I bit my tongue, not wanting to mention that I also had never ice-skated before. He probably thought I was the lamest excuse for a date.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been ice-skating either?” Oliver’s eyebrows pulled together.
“I mean, growing up, we had these skating rinks made out of plastic they set out at malls in the winter. Does that count?”
Oliver gave a quick shake of his head. “Plastic? What? Absolutely not.”
“I’m from Florida,” I said defensively.
“Then we have a lot of catching up to do.” He pulled me forward, toward the skating rink, and before I could protest further, he was shoving a pair of ice skates at me. He practically dragged me to the bench where we were supposed to take our shoes off and put on the skates. There were little cubbies underneath to store our boots.
“You can’t sit still, can you?” I mumbled, but I was already putting on the skates to appease him. At this point, I was kind of convinced that he could talk me into anything. At least with this activity, the worst that could happen was falling from a standing position. There was no hurtling down a hill involved. But as I had that thought, I looked up to see another couple shakily skating around. The girl flailed her hands a few times before falling backward, right onto her butt.Ouch. That had to have hurt.
“I won’t let you fall,” he insisted.
I jerked my head around to see that he was watching me watch the couple. “I’ve heard that one before,” I said, lacing up my second skate.
He tapped his chin, already having put his skates on. “I don’t recall ever promising that you wouldn’t fall snowboarding. The very nature of learning that sport involves spending a good amount of time on your butt.”
“Well, I think it was heavily implied that I wouldn’t get hurt.”
“Oh yeah, the big wrist injury.” Oliver’s eyebrow raised in exaggerated skepticism. “How’s that feeling? Will you ever be the same?”
“It’s still sore,” I insisted, but the smile I couldn’t keep from spreading across my lips implied that I was completely full of shit.
“Okay. Sure.” Oliver winked at me. He did that a lot. I would normally find the gesture severely sleazy. But with Oliver, it somehow made me feel special. I swear each time he directed one at me, a new swarm of butterflies was released in my stomach.
“Let’s do this.” He reached for my hands, and I stood shakily on the skates. Walking in them was unnatural. The blade sliced into the padded black mats that lined the path to the rink. Oliver steadied me the whole way. When we got to the entrance of the rink, he let go of my hand to lightly grip my waist.
“Alright, easy does it. No falling on my watch.”
“No promises,” I said, although my eyes were glued to the ice. I was determined to prove to Oliver that I wasn’t completely hopeless at everything I attempted. If only he could see me in my element, back at my old job. The way I could command a room with ease. Though now that I thought about it, he probably wouldn’t have been impressed in the slightest by my slideshow presentations.
“Now, start walking but drag your foot a little. So back andforth. Don’t worry about gliding, keep the motions choppy at first.”
“Whoa.” My body jerked forward and then back as I took my first steps.
“I’ve got you,” Oliver said, tightening his grip on me.
I found my balance and continued moving forward. Once I got over the initial weirdness of the feeling, I managed to move a few feet forward. I had roller-skated eons ago, back in elementary school. It wasn’t like this was too terribly different from that. I could do this. Especially if Oliver kept his hands on me.
Oliver swung around with ease so that he was in front of me, and reached out to take both of my hands, helping me keep my balance as I gracelessly took a few strides forward.
“Did you play hockey or something?” I asked as he skated backward.
“Nope,” he said, watching my feet to make sure I was getting the hang of this and not tangling them up in each other.
“Then why are you so good at this?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just came easy, I guess.”
“You’re one of those people who is obnoxiously good at everything they try, right?” I asked, letting out a frustrated huff when I clumsily almost lost my footing again.
Oliver, true to his word, took one hand away from mine and grabbed my waist, refusing to let me fall. “Iamgood at a lot of things,” he admitted. “Pretty much only physical stuff, though. Sports, stuff like this. Not so much everything else.”
He sounded almost self-conscious saying that, which really threw me off guard.
“So the opposite of me,” I said. “I’ve never successfully picked up a sport in all my years trying.”
