Wilson Mooney Eighteen at Last (15 page)

“
You find out how strong
you really are when someone you love dies. But still, I’m not as
strong as you think I am. I’m just pretty good at appearing
okay.”

“
Well, you always look
more than okay to me.” He turned down one of the main roads and my
breath ricocheted in my chest. Brilliant, multicolored Christmas
lights danced and twinkled in every tree. The reflection of the
lights on the swells of glistening snow and damp wooden benches
tickled memories from my childhood and reminded me of the Christmas
when my grandparents took me ice skating for the first
time.

I remembered the chill of the evening
biting at my nose and the excitement that perched high in the back
of my throat as my grandpa laced up my skates. I remembered all the
trees around the rink having huge, clear white bulbs cluttering
their branches. I will never forget how I clung to my grandfather’s
legs as we skated around the ice; it was magical to watch the
lights’ reflections dance against the wet ice. Oh, how protected
yet terrified I felt as my grandpa glided back and forth with me
between his crouched legs and how rigid my body was as the blades
of my skates sped across the ice. My grandpa could skate so fast—or
at least I thought.

“
Is there ice skating in
Aspen?” My voice caught and tears crowd my eyelashes.

“
Yeah, Silver Circle on
Durant; but it’s an outdoor rink,” Max warned me.

“
That’s fine. Let’s go ice
skating!”

“
Really?” He parked in a
metered space on the street.

“
Yeah, I haven’t done it
in so long, I think it would be fun.”

“
You sure? I mean, they
are giving out free candy canes and hot chocolate at the clock
tower tonight. You sure you wanna pass that up?”

“
They probably have hot
chocolate at the ice rink.”

“
What about the free candy
canes? I know how much you love candy canes,” Max teased as he
wrenched his hands on the steering wheel.

“
Maximillian Goldstein,
what’s going on? You aren’t scared, are you?” I grabbed the
steering wheel between his hands and pulled up closer to him in the
driver’s seat. The windows were already shrouded over by the steam
of our conversation.

“
Naw, I’m far from scared.
I just thought—you know—candy canes. Who in their right mind
wouldn’t want to have a candy cane?” His hands bounced and swiped
at the space in front of him as he spoke. He could say anything he
wanted, but I knew that he was nervous, because that was the only
time his hands would fly.

“
I’ll tell you what—you
ice skate with me and I promise to share a candy cane with you by
the clock tower,” I bargained.

“
Only if you throw in a
hot chocolate.” Max ran his hand across his forehead to clear the
stray pieces of his hair out of his eyes.

“
Deal,” I sang as I leaned
in to give him a kiss.

Tonight was going to be
perfect—beautiful Aspen on a crisp, snowy night with my guy. I
couldn’t ask for anything better.

I tightened up my white ice skates,
wrapping the long, thin laces around my ankles two times before
tying them as tight as they could go. I couldn’t remember if my
grandpa had wrapped the long laces around my ankle before he tied
them when I was little. I just hoped that, by tying them as tight
as I could, I would have more control over how my ankles were going
to bend or move. Max pulled at his black laces, fumbling over what
he was supposed to do with the extra length after they were tied.
Sadly enough, he had never skated—on blades or wheels—before in his
life.

“
What are you doing?” I
asked before sliding down onto the floor and pulling on the end of
the awkward bow he’d tied.

“
Hey, I got it, you don’t
have to help me,” Max whispered.

“
Well, obviously, you’re
such a master of the double knot,” I said. “Look, see all this
extra lace here? You want to take it and wrap it around like this.”
I pulled his laces tight once around the ankle of his black skates
before I tied it.

“
Oh, I thought they were
too short to do that. Thanks,” he said as he pulled his first foot
back and stretched out his other.

“
What, you want me to do
this skate too? Really?”

“
Well, I just figured
since you were down there…” Max smiled and his eyes showed me just
how much of a tease he could really be. “I’m kidding. I think I can
tie my own laces.”

“
Oh please, you can’t tie.
You teach a mean government class, but tying laces isn’t your
strong point.” I fished for the black laces on his skates and
pulled them, then he grabbed my hands to stop me. When I looked up
at him, his eyes burned with an influence I couldn’t
deny.

“
There are a lot of things
I
can
do; it just
depends on
who
I
am doing
it
with.” Max pulled my arms so they would curve around his
waist. I stretched up and our smiles met. With his warm lips
pressed strongly against mine, I tasted his ability to take me and
my hovering butterflies anywhere we wanted to go. He tangled his
fingers into the stray strands of hair I had hanging and cleared
them away from my cheeks before his hands anchored on either side
of my face. His kiss was as intense as the cold breeze that cut
across my skin.

“
You sure know how to
do
that
,” I said
as my butterflies danced and tangled with the space between my
hips.

“
Are you ready to try?”
Max asked, his eyes still glistening with our kiss.

“
Um,
yeah
, but we just got our skates
on,” I mused.

“
Funny, Wilson. Don’t
worry, I know how to do
that
too,” he said before he tapped the tip of my
frozen nose with his finger, pulled on his gloves, and bent toward
me.

“
I have no doubt in your
abilities,” I smiled as he stood above me.

He stretched out his hands to help me
up; I was a little concerned about his wobbly stance. We ambled
like a couple of robots to the ice rink. Unable to hold hands, we
made sure there was enough space between us just in case either of
us tanked it.

He reached the railing before I did.
Our breathing made clouds of steam dance in front of us. I could
tell he was nervous—his rapid breath sent signals into the
night.

“
Well, you ready?” Max’s
word choice hung suggestively between us before he completed his
sentence. “…to
ice
skate
,” he said through a
smile.

“
Yeah, let’s go,” I
giggled.

