Page 45 of In the Danger Zone
I ran my fingers along the sides of the box. The skates had looked so pretty and elegant. And borrowing skates was kind of a gross experiment. It would be nice to have my own. Evan already had a million pairs of skates, so it was easy enough for him to go skating whenever he wanted to. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I kept them.
“Okay, I’ll keep them.” I sent Evan a smile before leaning over, giving him a soft kiss. “Thank you for getting them and for thinking about m-me. I appreciate it. A lot. This is a really special present.”
Evan’s lips moved against mine, his lips so soft, but the kiss still so wonderfully firm. “I’m always thinking about you. Literally always. It’s kind of a huge problem for me, actually. Now come on. You wanna use those skates, right?”
“Is the rink open?”
“Yup. And since I can’t play any hockey, I figured you and me can play together. I can teach you.”
I had to laugh. “E-Evan, I onlyjustlearned how to skate. You seriously think I can play hockey?”
Evan stood up, grabbing the box from my lap and tucking it under his arm. With his free hand he grabbed my own, pulling me to my feet. “I’m a good teacher. Promise. I can play goalie today and you can shoot pucks at me.”
“That’ll end in disaster.”
“You think you’re gonna hit me that hard?” He tilted his head at me. “I can take it.”
“Uh, n-no, I think I’m gonna fall and hit m-my head. B-But if you really think you can teach m-me… Then I guess I won’t say n-no to you. It’s kind of hard to when you keep looking at m-me like that.”
“Come on, rookie. Let’s hit the rink,” he said with a little grin.
***
“I thought you said I was gonna shoot pucks at you?” I asked, my cheeks bright red as I felt Evan move in closer to me. I could feel him right there behind me, his hands on my hips. He was too big and broad and it was hard to forget. Especially at night, when my brain got far too creative and wondered what his hands would feel like all over my body. Because those thoughts were quickly taking over my mind.
I shook my head. We were out on the ice, all alone, with me in my fancy new skates. They were so much better than the ones I had been wearing the other day. They fit better and glided along the ice in a way that made me feel a little less terrified.
Me and Evan had skated around for a bit, my hand in his as he pulled me gently along the ice. It was freeing to just… glide on by. The few minutes we had spent out on the ice had helped me to calm down, too.
But then Evan got his hockey stuff out. Some pucks, some hockey sticks. And now we were standing in front of the net. Well, where the net wassupposedto be. Evan had placed two sticks down a few feet apart on the ice to make a little makeshift one.
“Well, first I gottateachyou how to shoot pucks, right?” Evan asked.
“I guess that m-makes sense…” I murmured out. My breath hitched as I felt Evan move in that little bit closer, standing oh so close to me. His hands were still there on my hips, holding me tight before he moved them over to the hockey stick I was holding. There we stood, me all shaky in my brand new skates, while Evan positioned the end of the stick in front of one of the pucks on the ice. There were a few scattered about.
“Alright, now we reach back,” Evan instructed, moving the stick back with ease. “And hit the puck as hard as we can. Like this.”
Since Evan was doing all the work, the puck flew along the ice and away from us like it was nothing – like he had done it a million other times. And he had. Evan was good at his job. ButIdefinitely wasn’t.
“You m-make it look so easy,” I muttered, watching as the puck slid right into the improvised net.
Evan chuckled lowly, dragging a nearby puck back over to us. “Itiseasy. Now you try.”
“I feel like you wanna see m-me embarrass m-myself or something…”
Evan pressed a soft kiss to my neck when I said that. “No. Never.”
Letting out a shaky breath, I felt Evan let go of the stick so I was the only one with a grasp on it. “Hey, you’re n-not gonna help?”
“This is all you. You can do it.”
I prayed I wouldn’t embarrass myself before slowly pulling the stick back, just like Evan had showed me. The stick was a lot heavier than I thought it would be. My eyes stayed stuck on the puck, hoping and praying that I could channel some athletic energy that I never knew I had. I swung… and I missed. Completely. I didn’t even swipe the puck. Not even a little.
I wasn’t embarrassed, though. Evan didn’t make me feel like I had just humiliated myself, so I let out a laugh, doing my best to spin around and meet his eyes. There was a grin on Evan’s face as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to him.
“Aw, baby.” He pouted. “We’re gonna have to bench you.”
Pressing my face to Evan’s chest, I let the sound of my laughter get all muffled. “Hockey takes a special kind of talent. Honestly, it’s pretty cool you can do this without falling over.”
