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He reached down towards my laces and started to thread them through the holes where they got loose. Like a professional, he was done and double knotted my skates in half the time I would’ve been able to, I was sure.
“Do they feel good?” he asked. “Not too tight or too loose?”
“They feel good. At least as good as shoes with pointy blades on the bottom can be.”
“You’ll get used to it. Now it’s time to stand up.” Holding my hands, maybe Leeson had more than a few reasons why he chose this activity for us.
Even walking on flat land, I gripped his palms tight, not wanting to let go and tip over. Once we stepped on the ice.
I let out a tiny cry as I wobbled. The sound echoed so much louder in the space. I wanted to cover my mouth as if to stifle the sound I already let out, but to do so I’d have to let go of Leeson’s hands.
I couldn’t do that.
And he didn’t let me even when I involuntarily pulled back. Thank god.
Now I was thanking the world that this alpha was still holding my hand. I was just jumping from self-denial and into the deep end, huh?
Leeson chuckled. “You’re all right. I got you. Let’s just get your feet under you a bit, yeah?”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath as he led me further out, though still close enough to the wall in case I needed something else to grab onto. Twisting around, he made skating backward look easy. “How are you even doing that?”
“Practice,” said Leeson. “I’ve been skating since I could walk. You have a few years to catch up on.”
“You’ve been skating that long?”
“My parents met on the ice. My mom was a figure skater. She’d been doing pairs until she presented and then had to go to singles which was hard to do, let alone get to the national level that she wanted to. Completely different. More competitive. So, she spent a lot of time in those years on the ice. Constantly, in fact. From what I hear, she annoyed all the other skaters with how she took up ice time.”
“And your dads…”
“Were hockey players in a minor league,” Leeson filled in. “A little older than she was at the time. The two of them started to come in early to the rink, drawn to watching my mom who spent more of her time on the ice than off back then. They met her finally at one point and the three of them just knew.”
“They just knew,” I repeated.
“More or less. I mean there was some drama with the slight age difference and the fact that she was still trying to compete and not be shipped around wherever my dad’s teams decided to move them next if that happened but?—”
“And did they move?”
“Once or twice, but not because of the team. Eventually, my dads gave up the hockey business. Turned out that it wasn’t their real dream.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dad wanted to be a dad and be a part of a family more than anything else. My pa took a little more time before going into management with his family alongside my dad too. But my pa still finds himself on the ice. He used to coach my little hockey league.”
“You’re kidding.” Now I couldn’t help it. I was imagining Leeson in a tiny hockey uniform complete with oversized pads and a helmet.
Was he ever a small child though? Looking at him now, that part was hard to picture.
“Not in the slightest. And he was ruthless about us. He brought one of those big inflatable balls once and threw it at us until we learned how to keep our feet under us on the ice.”
“That’s horrible.” And hilarious.
“My mom filmed it. It’s filled with both laughter from my dad and her mostly amused gasps of horror.”
They sounded like quite the crew. The family.
But I paused. “Did she make it?”
“Make it?”