I stretched my foot out onto the ice
as I grabbed the railing that separated the skaters from the
spectators. My ankles struggled to keep my foot straight and
balanced as I pulled my other foot to catch up. The blades of the
skates slid quickly across the wet ice, and suddenly, I felt the
same insecurities I had when I was a little girl ice skating with
my grandpa.

“
Okay, stay there, I’m
coming to you,” Max said.

I turned, waiting to see how he was
going to move on the ice. “Wait—be careful, it’s slipperier than
you think,” I warned him as I clung to the railing.

The anticipation of him skating over
to me coursed recklessly through my body, and before I could stop
him, Max bent forward and pushed off the wall. I shrieked as his
arms swung back and forth and he sailed toward me. Obviously, his
idea was to get to me without ending up on the freezing cold ice;
little did he know.

I felt like the iceberg that sat
waiting in the ocean before the Titanic rammed against it. Suddenly
his expression was like a deer in the headlights as he realized he
had leaned too far back. His arms flapped and his feet shuffled as
he slid into me. I felt him grab and pull, then I cambered over and
we collapsed into a heaping, tangled mess.

“
Holy shit, Wilson, I
didn’t realize I was going to move that fast,” Max said. His words
were mixed with shock and laughter. “Are you okay?”

“
Yeah—considering you
cushioned my fall,” I laughed. “How about you?” I asked as I
pressed against him.

“
I’m fine. Sorry about
that,” Max said.

We both busted out in a contagious
laughter, and in that moment, we were the only two there on the
ice. He wrapped his arms around me and I felt him pull me down as
he wiggled. We attempted to adjust our bodies, which tangled us
even more, causing us to laugh even louder. It didn’t matter that
we were stuck down on the ice. It was our moment to
have.

“
You getting cold?” he
asked when he noticed I was clutching my lower jaw trying to hold
back the chattering of my teeth.

“
Just a little,” I
said.

Max leaned up and kissed me. His lips
were cold on the edges while the inside of his mouth was steaming
hot. I pushed my mitten-covered hand around the back of his head
and he pressed strongly against my spine. His body let out a shiver
and his jaw began to chatter, and I knew it was time to get up. As
I rolled off of him, he leaned toward me, trying to stay with our
kiss.

“
You’re freezing,” I
said.

“
It’s your kiss,” he
teased. We both started to giggle through our shivers.

I heard someone’s skates
slice loudly across the ice next to us
and
for a moment, an image of Cindy towering over us flashed in my
mind. My heart crashed against my chest. The absolute last thing I
wanted to face was running into someone from school.

“
Hey, Max, who in the hell
got you to come out ice skating?” A tall, brown-haired guy with a
smile wider than the Grand Canyon and eyes as blue and the ocean
stood above us.

Relief caught my breath when I
realized we were still undiscovered by Wesley’s Rumor Miller—and my
roommate—Cindy. I just don’t know what I would do if she were to
find us tangled on the ice together.

“
Oh hey, Reid—well, that
would be this one right here,” Max said pointing at me.

“
Well then let me help you
up,” Reid said as he reached down to me. “Use the tip of your blade
to anchor your weight to stand up,” he added as he leaned back and
pulled. I watched as the muscles tightened up his arm.

“
Thanks,” I said as I
wobbled and slipped, working to regain any type of
control.

In the meantime, Max had flipped over
to his hands and knees and worked himself back to standing on the
ice.

“
Tell me, how did you get
this guy to do this? I’ve known him my whole life and I could never
get him to come down here to skate with me.” His blue eyes twinkled
and his brown, curly hair clung to the sides of his face as he
pulled his narrow, scarlet lips to a straight smirk.

“
Oh no, he is quite the
ice skater,” I said, busying myself as I adjusted my gloves back
under the cuffs of my jacket and glanced around the rink, making
sure my fears of Cindy showing up weren’t warranted.

“
So you think I should
help him out?” he asked as Max struggled on the ice.

“
Sure,” I sang.

“
I’m Reid, by the way.” He
held his hand out, totally ignoring Max flailing for control just a
few feet away. I stopped looking around and accepted his hand in
greeting.

“
Wilson.”

I heard Max’s body bounce with a growl
as his blades sliced across the frozen tundra.

Reid turned Max’s way and said, “Okay,
are you ready to hear how to get up? Dig in with the toe-pick and
get your ass up off the ice.”

“
I got it, I got it,” Max
croaked as he struggled again with a wobbling stance.

“
Better grab the railing,”
Reid teased.

“
Hey thanks, man. Nothing
like being left out in the cold,” Max mused as he wrapped his arm
around my shoulder. “How you been? How’s the holidays?” Max said,
shaking his hand.

“
I have nothing to
complain about. Just got back in town for the week. How ‘bout you?”
Reid asked.

“
I’ve been good—really
good,” Max said glancing at me. “We just got into town
today.”

“
So…is this your sister?”
Reid pointed to me and winked with a smirk on his face.

Max chuckled before he
spoke, “Reid, this is Wilson, my
girlfriend
. Today is her birthday.
Sweetheart, this is Reid—he and I go pretty far back. He dated my
sister in high school.”

“
Oh! Well nice to
meet
you,” I
exaggerated.

“
Well, Happy Birthday. I
hope this guy has spoiled you. Where did you meet this
rabble-rouser anyway?” Reid swung his fist toward Max’s
stomach.

“
In a government focus
group,” I said.

“
At a coffee shop,” Max
said at the same time.

I could feel the pressure building in
my chest, and the urge to throw up clinging to the back of my
tongue; exactly what I didn’t ever want to happen—just happened.
Max and I stared at each other for what seemed like a lifetime
before we looked back at Reid.