“I think we fucked up.” I stare at Richard across the table and he just sighs.

“How so?” he asks.

“The marriage announcement. It took Everly by surprise.”

“You knew that,” he points out.

“But I didn’t anticipate the way the office would ostracize her.”

He nods slowly, his face impassive. “And what can we do about that?”

“Nothing now,” I say, getting slightly annoyed. I came all the way out to see Richard just to get his advice, not to hear him patronize me.

Richard is silent for a second. “You like this girl, don’t you?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you implying?”

He grins and puts his hands up. “I’m implying that you like her. No need to get defensive.”

I grunt and look away. “I respect her,” I say carefully.

“Sure, you respect her. Maybe you need to show her that.”

“How?” I ask, turning back to him.

“Look man, you’ve been with plenty of women. Why are you asking me for advice?”

I raise an eyebrow at that. He has a pretty good point. I’ve never had issues with women in the past, but this thing with Everly is driving me insane. There are so many layers to whatever’s happening between us that I just can’t keep them all afloat.

But he’s right. If this were a normal situation, I know exactly what I’d do.

I grin at him and stand. “Thanks for the advice,” I say.

He sighs. “The look on your face doesn’t reassure me.”

“No worries,” I say. “I have a plan.”

“Logan, don’t do something stupid,” he says as I head to the door.

“I never do,” I reply.

“Seriously, don’t. Just, whatever you’re about to do, don’t do anything dumb.”

I grin at him one last time before leaving his office.

I squeeze her hand as we get out of the car. She’s completely blindfolded and clearly very nervous about it. Alexa is at home with the nanny, an older Finnish woman named Helga who came highly recommended.

“Okay, seriously, Logan,” she says. “I don’t like this. Where are we going?”

“Just a little bit further,” I say to her, leading her along slowly. “Okay, two steps up. Ready?”

We make it up the stairs and keep moving.

“We’re still outside,” she says. “Are we close?”

“Very close,” I say.

“I don’t know how I let you talk me into this,” she grumbles, which only makes me laugh.

It’s two days after Everly got angry at me. She’s been a little distant since then, but she took my advice and is still going to work. I think things are getting better, but I haven’t really tried to find out. I don’t want to make things worse by prying.

But this is my way of trying to make it up to her. It took a lot of work and money, but I know she’s going to love it. Maybe it’s stupid, like Richard warned me against, but I couldn’t help myself. When the idea hit me, I just ran with it. I’m not the type to second-guess my gut feelings.

“Okay, reach out,” I say.

She does, and slowly she grasps the hard plastic wall. “What is this?”

“Other hand,” I say, and she reaches the other one out too. “Okay. Are you ready?”

“So ready, you have no idea,” she says.

“Okay.” I reach up, take the blindfold, which wasn’t easy to convince her to wear, by the way, and I pull it off.

She gasps when she sees the ice skating rink in front of her. “What is this?” she asks.

“We’re ice skating,” I say to her, grinning.

“Holy crap.” She looks up at me with a huge smile on her face. “How? It’s the middle of summer.”

“At enormous expense. We have about an hour before it starts to melt. Want to get started?”

She shakes her head and laughs, absolutely floored. I knew she’d like it, but her reaction is surpassing my expectations. I can’t help but grin along as I lead her over to a bench. We take our shoes off and put the skates on.

The rink is located in the middle of a park. Normally, it’s open to the public, but I rented out the entire section and hired security to keep people away. On top of that, I hired a specialty company that promised to get the rink frozen and ready for me in two days, which they actually did. I think I paid them a small fortune, but the ice is here, and it looks steady.

“I can’t believe this,” Everly says. “Seriously, it’s like sixty degrees out right now. And we’re not even inside.”

“You’d be amazed what you can accomplish with a little hard work.”

She laughs and finishes tying her skates. We stand up together and wobble over to the rink entrance. “Ready?” I ask her.

“Ready.” I push open the door and we step out onto the ice.

I haven’t been skating in a long time, but it’s like riding a bike. It comes back pretty fast. We glide ahead and I’m surprised at how good of a skater she is.

“Where’d you learn?” I ask her.

“Figure skating when I was a kid,” she says. “My parents didn’t have much, but my mom knew the woman that gave lessons, and she agreed to do them free for us. I didn’t know I was a charity case until later.”

“Your mom must love you,” I say to her.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, you hate charity, right? I’m sure she does, too. I bet it wasn’t easy asking that woman for a favor like that and admitting she couldn’t pay.”

Everly frowns for a second as we make the turn, gliding down the ice. “That’s a good point.”

“She must have done a lot for you, your mother.”

“Yeah,” Everly says. “I never thought about it that way.”

“Good.” I grin at her. “Now, let’s see how fast you can go.”

I speed ahead, skating as fast as I can, but Everly easily catches up to me. She makes a face as she skids to a stop and starts heading back the other way.

She’s clearly the better skater of the two of us, but I can hold my own. I catch up with her at the other end, running into her and grabbing her, turning around and laughing as we bump into the far wall. She laughs and pushes me away.

