Chapter 26 #2
When I return to her apartment, she meets me in jeans, a cream sweater that looks soft enough to sleep in, and a coat with faux fur on the hood. She moves to the back seat with me, and I give her a smile. On the way to where we’re going, she peppers me with kisses.
“If I guess, will you tell me?”
“No,” I say with a chuckle as she plants a kiss on the base of my throat.
“A restaurant?”
“Please.”
I roll my eyes, and she places another kiss behind my ear.
“A hotel?”
“Um, why?”
Another kiss across my jaw.
“Tell me?”
“Patience.”
She huffs and crosses her arms, but her knee bounces with curiosity. I rest my hand on her thigh, and she covers it with hers, threading our fingers together. Being with her like this is comfortable.
The city fades behind us, and the sky is pink and orange from the setting sun. I glance over and catch her studying the colors; her face glowing in the fading light, and I have to look away. She’s too damn beautiful for her own good.
When we pull into the parking lot, she goes still when she sees a private rink.
I squeeze her thigh. “Rented it for the night.”
She stares at the rink, surrounded by trees and lit up with string lights. Steam rises off the ice in the cold air. It’s completely empty except for two people standing by the entrance. I pay the driver and grab the duffel, and then we get out of the car.
“We shouldn’t be in public together,” she says, but her voice is barely a whisper.
“It’s private. The owners signed an NDA. And don’t be surprised if they call me Jameson.” I throw on my brother’s personality. “The happy twin.”
She turns and looks at me. “The boring twin.”
I wink. “Just call me Jamie.”
The laugh that escapes her is full of intrigue, but her eyes are shining.
“I don’t have my skates,” she says.
I hold up my bag. “Brought them.”
Her eyes widen when I pull the white leather boots with the gold blades from inside. She looks up at me like she’s actually surprised.
“How did you—”
“They’ve been propped by the door since you skated at the facility. I took them last week. Can’t believe you didn’t notice they were missing.”
I pull her closer to me as we move toward the entrance.
I kiss her forehead. “Let’s do this.”
The owners hand me the keys and disappear into a small warming hut at the edge of the property. Then we’re alone. The string lights cast everything in gold while the sliver of the sunset bleeds out over the trees.
We sit on the wooden bench together. She pulls her skates on and runs her fingers over the worn leather before lacing them up. I put on a pair of skates that are different from my hockey ones.
“Would you do me the honor and skate with me?” I ask when we’re both done.
“Absolutely,” she says.
We step onto the ice together.
She takes off first, gliding across the rink with an ease that makes it look effortless. I push off after her, my blades carving into the ice as I pick up speed. She glances over her shoulder and sees me gaining on her. That’s when her mouth curves into a challenge.
She might be fast, but I’m faster. I catch up and circle around her, skating backward so I can watch her face. She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.
“You’re such a show-off,” she says.
“I could say the same about you,” I tell her, digging my edges in and taking off, but she follows my lead.
I grab her hand and pull her with me as we skate. We’re side by side at first, and then I spin her out like we’re dancing. She laughs, and the sound echoes across the empty rink. I pull her back in, and we’re chest to chest, still gliding, and her eyes are bright from the cold.
“I missed you so fucking much,” I tell her.
“I love that you did,” she says with a laugh.
She pushes off, and I let her go. She builds speed with long, graceful strokes that look nothing like hockey skating.
Where I’m all power and hard stops, she’s fluid and elegant.
She does a turn that transitions seamlessly into backward skating, her arms extended like she’s performing for a crowd before tucking in for a spin.
She pulls her arms in and rotates so fast that she blurs, then extends one leg and slows, landing perfectly.
“Holy shit,” I say.
She skates back to me, barely winded. “You’re too easy to impress.”
“You think I’m impressed?” I playfully roll my eyes. “That was okay.”
“Show me how it’s done then.” She smirks.
“Oh, sweetie. When I was a kid, I took several lessons from figure skaters. You don’t think I can?”
She crosses her arms, and that’s when I realize I have to show her up.
I push off and build speed, focusing on keeping my edges smooth instead of choppy. Figure skating is about flow, not power. I learned that the hard way when I was twelve and ate shit, trying to impress a girl at a birthday party.
I attempt a simple spin, pulling my arms in the way I learned nearly twenty years ago. It’s not terrible, but it’s not practiced either. I rotate maybe four times before my edge wobbles, and I have to put my foot down.
“Not bad,” she calls out, and I can hear the shock in her voice.
I skate a wide loop to build speed again and try a backward crossover into a turn. My hockey instincts want to dig in and stop hard, but I force myself to let the momentum carry me through. The transition is actually smoother than I expected.
