Page 170 of Until We Burn
“Kai.” A soft, exasperated laugh breaks from her smile. Diana rises and settles into my lap. I’m completely weak when she hugs my face to her chest and strokes my hair. “Honey, why did you put so much pressure on yourself to make this perfect?”
I shake my head and reach out to fiddle with the plastic advertisement frame on the table. “I didn’t think we’d ever have a chance after that night. I’m just nervous about failing to live up to the guy you’ve been daydreaming about.”
“Aww, no.” Diana pouts with a playful, little glimmer in her eyes.
She kisses my forehead.
“The guy I was daydreaming about was a plain illusion in my head. You’re so much more than that, Kai. You’re a reality I can’t stop falling in love with.” I can feel her smile slowly curl against my skin. “Even when you’re sweating through your shirt and stumbling through your words.”
I snort, tilting my head up to arch my brow at her. “So, you’re saying you still want me after all this?”
“I’ve smelled your hockey equipment.” Diana’s nose crinkles as she waves a hand at the earpiece. “This is nothing.”
“Hey, watch it.” I poke her stomach. Diana giggles before kissing my nose.
I glimpse outside the window where Luke and Rowan are pulling out of the parking lot.
I look back up at her.
“Do you wanna get out of here?”
“And go where? There’s not a lot of places we can go at the moment where people won’t talk about us being together.”
The sign I idly fiddle with suddenly catches my eye.
Go skating at Marley and Babette’s Christmas Wonderland!
“Well…”
Diana follows the line of my gaze and her own eyes widen. She shakes her head. “Kai, no.”
“It’s the perfect place, Di! Look.” I point at the picture of a tall man and a chubby woman smiling in their matching ugly Christmas sweaters. They gesture proudly at an indoor rink festooned with Christmas decor. “Old white people run this place. Half of them don’t even know what streaming is!”
“But I don’t know how to skate!” Diana protests.
“Yousee a problem,Isee an opportunity,” I drawl.
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“You will eventually.” I kiss her before easing her off my lap. “Come on.”
CHAPTER 67
DIANA
“I can already seethe paramedics plucking my body off the ice.”
Kai chuckles. He shakes his head as he finishes lacing up my skates. “Di, relax, alright? I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you while you’re on my turf.”
He kisses me and stands up. Kai wraps his arm around my waist and lifts me onto my feet.
I totter across the rubber floors of the locker room. It’s so strange to walk on nothing but blade and air. The thought of moving on ice in these things while giant, burly men come after you with sticks makes me momentarily question Kai’s sanity.
“You’re doing great,” Kai encourages. “You look super hot in these.”
“Oh, don’t start,” I grumble.
Kai laughs. He keeps a tight hold on me until the rubber floors give way into the glistening skating rink.
