, the tight jaw — until Grace finally found a rhythm.
“That’s it,” Alix encouraged. “You’re doing it.”
“I’m doing it?” Grace’s grin broke out, wide and bright and so proud that Alix’s stomach swooped.
“You’re doing it,” Alix confirmed, laughing.
Grace laughed too — a sharp, delighted sound that cracked open the cold afternoon. It hit Alix square in the chest. She was done for.
They circled the pond once, then again. Each time, Grace’s movements smoothed out, her trust inching closer to real. Every time she looked up at Alix, the world felt like it was spinning a bit faster.
“This isn’t so hard,” Grace said, cheeks pink, dark hair falling loose from her hat as she reached out to take Alix’s hands.
Alix was about to respond when her skate hit a shallow rut in the ice. There was a sharp slip, a yelp, and then everything went sideways.
Grace shrieked. The next thing Alix knew, they were a tangled heap on the ice, her back flat on the freezing surface, Grace sprawled across her, breathless and warm and laughing so hard she couldn’t even apologize.
“Oh my God,” Grace gasped between fits of laughter. “We almost died.”
“Yeah,” Alix wheezed, equally breathless, “and not even by falling through the ice.”
Grace’s laughter quieted, the sound dissolving into short, shivery breaths. Her gloved hands rested on Alix’s chest, and the world narrowed to the press of her, the smell of snow and her perfume, the way her laughter still trembled at the edges.
“Hey,” Alix said quietly. “You okay?”
Grace nodded, her hair falling forward in a dark curtain. “Yeah. Are you?”
She reached up before she could talk herself out of it and tucked a stray lock of Grace’s hair behind her ear. Her fingers brushed skin, warm even in the cold, and Grace went completely still.
The air between them felt electric. A static charge had built up all week and finally found a fuse. Grace’s lips parted slightly, her breath visible between them in small clouds.
Alix’s voice dropped to a whisper as she licked her lips. “Can I… kiss you?”
Grace didn’t answer with words. She just leaned forward, closing the distance in one swift, impossible motion. The kind that made the rest of the world vanish.
The first touch was clumsy and quick, all teeth and laughter and cold noses bumping.
Then Grace exhaled against her mouth, and the sound undid her.
Alix pushed herself up, holding Grace against her as the world narrowed to that single breath, to the way Grace’s lips yielded against hers.
The kiss deepened, still tentative at first, then certain, unguarded, real.
The cold vanished. Alix’s senses flooded.
Grace’s gloved fingers tracing her jaw, the faint taste of peppermint lip balm and winter air, the warmth of her body pressed close through too many layers.
Every nerve ending seemed newly awake. The dizzy rush in her chest spread through her ribs, down her spine, until even the tips of her fingers felt electric.
She pulled Grace to her, greedy for heat, for closeness, for proof.
She’d wanted this for so long, and now it was happening, and she was going to savor every damn second.
Grace made a low-pitched sound against her mouth, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and Alix felt it vibrate through both of them.
She wanted to memorize everything about this moment.
Memorize the weight of Grace’s coat under her palms, her hair brushing Alix’s cheek, and the slow, shivery rhythm of breath shared between them.
When Grace finally pulled back, the air between them crackled, visible in the faint fog of their breathing. Her lips were pink and kiss-swollen, her eyes glassy and bright, and Alix could still feel her everywhere like she was stitched into the wild, racing thrum of her pulse.
“That was…” Grace started, then stopped, smiling like she couldn’t quite believe herself.
“Was it okay?” Alix’s heart thudded against her ribs like it wanted out.
Grace’s grin widened, pure and blinding. “Yes, Alix. It was okay.” She snorted in amusement.
Alix couldn’t stop smiling. Couldn’t do anything but gaze at her, sprawled across her chest, haloed in the pale winter sun. She was giddy, unmoored — the kind of wild joy that made everything else feel like static.
Grace shifted, and Alix reached instinctively, steadying her. Their eyes met again, a silent, tender truce, and something inside Alix settled with a quiet, contented click.
“Come on,” Grace said, breathless but still smiling. “Before we pull an Amy March and fall through this ice.”
“Yeah,” Alix said, still half-dazed. “But for the record, not going to happen.”
Grace laughed again as Alix stood and offered her hand. Grace took it, wobbling back up to her feet.
When Alix glanced down at the ice, their skates had left twin arcs that curved toward each other, meeting right where they’d fallen.
After an early dinner, Alix was hunting through the bathroom cabinet for extra Band-Aids that she swore used to live under the sink when her hand brushed something familiar. A smooth black box, the weight of memory in her palm.
She pulled it out and smiled. “Huh.”
Grace leaned in the doorway, wearing one of Alix’s old sweatshirts that swallowed her down to mid-thigh. She looked comfortable in a way that made Alix’s chest ache.
Alix pulled the shears from the case, light flashing off the silver blades.
“Man, these were like the first nice pair I ever bought myself.” She turned them over in her hands, nostalgia curling through her voice.
“When I was a teenager, I used to be a receptionist at this tiny salon in town. It was owned by the only gay man I knew back then. He taught me more than cosmetology school ever did. Probably more than most adults ever did, period.”
Grace’s eyes warmed. “He sounds like someone special.”
“He was.” Alix smiled faintly. “I think he moved to Denver when he got married. We lost touch, but sometimes I wonder if he knows how much he changed my life.”