Chapter 4
GAGE
Maybe it’s the old-fashioned good cheer of the Radio City Christmas show we watched tonight.
Maybe it’s the afterglow of some of the most expensive wine I’ve ever drunk in my life.
Maybe it’s the ache of my half-stiff cock, pushing for one more hour, one more glimpse of Aeryn’s tight black sweater, of the soft skirt that gets to kiss her thighs, of those totally impractical red-soled shoes.
When she says she’s up for anything, I tell Curtis to keep my Rivian SUV waiting at the curb.
As we wait to cross the street, I offer my arm to Aeryn.
She laughs as a gust of wind catches her heavy wool coat.
Right on cue, huge snowflakes begin to fall, like we’re starring in some Hallmark Christmas movie.
Hallmark would find a way to get rid of the cartoon characters filling the pedestrian walkway to our destination.
There are dozens of them—life size Muppets and Disney princesses and people dressed like Marvel Avengers.
They make their money taking photos with gawking tourists, surviving on the tips they glean with their high-pressure pitches.
It’s late, and most of the foot traffic is flowing against us. I switch my grip to Aeryn’s hand, telling my cock it doesn’t mean a goddamn thing when her fingers curl around mine. She’s just a girl with common sense, staying close in the crowd.
One more clump of costumed beggars. One more family, three kids crying because of the cold. One more pair of kissing strangers, pushing up against a granite wall, oblivious to the snow that’s started to fall in earnest.
“Where—” Aeryn starts to ask, just as we turn a corner. Then: “Oh…”
She’s seen it on TV, or in a movie, or in someone’s vacation photos on their phone. It’s the Rockefeller Center skating rink, complete with Prometheus bringing fire to us cursed humans and an eighty-foot Christmas tree lit up in all the colors of the rainbow.
“Gage…” she says, and I know she sees it the same way I do. It’s corny and it’s gorgeous and it’s the perfect little slice of New York to cap our night. She turns her face up to me. “Can we skate?”
I laugh, because she sounds like she’s ten years old.
Her forehead wrinkles, and she punches my arm. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“I’m not,” I lie.
Instead of arguing, she begs. “Please?”
I tell my cock that’s not what she’s asking for.
“Your wish…” I say, making a stupid little half-bow and escorting her down the steps to the warming hut on the edge of the rink.
We have to step to the side to avoid a family trudging up to street level, both kids babbling like Santa Claus just gave them a personal tour of the North Pole.
When we get to the hut, a gnome in a scarlet parka is locking a chain across the door. Her raw, chapped hands look like lobster claws in the bright overhead lights.
“Rink’s closed,” she says, a million wrinkles fanning out around her chapped lips. “Come back tomorrow.”
Aeryn whines like someone just sent her to bed without any supper. And my idiot cock thinks that’s an invitation too.
“Just fifteen minutes,” I say to the keeper of the hut.
The crone points to a sign with one scarlet talon. “Nine a.m. to midnight,” she says, like I’m too stupid to read.
I reach for my wallet. “You can make an exception.”
The witch’s lips twist like she’s sucking on a lemon. She reaches around the corner of the hut and yanks on some lever I can’t see. The rink plummets into darkness.
I take five crisp hundreds out of my wallet. “No one has to know,” I say.
She cackles. “You’re in the middle of New York City, pal. I let you in, I have to let everyone in.”
I add another five bills. “Wait inside the hut,” I say. “With the chain across the door. Anyone else who comes to skate will give up and go home.”
“And what if my boss shows up? What if he fires me for breaking the rules?”
“If he fires you, I’ll give you a new job.”
“Doing what?”
“Managing petty cash in my real estate office.” I figure if she’s fighting a bribe this hard, she’d be great at keeping a lockbox safe from employees looking to boost a couple of bucks.
She twists her neck like a bird eyeing an especially fat worm. Jutting her chin toward the money in my hand, she says, “Add another ten to that, and you have yourself a deal.”
I count out the cash from my wallet. I’m short two hundred bucks. “That’s it,” I say. “I’m tapped out.”
She eyes my overcoat. “You got a pair of gloves?”
I dig out a pair of hand-stitched Italian lambskin gloves. They’re lined with brown rabbit fur. I hand them over to her, cuffs first.
“Fifteen minutes,” she says.
“After we put on our skates.”
She looks at both of us, head to toe. “Looks like the two of you forgot to bring your gear.”
I point to the sign, the same one that lists the hours. “Rental skates included,” I say. “We’ll skip the complimentary hot chocolate.”
