Chapter 17
NATALIE
“ A ll right, skaters and future emergency room patients!” Paige shouted from the center of the rink, holding up a thermos like it was a torch. “Who’s ready for the official pre-wedding Drinking Olympics: Winter Death Edition?”
“Oh no,” I muttered, clutching Easton’s sleeve. “This feels like my last night on earth.”
“It’s festive,” Easton said, shrugging with a smirk. “Besides, we’ve survived worse. Remember the gingerbread rum shooters junior year?”
“Barely,” I muttered. “I saw Santa Claus getting into his car that night and tried to confess my sins.”
Easton threw his head back and laughed. Loudly. Obnoxiously. Beautifully. And then, without waiting for my consent or my general sense of self-preservation to kick in, he tugged me toward the growing circle of people gathering near center ice.
“Come on, partner. Let’s show these amateurs how it’s done.”
“Excuse me?” I dug in my heels, well, blades, resisting. “Who said we’re partners?”
He gave me that look. That Easton Maddox look that was roughly forty percent challenge, sixty percent cocky affection, and one hundred percent trouble .
“Nat,” he said, like he was stating a simple fact. “We’re always partners.”
I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly gave myself whiplash, but fine. The man had a point. Team MadNat—or Eastalie, depending on which of our classmates had crafted fanfic about us in their high school notebooks—did have a long and storied legacy of competitive glory.
And an even longer history of questionable judgment.
We joined the circle, which had grown into a chaos spiral of veil-wearing bridesmaids, flannel-clad groomsmen, and at least one elderly relative who looked like they’d been dared onto the rink and were now deeply regretting every life choice that had led them to this moment.
Paige, glorious and slightly wobbly in her bride-to-be glow, wore a sparkly white veil taped to the top of a hockey helmet. Honestly? Genius. Wouldn’t be ideal for the bride to suffer a pre-wedding concussion. Maybe I needed one of those, too.
Across the ice, MeMaw sipped aggressively from a bedazzled thermos and hollered “Let’s GOOOOOO!
” like she was pregaming a football game instead of a wedding skate night, while another guest nearly collided with the DJ booth attempting a pirouette that definitely exceeded their skill level and alcohol tolerance.
“All right!” shouted Jordan—or maybe it was Tommy, it was hard to tell with the puffer jacket and beer scarf combo—as he skated to the center with a megaphone he definitely wasn’t qualified to use.
“Here are the rules. I’ll call out a challenge.
If you fail, your team drinks. If you succeed, you pick another team to drink.
If anyone falls while drinking, everyone drinks.
And by drink, I mean chug. From your designated flask. Got it?”
Silence.
Then: DEAFENING CHEERS .
I clapped my hand to my forehead. “This feels like that time Bobby Joe thought he could rollerblade with the leaf blower strapped to his back. ”
“Ah,” Easton sighed dreamily. “The golden age.”
“The age of bad decisions.”
“Details,” he said, brushing my comment off as he towed me to the starting line like this was the NHL and we were about to win the Stanley Cup.
“First challenge!” Jordan bellowed…And yes, I’d committed to calling him Jordan for now.
“Couples Skate Relay. You and your partner must skate from this cone to that cone”—he gestured to two traffic pylons that looked suspiciously like they’d been stolen from the parking lot—“without letting go of each other’s hands.
If you do, or if you fall, you drink. If you win, you choose which team drinks. ”
I turned to Easton with narrowed eyes. “You’ve got Olympic ankles. I’m out here like a baby moose on rollerblades. This will end badly.”
“Then hold on tight, Trouble,” he said, offering his hand with a wink. “I’ve got you.”
We lined up at the start. To our left, Paige was being steadied by Levi. To our right, Ellie and her partner were already arguing over who had better balance while their skates drifted in opposite directions.
“Three! Two! One—GO!”
Easton launched.
I…did not.
Or rather, I launched in the way one might when yanked behind a speedboat against their will.
“Easton!” I yelped, holding his hand with both of mine now. “Slow down! I’m clinging to life and dignity.”
“You’re doing amazing!” he called cheerfully, gliding backward while pulling me forward. “Channel your inner Elsa!”
“Elsa had magic powers , you maniac.”
We skidded around the cone in what could generously be called a controlled spiral and started the return lap. My feet were doing something that felt vaguely illegal, but somehow, by some actual miracle, we crossed the finish line upright and—more importantly—still holding hands.
Jordan blew his whistle. “WINNERS: Easton and Natalie! Choose a team to drink!”
Easton looked at me, smugness radiating off him. “Your call, partner.”
I grinned evilly and pointed at Ellie. “You giggled when I fell during warm-ups. Justice is served.”
