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“So if I ever wanted to kill you, I would just put you on ice?”
This time, I shake my head, my tongue gliding against my inner cheek to my bottom teeth before responding, “Funny, Emelia.”
She glides along the ice, alternating between facing forward and backward. It looks effortless for her, even as she starts a conversation. “I went to an ice skating competition with my mom, and I just fell in love. It looked liberating, freeing, and complicated all at once. Of course, I was only four at the time, so I just thought it was magical.” She smiles so damn wide, and I nearly match it.
“How come you never went professional with it?”
One brow quirks, then she is in the air again, doing three spins, making my jaw drop I’m so unexpectedly impressed.
“I’ll give you a guess. His name starts with a G, and he is the world’s biggest fucking asshole. Besides you.” She winks.
“Fair enough.” I will take that title. Means she doesn’t think I’ve gone soft, when clearly I have. She melts me inside all while adding fuel to a never-ending flame that was once just a sparking ember.
“He still let you do it as a hobby though?”
“Only because he thought it would be a good workout and that I would lose all this weight and be some skinny little thing, like all the women men desire. Joke’s on him. It only made my muscles bigger too.”
My insides burn. I feel the sting start in my head and travel viciously down my spine. Her body is perfect. It feeds men like me who are hungry, insatiable, constantly starving. That body was made to keep me coming back again and again, and though she radiates confidence and thrives in her skin, it still doesn’t make it okay that her father made her feel like she was something not worth desiring.
“How often did you do it when you lived back in New York?”
Emelia gains speed as she takes off for the other side of the rink, and before she gets there, she jumps up, lands, and starts spinning in place at a fast pace. Her back is arched, and one leg is angled at her other ankle that is attached to the foot still on the ice. My God, she is fucking good at this. She looks at peace, in her element. Fucking centered.
“I would go five days a week for three to sometimes ten hours each day.” She is now a little out of breath, and I see why. “Anything to get away from my family. They were suffocating and demanding and overbearing, but if I said I was going to work out at the rink, they practically leaped out of the way.” She meets me back at the half-wall door, and I watch her intently. She’s beautiful. Makeup-free. Flushed cheeks. And glowing in her element. Carefree… and just—free.
“Nico?”
I shake my head, Emelia pulling me from wherever the hell I just went.“Yes?”
“Can I have music on? I want to skate to my favorite song.”
“Sure. Where’s your phone?”
“In my bag, back pocket.” She pushes off the glass and starts skating backward. “It's Lana Del Ray’s ‘Young and Beautiful,’” she hollers, and I look over at the employee in the box who has his head buried in his phone. Walking over to where he is, I sort through her songs and find the one she asked for. Tapping on the glass, I alert him, and he stands fast, coming to unlock the box.
“Yes, sir?”
“Plug this in and play this song.” I show him, and he nods. He’s young and will know how to use an iPhone. I walk back, but this time, I take a seat at the top of the bleachers. I want to take her in, all of her. See her become one with the ice.
The humming sound of a low, feminine voice and a piano starts, and Emelia closes her eyes where she’s positioned in the middle of the rink. She doesn’t move at first, and I swear I’m on the edge of my seat, waiting for her next move. The second the woman starts singing, my wife’s eyes open, and she sets into motion, gliding effortlessly, the faint sound of her blades on the ice almost adding to the music.
“Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”
The words accompany a haunting melody, and Emelia’s face shows it. It draws in tight with pain, but her moves don’t falter. She never misses a jump or landing, executing them at the perfect time, in tandem with the music. Music isn’t really something I’ve paid much attention to or realized how much of an impact it has on someone. Or how it can accompany something so painfully beautiful like it does right now.
This song will be burned into my memory, as will the image of Emelia skating to it. The song crescendos, and goose bumps rise on my body as I watch her. Fuck me. She’s taking over my head. Emelia is beautiful, sensual, challenging, talented, and she is making her way into my fucking soul.
Panic rises up in me. I don’t know if this is something I can do. Let her in. Have something with her. The only people I believed could love one another were my mother and father. After my father died, I watched my mom slowly waste away until she took her last breath. Broken hearts can kill, and that’s what took her. The idea of living without my father put her in her grave, and I swore that type of love was made solely for them and them alone. That was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.
“Emelia!” I holler out when the song stops, and she looks up at me from the center of the ice, both of us breathing heavily. She nods, knowing what I want.
I need her.
I look to the booth as I stride down the bleacher stairs, and the young man working glances at me. I tilt my head toward the exit, flashing my gun just so I don’t have to worry about him interjecting. He does what I silently told him to without a moment of hesitation. Emelia glides to the edge of the rink as I hit the bottom landing, and the second the door closes behind that now faceless employee, my hands are in her hair and our mouths are on one another. We claw at each other, the passion seeping out of us both.
“My skates.” She breaks our seal, and I shake my head.
“Keep them on,” I tell her.
