My hands settle on her hips, and I lean down so our lips are a hair apart.
“Go out with me,” I command gently, licking my lips and almost catching hers in the same motion.
“What?” she croaks.
I step back and let her inside, leading the way to her things. She sets a paper bag beside them. No doubt my sweats and Christmas party sweater she was wearing.
“I’m asking you out. Right now. Go out with me, Jojo.”
She looks around, like she might be the victim of a prank but there’s no cameras.
“But what about…” She trails off, fidgeting.
“I want to take you out, please,” I’m willing to beg for the chance. She’s worth a little.
It’s quiet as she fingers the strap of her purse. “Right now?”
“Right now,” I confirm.
“Um…I don’t know. Am I dressed right for what you have in mind?”
Well, you’re wearing way too many clothes for what I really have in mind, but…
“You’re perfect.” I grab her hand.
Jordan barely has a moment to grab her purse and phone as I guide her out the door to my car to head into the city. I tell her to bundle up when we arrive, prompting for beanies, gloves, scarves, and thick jackets.
“Now cover your eyes—”
“Briar, I grew up here. I know where we are!” She laughs, and it makes my heart pick up the pace.
I’ve taken us to the ice rink. It’s whereshetaught me how to skate. When I moved here in high school, I wasn’t used to snow. Kaidan, hearing I never skated before, promptly dragged my ass to the nearest ice rink and threw skates on me and let me sink or swim.
Jordan didn’t let me sink or swim.
Out of nowhere, a tall goddess scooped me up off my ass and led me around the rink. She skated expertly backwards while she guided me. I had no idea it was Kaidan’s sister until he complained that she ruined his bullying. They took me back to the Greenhorn house and it was like joining a second family and dreaming of a future I didn’t know could exist.
“I would’ve brought my own skates if I knew this is what you had planned,” she points out, as we rent skates.
I shrug and shove my hands into my pockets, failing at every turn to look cool and casual in her presence. “I didn’t know if I was going to have the nerve to actually ask you to go out.”
“We’ve skated together before,” she reminds me.
“Yeah, with family around, and with you only thinking of me like a little brother.”
Her cheeks flush from more than cold and she nibbles her bottom lip. “I haven’t thought of you like that in years, Briar.”
My eyes light up at the news and the urge to kiss her right there as we wait for skates is unbearable. But there are other people waiting in line and there will be other chances to steal a sober kiss.
She amazes me on the rink. Still as angelic as ever, skating backwards and literal circles around me with little to no effort. While I’ve improved since I was a teenager, I’m no Brian Boitano.
I also may be playing it up a little. The worse I am, the closer Jordan sticks to me. When I nearly fall, and I’m a lot of man to crash to the rink, she quickly grabs my hands and brings me close. We’re a piece of paper apart, breath visible in the cool afternoon. A giggling bunch of children whirls past us, but I keep staring into her crystal-clear blue eyes, like melting glaciers into the ocean, they’re both mesmerizing and a little sad.
“Cold?” I ask, leaning in as though I might kiss her.
She waits to speak, holding her breath now. Does she want me to kiss her? She must, right? Is there a more perfect moment?
My doubts snowplow me under. It could be better—under a moonlight sky and before a giant Christmas tree like the ice rink deeper into the Chicago and not this one in the burbs.