Ellie bowed with a flourish and took her shot like a champ. Her partner followed…though definitely not as champ-like.
“Next round!” Jordan bellowed, his cheeks flushed from cold and cider. “Drunken Charades: Ice Edition! One partner acts it out. The other guesses. Failure equals chug. Extra failure equals double chug.”
“What exactly qualifies as an ‘extra’ failure?” I asked…because evidently, I was incapable of learning.
Jordan didn’t hesitate. He pointed directly at me. “That’s a shot for talking back.”
“What?!”
“Make that two.”
I groaned and grabbed two shots off the tray that had appeared out of nowhere. I winced through the first—it was tequila, and not the good kind. It was more regret, in liquid form. But before I could brace for the second, Easton reached over, scooped it up, and downed it like a damn hero.
He gagged. I felt marginally better.
“Thanks, partner,” I muttered.
He grinned, and my heart did a crazy little hiccup in my chest. “Anytime.”
That was happening a suspiciously large number of times since he’d popped out of the woodwork.
I blamed it on the alcohol. Or a heart attack. Anything that didn’t have to do with unresolved emotions over his stupid, perfect face. And personality. And the fact that we’d slept together. And kept sleeping together .
“Nat?” Easton prompted gently.
“Huh?” I blinked. I had apparently just been standing there, staring at him like a lovestruck raccoon.
He laughed softly. “I said, do you want to act, or should I?”
“Oh please,” I scoffed, trying to recover any remaining dignity. “I’ve seen your acting. Step aside, amateur.”
He clutched his chest like I’d wounded him. “I won a Kid’s Choice Award!”
I pretended I wasn’t impressed. Although, I had seen everything he’d been in, and if there was anyone who deserved any type of acting award…it was him.
I couldn’t admit that, though.
“All right, but only because you’re cute,” he muttered, handing me the tiny whiteboard with the prompt and dragging his fingers across mine in a very unnecessary way, let the record show.
I pretended that my breath didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. It was a bold-faced lie.
I wobbled my way to the middle of the rink and flipped over the whiteboard: PENGUIN.
Really? I’d spent the last hour waddling like one. This felt like targeted mockery.
I flapped. I wiggled. I made a high-pitched honking noise that would have concerned a few wildlife officials.
I had to take a shot for that since apparently bird noises were against the rules.
Easton narrowed his eyes like he was solving a cryptic crossword puzzle.
“Flightless bird? Angry goose? Weird seal?”
Was he serious right now? Flightless bird was his first guess?
I flailed harder.
“PENGUIN!” he finally shouted.
I dropped to the ice in victory, arms flung wide.
“Correct!” Jordan yelled. “Winners choose your victims! ”
Easton and I pointed immediately at Paige and Levi, who groaned but took their shots, lifting their flasks in a solemn toast.
The night blurred into shrieks and laughter, snowflakes falling steadily as each new game topped the last—Human Curling, “Ice, Ice, Baby” Karaoke, and a snow angel competition that ended with Easton face-first in a drift and MeMaw yelling, “Suck it, Hollywood!” before flopping down beside him and leaving an angel with a suspiciously aggressive hip placement.
And through it all, he stayed by my side.
Every time I stumbled, he caught me. Every time I laughed until I cried, he laughed right with me.
By the end of the night, we were leaning against the side of the rink, breathless and red-cheeked, our gloves sticky with spiked cider, our knees weak from cold and too much laughter.
He leaned against the wall beside me, his shoulder pressed to mine. “Just like old times,” he said softly.
“Only colder. And wetter. And with more alcohol-fueled public shame.”
He smiled, slow and warm. “We were always good like this. Laughing. Messy. A little dangerous.”
“Speak for yourself. I was an angel.”
“You tried to race me down a hill in a sled and launched us both into a pine tree.”
“And you caught me before I broke my neck,” I said. “So really, that situation was super romantic.”
He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at me with that quiet, heart-twisting expression that made everything else fade. “You know,” he said, his voice softer now, “you’re still my favorite person to fall with.”
My heart stuttered. Like a scratched record skipping back to the part that always hurt.
I looked away quickly, focusing very intently on the snow stuck to my glove. Because this had started as a game. As tradition. As fun.
Not in some obvious, cinematic way…but in that quiet, br eathless way you feel when your heart suddenly realizes it’s not alone.
Easton wasn’t playing, though. He never had been.
And deep down, I’d always known that.
Every time he caught me before I fell, every look that lingered longer than it should have, every soft laugh we shared like a secret—I felt it. That this wasn’t temporary. That this wasn’t just a chapter we’d already written.
It was something else. Something still unfolding.
And even though I didn’t know where it would lead…I knew I didn’t want to walk away from it. Not this time.