On the Fly (25 page)

She looked at me like I was crazy. “I
don’t know…”

“
Do you want to go get
Maddie so my sister can get engaged, or do you want to stand here
and argue with me?”

Rachel tried to glare at me, but her
laugh ruined it. “Hold me steady while I get on it so I don’t fall
on my butt again.”

I’d accidentally let her fall once.
Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been an accident, since I had spent the
whole afternoon thinking about ways I could get her back into my
arms again, to pick her up and hold her. To have her close to me.
It had given me a good excuse to pull her into my arms and hold
onto her for a minute. And she’d let me, just like she’d let me
kiss her earlier.

Sometime soon—maybe tonight, after we
left the party—I needed to get her alone again. To kiss her some
more, yeah, but also to be sure we were on the same page about
where this was all headed. About where we were now.

I’d finally figured out exactly where
I stood on the whole thing. I was falling fast, and harder than I
was prepared for. With Zee getting ready to pop the question to
Dana, the whole idea of marriage had been floating around in my
head all afternoon, only connected to me and Rachel. I didn’t know
if I was quite ready to go so completely all in, but I at least
wanted to be more than just some guy who got to kiss her without
getting kneed in the nuts for it.

And then there were Maddie and Tuck to
consider, and suddenly the whole idea of kids didn’t seem like such
a big barrier…because I liked these kids. I was still surprised by
just how much I liked them, but only because I’d never really spent
much time around kids or thinking about having kids in my life. Now
that I did, at least to an extent, I wanted more.

I held out my hand for Rachel and used
the other to hold the sled still. She plopped down on it a little
haphazardly, but she straightened herself out a second later. I
picked up the two ropes at the front and pulled, making a beeline
for Dana and all those little girls. They were skating side by
side, all holding hands. Maddie had Dana on one side of her and the
older Montfort girl on the other side, but she didn’t look like she
needed help too much anymore.

I pulled my sled up in front of them
so they had to stop. Dana gave me a weird look, like she thought
I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. “All aboard the Soupy Express,” I
said. “I have room for three more passengers.”

I’d never heard such a chorus of
little-girl giggles in my life. Well, maybe I had—back when I was
their age. But definitely not since.

Maddie was the first on, plopping
herself down right in front of Rachel. Monty’s girls piled on after
a few seconds, squishing back to try to make room for Dana. I
couldn’t let that happen, though.

“
Sorry, Dana. The Soupy
Express is full. You’ll have to catch the next one.” Then I skated
off with the sled behind me.

I pulled them around, making wide
circles and figure eights, zooming in between the other skaters on
the ice. My eye kept going back to Dana. Zee went out and grabbed
her hand almost before we were fully away from them. They skated
toward the team benches, so I took the girls and headed the
opposite direction.

When we passed Jim with his wife, he
said, “I hope you’re not planning on giving him another black
eye.”

I allowed myself another glance at
Zee, down on one knee on the ice in front of her, and kept skating.
The little girls behind me were squealing and laughing, even
Rachel. I pushed myself harder, trying to get more speed, even
though my ankle was starting to throb. The pain would keep my mind
off the proposal.

We circled around the Babcock boys,
the Weber kids, and Tuck. They all ignored us, too intent on their
own fun to worry about anyone else, except for Babs. He came up
beside me and took one of the ropes, helping me pull the
sled.

I raised a brow in question, but he
shrugged and looked across to Zee and Dana. I guess it was his way
of showing me his support. Babs was pretty okay.

By the time we had to circle back
around, Zee had Dana up in the air and they were kissing like
teenagers, so I figured she’s said yes. I was happy for her, even
if I still wanted to knock Zee’s head off his shoulders sometimes
when he did shit like kissing her like that.

We pulled the sled in close to them
around the time he put her back down on her skates. Dana turned
around with the biggest, wettest, goofiest grin and skated straight
into my arms, nearly knocking me over with her
enthusiasm.

“
Happy tears?” I asked,
furious as hell that my voice cracked on the words. I pulled her
close and held on, hoping that would hide my reaction from the
boys. I didn’t need to give them any more reason to poke at
me.

“
The happiest,” she
said.

That meant I had to give Zee another
pass. I couldn’t rip his head off today.

It was getting to be a habit—letting
things slide with him when it came to Dana. Once they got married,
I’d probably have to forget about beating his face in
entirely.

She still wouldn’t let go of me. I
lifted my head and found Zee staring back at me. Worried. I bit
down on my tongue and gave him a nod.

That would have to do for now because
I’d probably lose it if I tried to talk again.

Brenden suddenly
found
himself really popular with the kids,
even more so than Jamie, now that he was the engineer of the Soupy
Express. Even though there were probably dozens of ways he’d rather
spend his day, I figured he was glad for something to do with
himself. Hauling all the kids around on a sled kept him from having
to face the emotional aspects of his sister getting engaged to his
best friend. He could put that off until later, sometime when he
had a little privacy. Or maybe that was just what I’d prefer if I
found myself in his situation.

