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“Push out with one foot at a time, just a little angled. You’ll find your rhythm,” she continued. She was by my side in an instant, spinning and skating backward to watch me as I tried to follow her instructions without falling.
“How are you so good at this?” I asked. A deep cut in the ice made me wobble, my arms going out to either side instinctually, and within a second she’d stopped, closing the distance between us, her body far too close to mine, and gripped onto my biceps to steady me. “Thanks.”
A heavy silence filled the air between us. There was nothing but frozen, hazy breath as her eyes locked onto mine, something clearly going on inside her head.
But then she was letting go, pushing off again, and skating backward while watching my feet. “It happens. No need to be embarrassed.”
I nodded and dug the front end of my skate into the ice. What did Ray call that? The toe pick? She’d said not to take off with it, but it was the only use I could think of for the jagged front edge. I pushed my way forward toward her, balance coming a little bit easier this time. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Her lips pursed and she changed direction again, this time coming toward me and skating in a circle around my slow-moving frame. “I don’t see a point in talking about my personal life at work.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Of course. Can’t be having any fun at work.”
“There’s no point,” she snapped, her gaze angled anywhere but at me as she resumed her backward position again. “We both have reasons we’re doing this. There’s no point in muddying the waters.”
“You know the point of this date is to get to know each other more,” I pressed. “How are we going to do that if you won’t tell me about yourself?”
“You know enough about me. I know nothing about you.”
“Surely a quick Google search would tell you some things.” I angled myself toward the wall, realizing seconds before impact that I had no idea how to stop. I slammed into it, knee, hands and stomach. The ache in my knee flared for a second, making me wince, but by the time Ray had circled and come to a far more graceful stop beside me, it had calmed.
“You’re surprisingly hard to pin down online,” she quipped, leaning onto the wall instead of clinging to it for support like me. “Tell me.”
I wasn’t about to lay down my entire life story. There were things that could be kept close to my chest until the time came, things I could keep entirely that no one would dare bring up. But I could give her the basics. “My name is Wade Thomas Colchester,” I started, flashing her a grin that dared her to make fun of my middle name. “My parents are Frank and Arlie. They divorced when I was around twelve, I think? Chloe was nine. Mom remarried a year later and her husband’s kid, Zane, is our stepbrother. Chloe’s pretty close with him. Dad never remarried and he lives it up as the single playboy.”
Ray chuckled, her gloved hand covering her lips to hide it. “Like father like son. I’m surprised your sister didn’t want him to clean up his act, too.”
“Dad’s kind of a… wild card,” I explained. Instinctually, I pulled her hand from her face. I didn’t want her to hide her amusement. “Plus, he’s not really in the family anymore. Mom’s the one that comes from money, anyway. We all took her last name. He’s not as connected as he used to be, so I guess he’s not as much of a liability.”
She rolled her eyes as she shifted in her skates, leaning back against the wall. “Should’ve known you came from old money. You definitely have the air of someone like Tom Buchanan.”
“You did not just compare me to Tom fucking Buchanan,” I laughed. The motion swayed my balance, and before I knew what was happening, my feet were sliding out from under me, the wall offering no support whatsoever. I could feel the crack in my ass as I collided with the ice, but Ray’s answering laugh was enough to take the sting out of it. “I’m nothing like him.”
Something seemed to shift in her hard exterior. The smile she had when she laughed, all teeth and gums, was genuine for once as she dropped to her knees next to me. “I don’t know, Wade. You seem to be surrounded by beautiful little fools. Peaked early in life. And I’m positive Daisy calls him a brute at some point…”
Peaked early in life. The comment didn’t sting as much as it used to, especially not when it came from her. I’d let her insult me if it meant she’d keep giving me the genuine side of herself. “Comparing yourself to Daisy Blunder Bunny? If only I were Gatsby instead.”
Ray’s smile slowly faded, a natural end to her fit of chuckles. “I don’t know. I guess I could be Daisy. I’m fickle, tough to please, and I’m so goddamn bored with my life.” Hurt flickered across her face, contorting her features like it had when she’d walked into my office begging for an advance. “I shouldn’t have said that. I love my mom and I’ll take care of her until the end, it’s just… it’s a lot sometimes.”
“I get that. It’s normal to feel that way.” The chill of the ice against my rear and legs was nothing when I had her to distract me. I wondered if it was seeping into her leggings, bringing her back to reality. “Tell me about her.”
She rolled her head against the wall of the rink as she turned to look at me. “About Mom? I mean, you already know she’s not well. Early-onset dementia. Things were easier when Dad was around to help, but he died almost three years ago. He was so good with her.”
This. This was the Ray I wanted to keep near me, the Ray I needed. Sure, her serious demeanor was what had sold me, but she was real. She wasn’t vapid and empty like the majority of girls I usually spent time with. Selling a relationship with someone like Ray was believable at worst and perfect at best.
Maybe that was selfish of me but at least she was someone I’d actually enjoy being around for an extended period of time.
“Can I ask what happened? With your dad?”
She rolled her eyes as she dug the heel of her blade into the ice. “I highly doubt anyone’s going to ask you how my dad died, Wade.”
“I doubt they would and I’d fucking punch them for prying,” I deadpanned. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Her fingers toyed with a loose thread on her sweater, tugging it free as the silence fell again. “They said it was a mugging gone wrong,” she said quietly, her voice a little softer, a little weaker than before. My chest squeezed. “Dad was a bus driver. He didn’t make a lot but he loved it. Not nearly as much as he loved Mom, though.”
I didn’t dare say a word.
“At the end of a shift one night, some guy hid between the seats and rode the bus all the way back to the depot. The cops think he was hoping to steal the money from the ticket sales that day. They got him on the CCTV footage threatening my dad with a gun, telling him to drop the bag and leave the bus. Dad tried to talk him down, but it… it didn’t work. The kid panicked. He shot him, grabbed the bag, and ran. They never found him.”
