“Wow, I love your Jeep,” Kendra said.
“I do too,” Grayson added.
“I couldn’t be any happier,” Ivy said.
When they arrived at the skating rink, she parked as far out and away from other cars as she could.
They laughed. “I don’t blame you,” Kendra said. “I did that for weeks after I bought my new car. I just didn’t want others to bang up the car doors.”
“Me too.” Grayson wondered how many others did the same thing.
Everyone grabbed their roller skates and met up with the others, then went inside to put them on and store their shoes.
Inside, the roller-skating rink was rainbow-lit while pop music played overhead. All ages were skating across the smooth floor on polyurethane wheels, and it was perfect for his sixteen-year-old sister’s birthday. All of the girls loved to skate.
It was also, for him and Kendra, an unexpectedly great place for a date. At first, he’d worried—his last venture at skating was when he was in high school, and all he recalled was falling a few times after not having skated for a few years. With a date would be such an embarrassment.
But he was younger then, and he had no problem with just laughing it off in front of Kendra now if he did fall. He and she stepped onto the scuffed floor, and he found his stride, gliding at first with an awkwardness that quickly gave way to confidence. Kendra looked like him in the beginning, like she hadn’t done this in a few years, but she stayed near him as a couple would. He loved it.
Kendra quickly showed she was a natural after skating halfway around the rink. She was well-balanced, leaning into the corners, a gentle sway required to keep pace with Grayson as Ivy and her girlfriends skated wildly all over the rink. Kendra took his hand, and together they navigated the circulating spiral of teens, preteens, and adults.
He hoped he didn’t get his skates tangled with Kendra’s and knock her down. If he fell on his own, he was fine with that. But he loved skating with her as a couple. He noticed Ivy had paused to take a video and some pictures of him and Kendra skating together, as if they were as important as her friends at her birthday party. Then she was skating with her friends again.
Ivy and her girlfriends laughed off their wobbles and near collisions with their wild skating maneuvers, while chatting, skating backward, and attempting to jump the plastic cones left out for games, only to fail. All the adults in the party had to pause to watch Ivy, worried she would fall and break her cast or some other bone in her body.
17
Suddenly, Grayson’s father fell on the roller-skating rink floor, making Grayson gasp, and his heart beat like crazy. Before he and Kendra could skate across the rink to help him up and make sure he was okay, Ivy and her friends were there, and then Marcus assisted them. Their dad laughed good-naturedly and gave them all a thumbs-up. Thankfully, he hadn’t broken anything.
Grayson’s dad might be strict about some rules, but everyone, including Ivy’s friends, adored him.
He was the dad who gave the kids lifts when their own parents couldn’t, or who went to school functions and acted as though he was everyone’s father, cheering them on and being there for them. Grayson hoped he would be admired like that when he was a dad too, which made him glance at Kendra and think about her being pregnant with his kids. He smiled at her. She smiled back. If she had known what he was thinking, she might have socked him.
Marcus stuck close to their dad after that to make sure he didn’t fall again.
They stayed at the rink much longer than Grayson had anticipated, the laps around the perimeter giving them some great exercise. Sometimes he and Kendra broke free of the crowd, skating side by side, sometimes they got separated because of the crowded rink and caught up with each other again at the snack bar, breathless and a little sweaty.
“This has been so much fun,” Kendra said, drinking a bottle of water.
“Yeah. It’s perfect for Ivy’s sixteenth birthday party. I never thought I would have a date at the party, which makes it extra special to me.”
“Yeah, me too. I haven’t gone skating in years, and wouldn’t have thought of doing it for anything, but it sure is great exercise. I feel it in all my muscles.”
He chuckled. “Me too.”
They finished their drinks, and Kendra asked, “Do you want to race?”
He smiled. “I sure do.”
They headed back out on the skating rink, and when she easily outpaced him, she didn’t gloat, just smiled and grabbed his hand again as if the competition had been nothing more than a way to get his attention.
He was happy to give her all the attention she wanted.
Between sessions, he watched his sister gleefully skating with her friends. He looked at Kendra, who was watching his sister too.
“She’s really good,” she said.
“Yeah, and after what had happened to her, this is a good way to get her mind off it.”
