“Has anyone ever told you that you have a real flair for imagining the apocalypse?”
“They have now.”
“C’mon!” He shook his hands at me. “What’s the worst that can happen? You fall? Big deal. I told you, I’ll catch you.”
“I have weak ankles.”
“I find that insanely attractive in a girl.”
“Fine!” I sighed. “Fine, you win! But you can’t laugh at me if I fall!”
“Not only will I not laugh,” he promised, “but I’ll beat up anyone else who laughs.”
“Not if I get to them first,” I muttered.
Not ten minutes later, I was wobbling out on the ice. “I think these skates are defective,” I told Jesse. “They’re too wobbly. I need the nonwobbly ones.”
“Shut up and skate.” He grinned.
I glanced over at the rink’s edge, where all the newbie skaters were hanging on to the wall and carefully making their way around the ice. “Look,” I said. “That must be where the new people hang out. I’ll go over there.”
Jesse looked to where I was pointing. “I think the average age of those people is five.”
“Don’t be ageist,” I told him. “Go twirl or whatever. I’ll watch and applaud.”
“Okaaaaaaay,” he singsonged as he pushed away, in a tone that told me all too well that he’d be back soon.
Twenty minutes went by and I managed to make it halfway around the rink. I felt sort of sweaty but still managed to smile and wave at Jesse every time he zoomed past. I even watched as he slowed down long enough to scoop up a little girl in a pink snowsuit who had just wiped out. “You okay?” I heard him say, righting her on her feet, and my heart got sort of fluttery.
But that was probably just a sign of the heart attack I was going to have from the stress of skating.
“Hey,” he said, stopping in front of me. “As much fun as it is watching you elbow small children out of your way while clinging to a makeshift wall …”
“That kid was hogging all the space!” I huffed. “He had it coming!”
“… maybe we should skate together now.” He held out his hands. “C’mon. Time to be brave.”
He was right. For a girl who had always tried to blend in with the crowd, I wasn’t doing myself any favors. “Okay,” I said, “but—”
“No falling, no laughing if you do fall. I remember the rules.”
And you know what? Skating was nice. Like, niiiiiice. Jesse went slow, skating backward and holding my mittened hands in his gloved ones. “Push and glide,” he kept saying. “Like a hot knife through butter. Don’t try to walk, push forward. That’s it.” In the time that it took me to go ten feet by myself, we had already gone around the rink twice. “Stop looking down at your feet,” Jesse told me.
“I can’t,” I replied. “If I don’t look at them, then I’m scared they’re going to start zooming in the wrong direction.”
Jesse laughed and tilted my face up so I could look at him. “Well, that is better,” I admitted. “You’re a good teacher.”
“You’re a terrible student.” We both cracked up. “Relax, okay? It’s just ice skating. It’s not brain surgery. I would never take a girl to do brain surgery on a first date.”
“How chivalrous.” I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s glide.”
Eventually I got good enough that we could skate side by side, but Jesse kept my hand tight in his. I wasn’t about to complain. “I’m sorry I was cranky about this,” I told him as we got hot chocolate and waited for the Zamboni to clear the ice. “I’m having a good time.”
“Yes, but are you impressed?”
“I am!” I giggled. (I was giggling.) “I didn’t fall and you’re a great teacher.”
“Check and check.” He pretended to cross things off his list. “Maybe I should have named my dog Zamboni.”
“No, that sounds like a type of pasta.”
Jesse laughed. “You’re funny, Maggie,” he said. “C’mon, another round before our next stop.”
“There’s another stop?”
“I’ve said too much already!”
“You’re such a dork.” I grinned. “Hey, guess what?”
“What?”
“Race ya.”
When we were done, I got my own shoes back, which were wonderfully comfortable and did not have skating blades attached to them. “Okay,” I said to Jesse, “so what’s next? Swimming with dolphins?”
“Let me guess,” he said as he tugged his Converse back on his feet. “You’re scared of dolphins.”
“Nope. Love ’em. Especially that high-pitched squealing thing they do. Can’t get enough of it.”
“Awesome. Because we’re not swimming with dolphins.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a few things up my sleeve. Impressive things.”
“Of course.” I watched as he started to walk back toward where the car had dropped us off. “Hey, where are you going?”
“I thought your chauffeur awaits.”
“My chauffeur is probably enjoying his thirty-fifth cigarette of the evening. And he makes too many wrong turns. Let’s take the subway instead.”