Either way, he spent
another hour or more pulling the kids around the rink, which meant
that I was free to go back over to the benches and take those
skates off. Thank God. My feet were killing me, and my ankles were
sore and exhausted from the strain of keeping my body upright all
day. Okay, so it hadn’t been
all
day. Not even close to it. I’d probably only been
wearing them for an hour. How could these guys spend hours in
skates every day? It didn’t compute in my mind. After I put my
shoes back on, I scanned the benches for Martha and sat down to
watch everyone still on the rink when I didn’t find her.

Tuck insisted on having three turns on
the Soupy Express. When he wasn’t riding the sled, he was with all
of Jamie’s brothers, trying to learn how to shoot a hockey puck.
With each swing he took, I was more and more glad that all the kids
on that side of the ice were wearing protective gear. He was a
little wild.

Jamie and Katie seemed to have snuck
off somewhere, away from the rest of the kids. I didn’t see them
anywhere. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling and wondering what
would happen if her dad caught them somewhere making out. Katie
reminded me a lot of myself when I was younger—back before I’d
screwed up so badly. But lucky for her, Jamie didn’t seem anything
at all like Jason, apart from being way too
good-looking.

Maddie spent some time with Claire and
Sylvie Montfort, the girls who had taken a spin on the sled with
us. They each took one of her hands and helped her keep her balance
while she struggled to learn. Even though they were younger and
smaller than her, they had both clearly spent an awful lot of time
on ice skates.

I was watching the three of them when
Dana came over and took the empty seat next to me.

“
Maddie’s learning pretty
fast,” she said.

“
Not as fast as Tuck.” I
stole a glance at the ring on her finger, and she held her hand out
for me to get a better look. I managed to smile and not gawk.
“Congratulations. And thanks for skating with Maddie today, helping
her make friends.”

“
She didn’t need any help
making friends. She’s a sweet girl.” Dana crossed her legs at the
ankles and swung the skates she was still wearing forward, propping
them up by the back of the blade. She put her hands on the bench on
either side of her, her fingers wrapping underneath it. “If she
ever needs someone to talk to—or if you do—just let me know.
Anytime.”

I had to blink back tears. Today
wasn’t supposed to get me all worked up like this. It was supposed
to be a fun day at the skating rink, a time for the kids to be kids
and for me to relax. “Thanks,” I managed to say without unleashing
a torrent of waterworks.

She nodded, and her eyes found her
brother out on the ice. “Listen, I don’t really know how to say
this so I’m just going to get it out.”

That didn’t sound good.

“
Brenden’s never been like
this about a girl before, at least not that I know about. The way
he is with you, I mean. Like, he’s serious. But you’re still wary.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally get why you are. If anyone around
here understands that, it’s me. But it’s him, too. After all the
years he had to deal with me…”

“
I know.”

She turned, scrutinizing me with her
eyes. For the first time, I realized she had the same eyes as he
did, those rich, chocolate-brown eyes that could bore through me.
“He’s falling hard for you,” she said. “He’s going to want things
with you that you might not be ready to give him.” Her lips turned
down in a frown.

“
I’m falling for him, too.”
This time, it didn’t even scare me to say it, to let myself feel
it. Granted, that might have something to do with the fact that he
wasn’t sitting there to hear the words tumbling out of my mouth. “I
don’t know what I’m ready for—what Maddie and Tuck are ready
for—but I know I can’t keep pushing him away.”

“
Good.” She faced the ice
again, her eyes falling on Brenden as he pulled another sled full
of kids around the rink. “Because I like you, and I like your kids,
and I want him to be happy. You make him happy. All of
you.”

“
Maybe you can help me
understand something,” I said, and I wished I could take it back.
Asking it would only make it seem like I wasn’t confident in
myself, even though I didn’t think that was the case. I believe in
myself. I just don’t normally expect anyone else to because I’ve
always had to fight to prove myself.

But Dana turned to me, waiting
patiently for my question.

“
Why me?”

“
Because you’re all the
things he didn’t know he should be looking for until you landed in
his lap.” That did nothing to answer my question, but she didn’t
let me linger on it for too long. “Listen,” she said, “Eric and I
haven’t run this by Brenden yet, but we want you and the kids to
come over for Christmas. My parents are flying in on Monday. It’ll
just be family, nothing fancy. I know it’s your first Christmas
here, and we’d totally understand if you want to spend it alone
with the kids, but we’d love you to spend it with us. There’s
plenty of room for all of you to spend the night Christmas
Eve.”

I’d started getting used to the fact
that Brenden could steal my breath, but I hadn’t been prepared for
his sister to do the same. I had to force my jaw to snap
closed.