The woman harrumphs, but she slips the chain from its anchors. “Men’s on the left,” she says. “Women’s on the right.”
I pass her the eighteen hundred bucks before I usher Aeryn over the threshold.
“Are you crazy?” Aeryn asks as the door creaks closed behind us. Bare light bulbs illuminate the racks of skates.
I grin and shake my head. “I just like getting my way. Go on. Get your skates. I don’t trust her not to start the clock before you’re out on the ice.”
Aeryn looks at me like I’ve just landed my fourth concussion, but then she shakes her head and moves down the aisle. I stare at her back until she’s out of sight.
Standing by the cash register, I think about some of the stories Logan told me about the Reardon family business. Their father, Mickey, likes getting his way too. But he uses a gun to persuade people, instead of a gaping wallet.
Not for the first time, I speculate on my good luck that Mickey Reardon never held me accountable for what happened to Logan. I suspect he never learned the truth about Aeryn and me, or I would have ended up with a bullet at the base of my skull well before I ever got to open Kynk.
Aeryn comes down the aisle, clutching a pair of white leather skates. “Size nine,” she says. “Now it’s your turn to hurry.” She nods toward the men’s side of the hut.
I shake my head. “No skates for me.”
“But—”
“Let’s go,” I say, opening the door before she can argue.
The old woman is wiping down the tables, grumbling over a sticky spill of once-hot chocolate. I guide Aeryn to a smooth plastic bench, holding out my hands for her fancy stiletto heels. “You’re going to rip those stockings,” I say.
“I’d ask you to buy me a replacement pair, if you weren’t flat broke.”
I chuckle as she shoves her foot into one white boot. She works the laces like a professional skater, automatically pulling them tight for extra ankle support.
“Honestly?” she asks, when both skates are on. “You’re not coming out with me?”
The old woman clatters a chair into place at one of the tables. “I think our clock just started ticking,” I say, pulling Aeryn to her feet. “Leave your coat.” Despite the snow that’s falling in earnest, it’s a relatively warm night—just a couple of degrees below freezing, if I had to take a guess.
Aeryn eyes me steadily as she unknots her belt. For one idiotic second, I imagine her naked beneath the coat. I picture her peaches-and-cream shoulders, scattered with freckles I once traced in the dark. I wait for the dark flash of her nipples against her high tits.
Her sleek black turtleneck mocks me as she settles her coat on the bench.
“Last chance,” she says, holding out one hand.
“Go,” I say. “Let’s see what you can do.”
She can skate. She learned on the same backyard pond Logan did, hitting the ice as soon as she could walk.
I’ve heard all the stories—how her brothers pushed her back and forth as their puck.
How she stole Logan’s stick one day and refused to give it back until he stood in as goalie.
How she challenged her oldest brother to a cross-rink race—and won.
Now she takes a few strokes to find her balance on the rented blades.
They probably haven’t been sharpened since they were delivered from the factory.
For just a moment, I picture arena lights glinting off the sharpest metal in the world.
I see a pool of scarlet spreading on the ice, melting it, freezing on it.
I start to call Aeryn’s name, to beg her to come back, but I bite my tongue just in time.
Her hair streams in the breeze of her speed. Her skirt ripples around her, fluttering against her thighs. She moves faster as she crosses center-ice, gliding farther on each stroke. Her arms rise up in perfect curves and she launches into a flawless double toe loop.
She’s stunning out there, an obsidian bird set free.
She laughs as she lands a second jump, then she really starts to skate for speed.
Even with snow falling, even with the ice chopped up by the night’s last skaters, the surface has to be smoother than the pond she learned on.
She swoops in an exaggerated oval, keeping her balance on the corners by trailing her fingers beside her gliding skate.
Racing to the center of the ice, she spins, her fists pulled into her chest, faster, tighter.
I want to be out there with her. I want to chase her. I want to catch her, to fold my arms around her, to feel her heart beating and her lungs gasping as I tug her close to my chest.
I want to fuck her blind.
I haven’t been on the ice since the night Logan died.
Not when I walked away from the Aces. Not when I came back to buy the team. Not for money, not for fun, not for anything I value in this life.
The old woman starts to clang the chains by the warming hut, clattering them against the metal door. Aeryn looks up like a doe caught in a blizzard. Even across the rink, I can see her impulse to ignore the alarm, to keep on skating.
But she tucks her chin toward her chest. She pumps her arms by her sides and skates over to me to clamber off the ice.
Her hair is wild. Her eyes gleam in the shadows. Her smile is bright enough to reach the moon.
“Okay, Rider,” she says. “What do we do now?”