“Okay, now I’m actually impressed,” she says.
Next, I go for a jump. Nothing crazy, just a single rotation, the kind figure skaters do a hundred times during practice. I launch off my toe pick, rotate, and—
Land flat on my ass.
“Fuck,” I say. “The ice never feels soft.”
It’s cold and hard, and my tailbone is definitely going to feel it later. I slide a few feet before friction stops me, sprawled out like a starfish.
Kendall’s laughter echoes across the rink. She skates over and stops in a perfect spray of ice that dusts my face.
“Graceful,” she says, looking down at me.
“I meant to do that.”
“Then you nailed it.”
She offers me her hand, and I take it, but instead of letting her pull me up, I yank her down to me. She yelps and lands on top of me, her hands bracing against my chest.
“You’re such an asshole,” she says, but she’s laughing.
“You love it.”
Her face is inches from mine, her breath fogging in the cold air between us. The string lights reflect in her eyes, and her cheeks are flushed pink from the cold. She’s so beautiful that it physically hurts.
The laughter fades from her expression. She studies my face for a long moment. I want to tell her I’m in love with her, but the words are caught in my throat.
“We should probably get up,” she says.
“You’re right,” I tell her.
We get back on our feet and do a few more laps.
“Watch this,” she says.
She skates to the center of the rink and stands there for a moment before the tension leaves her shoulders.
Kendall builds speed with long, powerful strokes, then launches into a jump that takes my breath away.
She rotates once, twice, three times in the air before landing on a single blade, her free leg extended behind her.
A triple axel.
I’ve seen her do this before. That day at the facility, when she didn’t know I was watching, when I stood in the dark and let her skate alone to Coldplay. But this is different. She’s not escaping into the ice to get away from something. She’s inviting me in.
She flows into a spin that starts slow and accelerates until she’s a blur of cream sweater and dark hair. Then she’s skating backward, carving intricate patterns into the ice.
I don’t move. I barely breathe. All I can do is watch, completely mesmerized by her.
She finishes with a simple glide, coming to a stop a few feet from me. Her chest rises and falls from the exertion, and there’s something vulnerable in her expression, like she showed me something she doesn’t share with anyone.
“I was told to stop doing that,” she says. “When my ankle shattered, I thought I’d never be on the ice again. Every time I lace my skates up, I get one in to prove I still can.”
I close the distance between us and cup her face in my hands. Her skin is cold, but her eyes are warm.
“You’re incredible. Also stubborn as fuck,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks flush darker, and it’s not from the cold. “Can say the same about you.”
“Zero lies detected.” I tilt her chin up so she has to look at me. “I’m proud of you for not letting it stop you. When Jamie got injured … well, he hasn’t been on the ice since. Many athletes give it up completely.”
I see a flash of grief in her eyes for the Olympic life she almost had.
She backs up and starts skating, reaching for me, but the conversation continues as I follow her around.
“Sometimes, I used to think if I’d landed differently or taken the day off, what would’ve happened?
That day, I felt invincible. For years after, I was full of regret and stayed mad at myself.
But had the injury not happened, I don’t think I’d be painting professionally, which means none of this would’ve happened. ”
“True.”
She smiles. “Yeah, so maybe not being an Olympian wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me. Maybe it was the thing that led me straight to you.”
I kiss her forehead, then her nose, then the corner of her mouth. She makes a frustrated sound and grabs my jacket, pulling me in for a real kiss. Her lips are cold, but her mouth is warm, and she tastes like toothpaste.
“Thank you for this,” she says when we break apart. “For bringing me here. For getting my skates. For …” She gestures at the empty rink, the string lights, the trees dark against the sky. “For skating with me. It means a lot.”
“This is the beginning,” I tell her.
She laughs. “That a promise?”
“Fuck yeah, it is. I’m not letting you go, Kendall.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
Her eyes soften. “You’d better not,” she says.
After we skate for a few hours, we drive back to the city, holding hands. She falls asleep somewhere on the highway, her head on my shoulder, her warm breath against my neck. I take it all in and think about how different this is.
I’m enjoying myself, but also waiting for everything to crash and burn—because that’s my luck, because nothing is ever easy.
But I don’t care. I’d risk it all for her.
My career, my team, even the respect of her father, my sister, and every other person we’ve lied to since this started.
I’d say goodbye to it all if I got to keep her.
I’ve spent my entire life chasing championships and records, wanting to create a legacy people will remember. But as we head back to the city, Kendall asleep beside me, I understand.
This is what I want. Her. And whatever comes next.