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On Monday, we were still camped out in the reclining chairs by the window, having done nothing much all day except try our hands at ice skating. Which led to Camden getting talked into playing a pickup game of hockey. Which led to the black eye he was currently nursing with an ice pack and another hot toddy.
“I can’t believe I gave myself a black eye,” he muttered.
“You were excited,” I said, tracing my fingers up and down his hand. “It was a great shot.”
“Didn’t impress a soul, though, considering how I nearly knocked myself out immediately after.”
“Impressed me,” I said. “I didn’t even know you could skate.”
He huffed a laugh and let his head fall back in the chair.
“Graham made us all learn one year,” he said. “He very briefly thought he might be a good hockey player. Which he was, actually. Graham never met a sport he couldn’t play. But good for a kid from Texas and actually good were different things. He was way better than us, anyway. But damn if we didn’t spend a whole winter driving up to Ashland to the only ice-skating rink for a hundred miles.”
“You looked like you knew what you were doing out there,” I said. “I can barely go in a circle around the rink.”
“I was the only other one besides Graham who really figured out the skating part. Even then, I forgot it all until I was on the ice again. The hardest part of hockey was being able to skate well. Everything else is just soccer with sticks.”
“Well, you were a very good soccer with sticks player,” I said, squeezing his hand. I knew he was embarrassed, but he was being silly. No one there seemed to think any less of him.
“You know what?” he asked, pulling the hand towel and bag of ice off his eye. “I know what we should do tonight.”
“Oh?” I asked, one eyebrow going up and feeling the familiar tingle on my skin every time I thought about his hardened, naked body.
“Karaoke.”
“Oh.”
That was absolutely not what I was expecting.
“No?” he asked, looking a bit crestfallen.
“I would love to,” I said, putting on a smile. “Let’s go get ready.”
He smiled and sat up, putting the towel aside and leaning in for a kiss.
“They do karaoke in the lodge tonight. It’ll be great!”
“I bet,” I said, doubting it very much.
I could not have been more wrong.
Maybe it was the wonderful mixed drinks, and maybe it was the fact that Camden beside me was seeming to have the time of his life, but this was fun. Really fun. A couple of the singers were shockingly good, and the ones that were bad were hilariously bad, especially put next to the really good ones. But no one seemed to care about how good or bad the performances were, only that everyone was having a good time.
Camden even got in on the fun, showing off a surprisingly tuneful voice, if nearly incoherently quiet despite the microphone. His rendition of an old Billy Joel song was sweet, and when he came back to sit down with me, I threw my arms around him and planted a deep kiss on his lips.
“Hey now, looks like he’s going to need a room,” the DJ said, getting a laugh from some of the people seated nearby, anxiously holding tickets for a new song to put in when they got called up for the one they already had in.
“Not a bad idea,” I half whispered to Camden as our lips parted.
“You don’t want to get your chance to sing?” he asked.
“I didn’t put in a song,” I said.
He grinned wide, and my face dropped.
“You didn’t,” I said.
His smile got wider, and I sat back in my chair, shaking my head.
