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“You’re shitting me,” Eli says with bright eyes. “You’re going to let me teach you how to skate?”
Quickly nodding in agreement, I motion towards the bed of his truck.
Eli turns around, looking through his back window to find his hockey bag sitting in the cab.
“You have skates?”
“Yeah, Cam threw in a pair of his old ones that are too small.”
“I don’t know if I’m more shocked that you’re going to let me be better than you at something or that you’re willingly about to be outside in the middle of January,” Eli laughs.
“Honestly, me either.”
“That’s why you didn’t tell Marc what we were doing,” he softly states with assumption. “Because he doesn’t know about the pond.”
I offer him a shy smile. “This is your place, baby. And until you want to let others know about it, I’m going to keep it that way.”
“It’s our place,” he corrects with a grateful smile.
After bundling up in as many layers as I can manage while still being able to walk, we make our way past the broad and frost-covered field, through the maze of trees, finally ending at the frozen pond.
Eli tosses his hockey bag down next to the wooden bench at the pond’s edge before taking a seat on it next to me.
“This is where I fell in love with you,” I eagerly admit. “On this very bench.”
He cocks his head to look at me, a sweet lazy grin tugging on his lips. He looks so soft and perfect right now. His cheeks and nose are rosy, beanie covering his head and ears, and his brown eyes are calm and peaceful.
“Me too,” he says. “I remember the exact moment it happened. I’m pretty sure it was when you were sitting on my lap, and you told me that you had donated your kidney to your mom. I felt that throughout my whole body, like I was lighter all of a sudden. Looking back, that’s when I knew I loved you.”
This man always one-ups me. I think I say something sweet and romantic, then bam...Eli comes through with beautiful shit like that.
“God, you’re good. How are you this sexy and sweet? Where did you come from?”
“Sent straight from heaven, baby.”
Sexy. Sweet...arrogant. Just the way I like him.
“Are you going to love me less if I suck at skating?” I ask my arrogant boy as he digs through his equipment bag, finding the skates that Cam stashed in there for me.
“Yes,” he says, trying to hold back his bullshit smile.
He kneels in front of me as he takes off my boots, replacing them with hockey skates and tying them up for me.
“Here, stand up.” He grabs my hands to help me. “How do those feel?”
I bounce a bit to get the feel. “Good.”
I sit back on the bench next to my guy as Eli swaps his shoes for skates, tying them up exceptionally fast. He kisses my cheek before standing and doing a quick lap on the ice.
I’ve seen him skate before, obviously. But never this up close, and never just for fun. He looks so happy and free out here, skating in the fresh air. And man, is he quick. He’s always fast when he’s playing, but out here, without the added gear, he’s exceptionally swift.
He comes back to me, holding out his hands for mine with a bright smile. “Ready?”
Putting my hands in his, I stand from the bench and step onto the frozen pond. Eli is incredibly cautious with me as he skates backward with me in his grasp, but even after a few steady strides, he doesn’t let go.
“I’ve skated before, Eli. You don’t have to hold on to me the whole time.”
“Maybe I’m holding onto you because I just want to touch you,” he playfully admits. “And skating once when you were seven doesn’t count.”
