Page 23 of Blueline Baby

“I can go forward super fast! Backward is unnatural.”

“Come here.” I skate over to her and hold out both my hands. “Hold on.”

She hesitates, then grabs my hands. I start skating backward, pulling her along with me so she’s gliding backward too, her skates wobbling just a little. She grips my hand tighter, her eyes wide, entirely focused on not falling. When she finally gets comfortable, she lets go of my hand with a bright smile and then immediately spends the next ten minutes doing hockey stops in front of me, spraying snow all over my legs, thrilled with herself every single time until I catch her mid-spray and get an arm around her waist, picking her up off the ice.

She yelps and grabs for my shoulders as I spin us in the middle of the dark, empty rink. She’s laughing with her head thrown back and I would stand here holding her like this until the building fell down around us.

I set her down slowly, but she keeps her hands on my shoulders. Neither of us wants to let go.

There’s a little snow caught on her cheek from all the showing off, so I reach up and brush it away with my thumb, and she takes a shaky breath. The whole rink is quiet around us.

“Can I ask you something?”

“In addition to the question you just asked?” She giggles.

“Can I get a redo?” Her eyebrows go up. “On the kiss. The first one. The drunk one. I’d give anything to take it back and do it right.” I’ve still got my hand on her face. “I want a real one. One I actually get to keep.”

12

CHLOE

YOU’RE FALLING FOR ME, BACKCHECK GIRL

All I can do is nod. The sudden, intense spike of adrenaline I feel as he lowers his head is genuinely terrifying. It feels less like falling and more like stepping off a curb into traffic and realizing too late that the car isn’t going to stop.

He pauses, his lips right above mine, and whispers, “I need to hear you say it, Chloe.”

“Yes,” I breathe.

And then my entire logic circuit shorts out.

He kisses me like he’s been holding his breath since the very first night we met. One hand slides into my hair, and the other flattens against the small of my back, drawing me closer until there’s absolutely no physical space left between us. I feel it everywhere. In my chest, in my stomach, and lower.

He kisses me carefully at first, like he’s trying to figure out exactly where the boundaries are. But when I finally kiss him back—when I stop holding myself apart and actually give in to the physics of it—he makes a low sound against my mouth that I feel more than hear. It instantly kicks open the door I’ve been desperately holding shut for the past month.

I lose track of who’s kissing who. My hands move up to his chest, gripping his jacket, and then slide up to his jaw. He tilts his head, and it’s better. Deeper, as his tongue slides against mine. I completely forget that we are balancing on thin metal blades in the middle of a frozen rink. I forget every single logical reason I have used to convince myself that he is a mistake.

Because not one of those reasons will survive the way he’s kissing me.

Somewhere in it, my balance finally gives out. It’s the skates, it’s my knees, I truly can’t tell. But he catches me without breaking the kiss. His arm locks around my waist, taking all of my weight like it’s absolutely nothing.

His mouth curves into a smile against mine.

“You’re falling for me, Backcheck Girl,” he murmurs against my lips.

“It’s the skates.”

“Sure.” He kisses the corner of my mouth, then the edge of my jaw. “The skates.”

When he finally pulls back, I keep my eyes shut for a second longer. I'm not ready to look at his face and have to figure out what to do with mine. My heart is hammering so hard I’m completely certain he can feel it through both of our jackets.

The one thing I can’t turn off is the immediate comparison to the first kiss. He was so incredibly drunk he probably doesn’t even remember it. I told myself for an entire week that I was glad about that. I convinced myself that him not remembering saved that stupid, sloppy kiss from meaning anything.

This one, I’ll remember. This one, there’s absolutely no logical way to pretend it doesn't mean anything.

I open my eyes. He’s looking down at me, and there’s nothing cocky in his expression at all. He looks exactly as stunned as I feel.

“Okay,” he says, quietly. “Wow.”