24. What’s JBF hair? #2
He really didn’t want to skate at all, even a little, but Hannah was smiling so brightly.
She didn’t smile brightly, or at least she hadn’t unless she was on stage, the whole time Colby had known her.
So he agreed, and after a greasy breakfast consisting of fried eggs over easy, smothered hash browns, and two more coffees for him as well as poached eggs on gluten-free bread for her, they went to the canal and rented skates.
Colby watched in awe, while he teetered precariously on these knife-boots, as Hannah did insane spins and jumps and jumping spins. It was amazing. He was genuinely impressed.
“There’s still time to try out for the Olympics!” he called as people skated by, and he took a small, tentative glide toward her.
“Excuse me?” He turned and saw two girls probably in their late teens. “Are you… Colby Keaton?”
Wow. Seriously? He blinked. They were staring wide-eyed at him. “Yeah.”
Their faces exploded in matching excited smiles. “Oh my God, we love Tidal. It’s our favorite band, ever! We’re going to the show tonight!”
The shorter of the two turned to Hannah. “You are amazing too. We love you. Can we get a picture, please?”
“Of course!” Hannah answered for both of them. “How about I take one of each of you with Colby and then we can do a group selfie?”
“Oh my God, that would be incredible! Thank you!”
“My pleasure. I don’t mind sharing,” Hannah winked at them, and it took a second for Colby to catch that she meant sharing him. Her “boyfriend”.
The other squealed, and she skated right next to Colby and grabbed his waist. He fought to keep his balance for a second and dropped a gentle hand on her shoulder. He smiled. Hannah snapped away on the phone.
After the other girl got her photo, Colby took the phone and did a group selfie.
Hannah tucked into his side with her head on his shoulder, the pom pom from her winter hat brushing his unshaven face.
The two girls were pressed into his other side, grinning like they’d won the lottery.
“Thank you so much. You guys are a cute couple, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Colby replied, and it felt so weird he almost laughed.
Hannah took his hand after that and basically pulled him down the ice. “Mission accomplished. And I think someone took a sneaky pic in the restaurant earlier too. There was a chick at the counter doing weird angles with her phone. Not subtle at all.”
“Okay. Cool?” He sounded unsure because he was. He understood the plan, he just still wasn’t sure he liked it.
But then again, today was shaping up to be fun. Maybe it was time to focus on this career and whatever it took, which was pretending to be a boyfriend to someone he really did like. Just not in that way.
“What? You’re all bottled up in that head of yours again,” Hannah said, still tugging him down the frozen river. “You do that a lot. Like there’s whole conversations and plot lines happening in your head that only you know about.”
“There kind of is,” Colby admitted. “Who I am in this band isn’t who I am inside. Not all the time, anyway. I mean I’m the same singer and musician onstage but… forget it.”
“But the label wants you to be the onstage guy offstage, and there is someone else that exists inside that wants that offstage time,” Hannah went on.
“Someone quieter and maybe softer and someone who just wants to discover life without having to act like they already belong somewhere they’ve never been. ”
Colby stopped trying to skate. His lack of forward motion jerked Hannah to a stop, too. She glided around, hand still in his, to face him. “What?” she asked.
“Those are lyrics. Are you using them?”
She laughed. “No. I wasn’t composing, I was just trying to commiserate.”
“You did, and it was genius,” Colby insisted. He pulled her into a hug, which would have been fine if he wasn’t balancing his entire six-foot frame on blades.
The slight momentum of her body pressing into his created a tilt Colby couldn’t control, and after a second of fighting gravity, he fell, his ass hitting the ice with a hard thump.
Hannah fell with him because he hadn’t let go of her hand, and she had tried to save him but ended up on top of him instead.
He laughed, and she did too, burying her head in the scarf around his neck. “You are hopeless at this.”
“I am. And I’m freezing. And now I’m inspired,” Colby said. “By your words. So can we go back to the hotel so I can write this song that’s started to take hold of my brain?”
She nodded. “I won’t interfere with creative inspiration.”
She rolled off him, and he got up first, reaching down to help her up.
She looked gorgeous, dark hair fanned out on stark white ice.
Big brown eyes squinting in the bright sun.
God, he should want this to be real. She was perfect.
He managed to help Hannah to her feet without falling again.
And when they were out of skates and back in their boots, he pulled her in for another hug while they waited for their Uber back to the hotel.
“Wanna hang with me while I write and figure out a melody? I could bounce stuff off you. Maybe even collab since they were your words?”
She looked surprised, but she grinned. “I would love that!”