He laughs more. “It’ll help if you pick up your feet so I’m not dragging you.”
“I’m good. This is working just fine.”
He shrugs. “If this is how you’re comfortable I’ll drag you with me the entire time.” He would, too, even if it meant he didn’t really get to skate much himself.
“Hey, looking good, guys,” Peyton says, skating close to us with a wide grin on her face as she glides around effortlessly.
“Shut up,” I grouse and she cackles, then winks at me, before skating off.
My eyes catch on Alex’s family skating nearby, and I can’t help noticing how Tommy and Pierre hold hands while they move across the ice. Tommy even twirls Pierre a couple of times and the little guy spins around on one skate, his skirt billowing out around him. Show off.
Isabella and Johnny are holding hands and spinning in a circle, laughing, before Johnny pulls Isabella to him and they kiss sweetly, and my chest squeezes because I want what all of them have so much.
And I want it with the man in front of me.
Chapter Eleven
Bentley
Two days later, I’m making my way into work with my phone in my hands, texting and paying very little attention to my surroundings. I’m just strolling into the tiny little space I have reserved for an office in the building Peyton and I rent for our business, when I hear, “Who you texting?”
I shriek, and almost throw my phone in the air, but fumble and manage to catch it against my chest as I stare at my best friend, who is sitting on my small desk, laughing so hard she’s snorting.
“What the cotton-picking hell?” I ask, after I’ve taken a second to calm down. “Girl, you almost made me shit myself.”
She just laughs harder and I have to chuckle some at her snorting at least. “Okay, it wasn’t that funny,” I say after it’s been a full two minutes and she’s laughing so hard she’s crying now and can barely breathe.
“I’m sorry,” she says, calming down a smidge. She wipes her eyes and tries to compose herself.
Another thirty seconds go by before she finally calms down enough to tell me why on earth she’s in my office instead of at her desk out front.
“Listen, I had to talk to you, and I thought if I tried out there you would just escape.”
“What are we talking about?” I ask hesitantly. My phone chimes and I look down at the text I just got from Alex. We’ve been texting back and forth all morning aboutSupernatural,after he texted me with a gif of The Rock again. Sometimes it’s gifs of actual rocks. We like to switch it up. And whoever didn’t send the gif of the rock sends back a gif of a penguin. I have no idea why we do it, but I’m glad we do. It feels like our thing, and it’s nice to have that with someone. Right now he’s trying to get me to give him spoilers aboutSupernaturalnow that we’re on the second season and he’s as obsessed with it as I am, but also very impatient for us to get to the next episode.
A smile splits my face when I see his ridiculous gif of Dean saying, “Not cool,” after me telling him I will reveal nothing.
“That,” Peyton says.
“Huh?” I ask, looking up.
She’s grinning widely. “We’re talking about why you have such a huge smile on your face when you text him, and have had for the past several weeks, and why he was so eager to help you at the ice skating rink the other day, and how you’re blushing like crazy right now.”
“Am not,” I say, my cheeks flaming as I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling even more.
“What is going on with you two?” she asks, kicking her feet.
I shrug. “Nothing. And how do you know it’s Alex I’m texting?”
“Because he and I are the only ones you text, period, and I know it’s not me.”
Okay, fair point. That’s what happens when you don’t have any friends.
I can’t help the grin that escapes me. “It’s nothing,” I say again. I sigh and decide it wouldn’t hurt if Peyton knew a little bit. “We just have this thing we’ve been doing. Kinda an inside joke between us, but I like it.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What thing?”
“We’re pebbling each other.”
