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She laughed even harder, the sound echoing across the frozen pond like music.
He managed three more steps and achieved something that could generously be called momentum.
“Ha. See? Bet you didn’t think—”
Whatever he was about to say was cut short as his left blade caught a tiny ridge in the ice. The next few seconds were not his finest. His body rotated in a way he hadn’t planned, arms windmilling wildly, before he met the ice for a second time with a resounding whump that echoed through the clearing.
The birds that had fled earlier were clearly not coming back today.
He lay flat on his back on the ice and stared up at the gray, indifferent sky far above. And listened to the sound he was starting to crave more with every passing day.
Sage’s laughter rang out across the frozen pond, bright and helpless and echoing through the valley. “OH MY GOD — I CANT— I’m sorry!! Hahaha.”
She skated over and appeared above him, looking down. Her dark hair was escaping her black beanie, the one with the angry red symbol, cheeks flushed pink from the cold, blue eyes streaming with mirth.
“Okay! Okay…whew…okay…I’m sorry,” she gasped, still fighting giggles. “Are you ….actually hurt?”
“Yes.”
She bit her pierced lip, trying desperately not to lose it again. “Okay… where?”
Cal considered this with grave seriousness while lying on the ice.
“My pride is injured.”
“Ooo… yeah, that’s bad,” she said, nodding solemnly. “Should we call an ambulance?”
He continued staring up at her with quiet dignity. “Absolutely.”
Apparently this response was too much for Sage. Her laughter echoed across the ice — not at him, exactly, but with him, even though he wasn’t laughing, even though he was a massive man lying defeated on a frozen pond in December because of his own damn skates.
There was something in her laughter that felt like pure, unguarded joy. The kind she so rarely let herself show without armor. And right now, it was all aimed at him. Lying there on the ice, Cal realized he didn’t mind being the source of it one bit.
He sat up slowly. She extended her gloved hand.
He took it — carefully, painfully aware that he outweighed her by nearly two hundred plus pounds and this was mostly symbolic — and let her help pull him to his feet. She didn’t let go right away. Neither did he.
The sharp winter cold seemed to loosen something in her, cutting through the usual careful layers she kept wrapped so tightly around herself. She began to talk, telling him about the community rink, about Felicity teaching her to skate by holding both her hands and skating backward — the same thing she was doing for him now, without seeming to notice the parallel.
“She was terrible at it too, actually,” Sage said, eyes on her feet as they glided slowly. “She grew up somewhere warm. Never skated until she was like twenty-five. But she saved up and bought the tickets and she—”
A small beat. “She always did that. Saved up for things.”
Cal grunted.
Sage laughed softly. “Aww, come on, Cal. I don’t have my notepad. Was that an ‘I agree’ grunt or a ‘stop talking, Sage, I’m trying to train for the Winter Olympics’ grunt?’”
His eyes softened at the edges
“I was thinking…” he said, voice low. “She sounds like she was a good one.”
“Yeah…” Sage replied, eyes drifting far away. “She was.” She pulled him gently into another slow turn, the blades of their skates whispering softly against the ice.
Cal looked down at her, his voice gentle. “She still is, sweetheart.”
Sage looked down at their joined hands and gave a small, one-shouldered shrug, but she didn’t reply right away.
The cold air rose off the ice in faint, misty curls. “Christmas was her favorite,” she continued, voice softer. “One year she saved for two months and got this tiny plastic tree from the dollar store. Some of the branches were broken, so she spray-painted them green and made ornaments out of bottle caps and string.”
