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Dustin laughed again and skated a circle around them, twisting halfway through so he was going backwards.

“How come you keep letting your boyfriend fall, A.J.?”

Bren clung to Arlo as he struggled to his feet. His legs went in opposite directions like Bambi, and the lad had to throw his arms around him so he didn’t wind up on his arse again.

“Oh, I get it. Keeping him helpless so you can cuddle in public. Slick.”

“He keeps locking his knees,” Arlo said, like Bren couldn’t understand him.

“Ah, man, that’ll do it,” Dustin said, circling them like a burly Canadian vulture. “You gotta keep nice and loose. Bend your knees and keep your eyes where you’re going. Don’t stress about your feet.”

“That’s hard to do when someone strapped knives to them.”

He squared his feet with his shoulders and waddled forwards a couple of steps, the way Arlo had taught him, which made Dustin make cute sounds like an anime toon.

“Why the fuck isn’t there anythin’ to hold on to?”

He’d been in Canada long enough that he’d seen his fair share of people on skates. Most of it had been at a rink inside a building shaped like a sideways soda can that someone had stepped on, but over the last week there’d been people zooming around on outdoor rinks all over town. Every single one of them had been surrounded by boards or a fence, something to cling to if you hadn’t been tossed onto the ice before you’d learned to crawl.

“The Oval is kind of slaughter mode,” Arlo said. “Sorry, I didn’t think you’d have such a hard time.”

Bren would have been mad if he wasn’t sure Arlo was incapable of being condescending.

“Hi, Bren!” Nat sang. “Bye, Bren!” She whizzed by, followed by Yu, who shot him a solicitous look out of the corner of his eye. He needed to get this shite figured out by the time they made their next lap. Fortunately for him, that would take a while.

Twice as long and at least three times as wide as a standard running track, The Oval was nestled near the river in Wakamow. All around them, people were laughing, chatting or racing one another as they made their way around the massive rink—there were even a couple of people passing hockey pucks back and forth across the ice.

A girl about five years old went zipping past him, shrieking with laughter as a man chased her with his chest so low to the ground Bren couldn’t believe he was able to keep upright.

Legs bent. Feet shoulder width apart. Eyes on where you’re going.

Bren followed the words in his head as he took small, shuffling steps. He stumbled on the second step and his knees threatened to lock before he forced himself to bend towards the ice.

Okay, he was walking. That was a start.

“Aw, look at him go!”

He would have flipped Dustin off if every nerve in his body wasn’t focused on keeping himself upright. Something like pride flickered in him when he made it about four meters without falling, and then a group of kids—toddlers, practically—went speeding by on his right.

Ignoring his basic survival instincts, Bren leaned towards the ground and pushed one leg off. His left leg wobbled the second the right skate left the ice, but he managed to keep himself from locking up and glided forwards—for about two seconds.

“Fuck!”

His feet shifted without his say so, and the attempt to straighten himself up sent his entire body shaking like a poorly constructed card tower. He twisted to the right as best he could, bumping into a woman in a beanie and sunglasses as he attempted to get the fuck off the ice.

Her apology was the last thing he heard before he kissed the snowbank.

“Bren!”

The note of anxiety wasn’t enough to obscure the laughter pushing against the edge of Arlo’s words as the sound of skates on ice approached him. Bren groaned and flipped himself onto his back, spitting snow up at a sky so blue it looked like someone had painted it on.

Arlo let his laughter out as he flopped next to him, snow catching in Bren’s eyebrows as it fell from the impact.

“That was probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Bren scooped up a handful of fluffy white and tossed it towards his head.

“I amn’t cute. I’m manly.”