Page 34 of Hearts on Ice
Weirdly he didn’t care that the photographers were taking their pictures as they walked up to the door of the rink, as he let the two of them in. He didn’t lock the door behind him since the security guard was on duty.
As she did every morning, Colby put her skates on and headed down to the rink.
Because he’d been thinking about it all night, Declan finished turning the lights on and, despite his better judgement, walked down to the rink and laced up his own skates. She was already on the ice, skating through her warm-ups, still the most beautiful and graceful woman he’d ever seen.
Was he making a mistake? He wasn’t second guessing himself. He hadn’t felt joy in years. He was satisfied with his life, sure. He’d achieved a lot of what he’d wanted, but he didn’t have the joy he’d had in some of those pictures he’d looked at last night.
The pictures he couldn’t stop looking at.
Colby lifted her eyebrows in surprise when she saw he’d joined her on the ice. “What are you doing, Deck?”
“Wondering how good our muscle memory is.” He skated to a stop beside her and put his hand on her waist. “I don’t think I can still do the throws, but I should still be able to do the lifts.”
She blinked up at him. “What do you mean.”
“I’ve been wondering how much of the routine I can remember.”
Her brows drew together. “After all this time? Why?”
He didn’t know how to explain it without saying he wanted to touch her, but then she didn’t seem to need an explanation, she turned and fit herself right against his hand.
“You sure you can still lift me?”
“I showed you I could the other day, didn’t I?”
“But that lift isn’t over the head.”
“I can do it,” he insisted, hoping he wasn’t fooling himself, closing his hand over her hip and skating forward.
The first lift was simple, lift her by the hips from his right side, turn her toward him and set her down on the ice to his left. Sure. Simple. Performing the dance moves as they skated, moving her from one side of him to the other, spinning her under his arm to catch her again, simple. The twizzles were off a bit, but that was to be expected, and then she stopped.
“I need the music.”
“What?”
“I need the music, but you forbade me to play that song.”
He set his jaw. He hated that song. He would always hate that song. But he wanted to skate with her. He pulled out his phone and set the volume as high as it would go, found the song on YouTube, pressed play and put the phone back into the pocket of his sweats.
“Okay?” he asked.
“That’s going to be hard to hear.”
He didn’t want to take the time to go to the PA system, because Josh and Lexi would be here soon, and he didn’t want anyone to witness his weakness.
But she held out her hand for his phone, and he sighed and placed it in her hand.
Soon the song he loathed was pumping through the speakers, but Colby was back in his arms, and they started again.
They fumbled the routine a few times, but he looked at her and she laughed before putting both hands in his and he lifted her straight over his head while he spun on the ice. His arms ached with the strain—was he really so much older that something that had once felt so routine now hurt all the way down his back, or was he just that out of practice?
In their routine, he’d thrown her and she’d tightened herself into three rotations before landing on her skates, but this time she just landed, skating away, her arm stretched toward him.
This time he grinned and skated to catch her hand.
This was his favorite part of the routine, and the song, if he was honest. He pulled her back against him, wrapping both arms around her, her temple against his cheek, and he leaned back on the outsides of his skates, holding her with him, they balance dependent on their momentum and his strength.
And then he stretched her hands over her head as she lowered into a death spin.
