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Avril’s door opened, and Liam clamped his mouth shut. Next, he tried not to stare.
She appeared with a grin, with her skates similarly tied together by their shoestrings but instead slung over her shoulder. Trading her tank top and tight-fitting jeans for a sweater, coat, and eventightersilver leggings, Avril swung a gray beanie around one of her fingers as she emerged from her bedroom.
Between her and Anna, a ridiculous excess of beauty filled the apartment. Their neighbors were lucky people.
But you’re luckier, a voice reminded him, causing him to glance at Avril, who bent over and picked up her phone. Remembering Anna’s purported talent, he quickly looked away from the redhead, worried he’d get lost in her firm legs and shapely butt if he took so much as a peek.
As if his trepidation triggered a bell inside her head, Avril peered over her shoulder. Noticing that Anna’s attention was diverted by a sudden text message, which Liam half-suspectedshehad sent just now, a knowing smile curled her soft lips. He knewexactlyhow soft they were.
Leaving the apartment, he made for his car while the two ravishingly beautiful women made for Anna’s. Once there, they let their engines warm, though none of them retreated into the apartment. Avril entered her element, and her small talk kept away another uncomfortable silence until they were ready to get on the road.
Inputting OpenSky Center into his phone just in case he lost Anna’s SUV, he left Ashgrove Apartments for the first time just about an hour after he’d arrived. At that time, he’d wondered if it would also be his last visit.
Letting the music pumping through his speakers wash over his thoughts, the twenty-five-minute journey passed uneventfully. He never lost sight of Anna and Avril, so his phone’s guidance proved unneeded, though he let it drone on about which turns he should take without bothering to shut it off until they reached the parking lot.
Early into the afternoon, the place looked relatively uncrowded. Adding their two vehicles to the two dozen others already there, Liam took a deep breath, only partially to ready himself for the shivering temperature awaiting him, and hopped out of his car. Hooking up with Anna and Avril, they guided him toward the rental area beside the smaller rink, which an enormous cloth tarp strung up by poles covered. Only a few people currently skated on that one.
The other two rinks, one which looked exactly like the hockey rink Anna had described it as yesterday, stood closely beside one another. In fact, they were connected via a small passageway of ice, allowing easy access to skaters on either rink. For most of the skaters, the enormous rectangular rink was where they put their blades. It stretched on and on, and Liam judged it to be nearly as long as a football field. Short glass walls hemmed it, and colorful Christmas lights, ribbons, and garlands hanging from numerous tall lampposts stood stalwart around the walls, currently unused but undoubtedly ready to swathe the rink in light once nighttime arrived.
Heading inside the expansive building, which Liam learned had lockers, a shower, and even a café serving food, Anna and Avril guided him to where they would get tickets to skate, and where he could rent some skates.
Admission plus skates cost him twenty-five dollars, but the price didn’t interest him much. The smiles and friendly banter between the middle-aged woman running the desk and Anna and Avril did.
“We’re the cream of the crop when it comes to regulars,” Avril informed him. “No one else is anywhere as popular.” She refocused on the kindly woman behind the desk, who had introduced herself as Tara. “Righttt?”
“Miss Knight, youknowI have a soft spot in my heart for Miss Royce.” And she said no more. The silence spoke volumes.
Without missing a beat, Avril gasped and adopted affronted shock as her response. “And I thought it was cold outside! I didn’t realize I was so unwelcome.”
“It cancels out to a net neutral,” Tara informed her, nodding at Anna.
“Wow! This cuts deep, Tara. You can forget about those tickets you wanted for you and your new boyfriend!”
“I’m sure they’d just lose anyway,” she retorted, a mirthful smile flitting across her features.
Avril recoiled as if struck, gasping louder than before. “And this is the thanks I get for all my patronage.”
“You only come when Miss Royce does.”
“Which is still, like, two or three times a week!”
The woman merely shrugged, and Avril huffed. Grabbing him and Anna by the arm, she muttered loudly about Tara’s rudeness as she dragged them away.
“Have a good time, Miss Royce!” Tara shouted after Anna. “And you too, sir!”
Avril gasped for a third time.
Outside, Avril dropped her feigned abhorrence toward Tara’s behavior and stretched her arms over her head. She still remarked about the woman’s “cheekiness,” though it was all spoken with a smile. Her complaints dwindled as the three of them headed for the largest rink.
“You said you haven’t skated in several years, correct?” Anna asked as they sat on one of the benches near the southern entrance into the rink, stowing their shoes away under it while they wrangled their skates on. Well,hewrangled them on. Anna and Avril were plenty practiced at sliding on their respective skates.
“Yeah, middle school, I think.”
“So, what you’re saying is that we should get ready to see a baby deer learning how to walk?” Avril asked.
“Or ice skate,” he supplied.
She patted her hip, which drew his gaze to where she’d stowed her phone inside her tight leggings. “I’ll be sure to collect video evidence of it all.”
