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“Can I check out the arcade part?” Sage yelled from the side.
“I’d give her a thumbs-up, but I can’t let go of your hands,” Harlow said.
With a laugh, I looked over at Sage and nodded.
We skated like that for a little, and slowly, Harlow relaxed again, but she didn’t release my hands. I didn’t let go of hers. Her fingers were linked so firmly around mine that when I pulled her around the curve a little faster than we’d been moving, she gripped me so tight, I winced.
She loosened her grip. Sort of. “Sorry. I don’t know if this makes it better or worse,” she admitted.
“It’s fine. Blood flow to my appendages is highly overrated.”
When Harlow laughed, her shoulders dropped an inch, and she held her hands more loosely in mine, but still, I didn’t let go.
“Didn’t we skate to this song once?” I asked.
Her face transformed with the mention of a simple memory. “Once or twice,” she answered with a smile.
Harlow’s eyes fluttered shut and she let me pull her a little closer before I shifted my grip on her hand to just the one between us, so that I could skate next to her again.
It was simple, wasn’t it? Two friends skating to a song she used to love, probably still did. She’d made me listen to it a million times or more, and somehow like this, in a dark room with the occasional colorful burst of lights playing across her face, it distilled the moment into something a little more meaningful.
It fit us too, I realized. I’d always done everything for her, and even now, that hadn’t changed. I could look over at her now, clock the way she’d grown and changed in ways that I could see. Ways that I couldn’t. But what I couldn’t quantify just yet were the days and weeks and months of memories that I had missed.
Now it was my hand that tightened on hers. It was my breath that started coming just a little faster, and my legs that stiffened as I started pulling on threads in my mind that I had no right to pull on.
What if, what if, what if….
My throat was bone-dry as I tried to swallow, tried to quash the quick rise of fear at how good it felt to hold her hand, at how right it was to be here with her, and how deeply fucked I would be if I lost her again.
Harlow shifted sideways, her arm brushing against mine, and because I was distracted, her shift caused the slightest stumble in the movement of my skates.
When I started pitching forward, I whirled, overcorrecting the motion of my body, and as I did, Harlow lost her balance too. My hand immediately snaked around her waist, fingers digging into her hips, and she squeaked as we started to topple, her hand clutching at my arm.
I angled so that we aimed toward the wall instead of the ground, my hand shooting out to brace next to her head so she didn’t slam into it. But her feet still whipped out from underneath her, and her back slammed into it all the same, her legs sliding straight between mine as I held us up. My arm was still tight around her waist, her hands anchored around the back of my arms as she caught her breath, staring wide-eyed up into my face.
The way I held her made me want to shake my head and clear my vision because even if this was an accident, even if it mirrored what happened before the bar, it was viscerally, brutally different.
Because this wasn’t cloaked in darkness. My senses weren’t drilled down to one or two. Everything about this was heightened. Amplified. The music provided a soundtrack that matched my pulse, lending an air of intention to the way we were pressed against each other. The lights over her face made her cheekbones seem higher, her lips softer, and her eyes deeper.
Fuck, if I didn’t want to fall straight into them.
In the dark, it was easier to ignore all manner of things, simply from being robbed of your sight. But I couldn’t ignore this.
My hips were locked tight to hers, my legs bracketing hers as I held her entire weight close to my body. Harlow’s eyes were wide, and the way her lips fell open on a gentle O, I couldn’t help but stare at them. Her tongue darted out to lick at her bottom lip, and my blood screamed at that tiny flash of pink tongue and white teeth.
Unthinkingly, I tightened my fingers where they held her. Just like in the hallway, it was right at the curve of her waist, just above her hips, and her breath caught. My heart thrashed wildly in my chest as I imagined what might happen if I dipped my head and brushed my lips against hers.
We were so close, and the aching press of her breasts against my chest had me hardening instantly.
Harlow’s eyes flitted closed, and the slight lift of her chin had me slamming my own eyes closed. It would be so easy. And it would shatter whatever structure our day-to-day was built on. It wasn’t a fragile one, but even the strongest steel frames had a point of weakness. Ours was the time we’d spent apart. The new feeling of being around each other again. And the fear that kept me in an unbreakable chokehold.
I let out a harsh breath and steadied my weight onto the skates, slowly shifting her so she could stand. Harlow’s hands were still wrapped tight around my arms, but her eyes wouldn’t meet mine.
Once she was steady, I released her, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck. “You okay?”
Jerkily, she nodded. “I think I’ll, umm, take a break from skating for a little. Go see what Sage is doing.”
As she skated away, I clenched my jaw so tightly I was shocked it didn’t crack any bones. When I looked over at the counter, the old man working motioned me closer. I skated over to the counter, my eyebrows raised.
