Page 47 of Just My Puck
“So, how was your week? Weren'tyou bored without me?” He smirks, and I almost lose my balance again.
“It was great having the house to myself,” I joke. “No, for real though, I wish you’d been there. But it was all right. I went to therapy every day and did some cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping—the usual, you know?”
“Have you been reading? You seem to enjoy that.”
“I did read a bit.” I smile, recalling how much I enjoyed those rom-coms. “I finished two more books, and I also—” I bite down on my tongue, cutting myself off before I spill too much.
He frowns, tilting his head. “You what?”
I really hadn’t intended on telling anyone else about my writing. I liked keeping that piece of myself private. Besides, it feels so silly that the girl with zero memories or life experiences is writing a book. No one would take me seriously. “Oh, nothing.”
“Come on. You have to tell me now,” he says, squeezing my hands. “Unless it’s illegal. Then I don’t want to know.”
I laugh, rolling my eyes. “It’s not. It’s just silly.”
“Then you really have to tell me. I love silly. And I’m dying to know what your idea of silly is.” He does a little dance to make me laugh.
I sigh, looking away. “I started writing a book.” The words are surprisingly liberating, and Caleb doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even smirk.
His eyes widen, and he does a double take, still skating backwards at a slow pace. “You’re writing a book?”
I nod, suddenly shy under his intense gaze. “Yeah. Just—just something small. For fun.”
He blinks rapidly. “That’s not silly, Aria. That’s—”
His skate catches on the ice, to my horror.
It all happens so fast. One second, he’s staring at me like I’ve turned into a whole new person, and the next, his balance is swept out from under him. He lurches forward, still holding onto my hands. Instinctively, I try to steady him. Huge mistake.
His weight pulls me down with him, and before I can do anything to stop it, I land right on top of him.
For a moment, neither of us moves. My hands are braced on his chest, my knees straddling his waist. His hands settle instinctively on my hips. As the seconds tick by, the world around us dissolves into a blur of skaters and twinkling Christmas lights, but all I can focus on is the sharp rise and fall of his chest beneath me, the heat of his hands, the way his breath fans across my face.
His eyes darken a shade, locked onto mine, and suddenly, I can’t even remember what the air is supposed to feel like in my lungs.
I should move. I should say something. But I don’t. Because Caleb is staring at me like I’m something worth staring at, something worth keeping close. And that makes my head spin faster than our dizzying fall did.
Caleb swallows, his gaze flickering down to my lips—for a fraction of a second—but it’s enough to make my heart trip over itself.
“Hey! Aren’t you Caleb Hawthorne from the Raptors?” a teenage boy asks, stopping next to us with his friend.
Caleb groans beneath me, squeezing his eyes shut like he’s physically in pain. “Yep, that’s me. Hi guys.”
They chuckle. “Hey, can we take a selfie with you? Once you’re up, that is.”
He gives them a thumbs up. “Sure. Do one more lap around the rink and find me.”
They skate away eagerly, and I bite my lip, trying and failing to suppress a laugh. “You okay?”
“Better than my reputation, that’s for sure. I was just viciously thrown onto the ice by a beginner skater. Might need to retire.”
My jaw drops. “Such a liar! Andhere I thought you were a stand-up guy.” I smack his chest, and he grins. But his hands don’t leave my waist, and for another heart-stopping moment, we just stay there on the ice, in our own little world.
Just when I think I should move, Caleb exhales dramatically, and the tension lingering in the air fades. “Fine,” he relents, his voice teasing but his eyes warm, “I was the one who fell first.”
I shake my head, chuckling. “Good. Just making sure we’re clear on that.”
“But it was all because of these darn skates.”