“This isn’t hockey, you animal,” she says.

I smirk at her. “Guess I like to be physical.”

“Figure skating is physical, it’s just beautiful, too.” She skates away and does a little spin. “It’s grace and power.”

“Very graceful,” I say, making her laugh. She does another spin.

“How’d you know I liked to skate, anyway?” she asks.

“You mentioned it once, while we were working a few weeks ago.”

She frowns at me. “I don’t remember that.”

“We were talking about winter campaigns and you mentioned kids skating on a lake. And then I asked if you knew how to skate, and you told me you love it.”

She blinks. “Wow. Okay. I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I have a good memory,” I say, though the truth is I only have a very good memory for people that I genuinely like.

“Clearly. That was a really offhand comment.”

“What can I say? Steel trap.” I tap my forehead.

She laughs and skates past me again. I chase after her, which only makes her laugh. Eventually I catch her again, pulling her against the wall. I know she let me catch her, but I like that even better. She wants me to grab her and touch her, spin her around, manhandle her. I know she likes it.

She laughs and skates backwards away from me. I skate next to her and we fall into a nice, slow, lazy loop around the rink.

“You didn’t have to do this, you know,” she says eventually.

“Why’s that?”

“I wouldn’t have been mad at you forever.”

“I know,” I say slowly. “But I wanted to end that sooner rather than later.”

“Why?” she asks, head cocked at me.

“You know why.” I look back at her seriously, not trying to mask my expression.

She looks away, blushing. “Well, this is nice. I didn’t think I’d get on skates until winter, at least.”

“With me around, you can do whatever you want,” I say.

“Even things that defy the seasons.”

“Especially things that defy the seasons. Nothing better than incredibly inconvenient activities.”

She laughs and spins around, skating a little bit faster. I let her go, content with watching her move. She’s shockingly graceful, although I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s graceful normally, just in the way she moves around the apartment, picks up Alexa, or even just makes coffee. I love the way her long dark hair blows behind her as she moves, and her long legs are muscular and gorgeous as she turns and crosses over, moving faster and faster, a blissful smile on her face.

I lean up against the wall as she starts doing some figure skating jumps. Just little jumps, just testing herself at first. She’s surprisingly good at it. I can tell that although she hasn’t done it seriously since she was a girl, she probably practices every winter, just for the fun of it. After maybe twenty minutes, she’s breathing heavier and a little tired. She looks sexy as fuck with a slight sheen of sweat on her skin. She skates over to me and comes to a stop, breathing a little heavily.

“Sorry about that,” she says.

“Don’t be. I liked watching.”

“I just… I like doing that sometimes. Blows off steam. In the winter, I usually try and get on skates like twice a month.”

“Really?” I ask her.

She nods, grinning. “I really like it.”

“Good. I’m glad this is what I chose, then.”

“Come on.” She tugs my hand and we start skating again.

It’s been about forty-five minutes, and our time is running out. I can see some small puddles starting to form in the ice, and I can’t help but wonder if that hour estimate was a little generous. Everly doesn’t seem to mind though, and I don’t either. As long as she’s happy and having a good time, I’m happy.

This was what I wanted. I needed a big gesture just to show her that I care about her feelings. Maybe I can be blinded by my own desire and beliefs, but at least I can admit when I’m wrong and I try to make up for it.

She slips her hand into mine as we skate along. I smile to myself but I don’t say anything about it, not wanting to scare her off.

As we come around the bend, her skate suddenly catches in one of the puddles. The ice underneath is softer, and it pulls her foot back.

“Shit,” she says.

I grab onto her as she nearly falls. But as I catch her, I slip and tumble backwards, slamming down onto the ice.

“Fuck,” I say as I come to a halt.

Everly was pulled on top of me, but she looks unhurt. My ass is probably going to be bruised, and maybe my ego as well, but I’m fine otherwise.

She looks down at me, her hair spilling all around, a healthy blush on her cheeks. “You okay?” she asks softly.

“I’m good,” I say. She’s inches away from me, her body pressed against mine. I reach up and put my hand on the small of her back, and I swear I feel her shiver, a slight expression of pleasure crossing her face.

But the moment quickly ends. “We should get off the ice,” she says, pulling herself to her feet.

“You’re probably right. I think the guy said that there are sharks under here.”

She grins at me. “Ice sharks?”

“The worst kind.” I climb to my feet, wishing she hadn’t pulled away. “They’re aggressive and mean.”

“Cold-blooded bastards.”

I laugh and we head over to the gate. We step off the ice, sit back down on the bench, and start to take off our skates.

“Sorry this didn’t last longer,” I say to her.

“I’m just happy I got to do it,” she says, and pauses to look at me. “Seriously, Logan, thank you. That was really nice.”

“I’m just glad you liked it.”

We look at each other for a moment before she looks away again. I smirk to myself and finish taking off my skates.

She wants to kiss me. I can see it in her eyes. But she’s afraid, and every time I get close, she pulls away. I don’t know what she thinks is going to happen if she finally gives in to what she wants, but I can promise that she’ll like it. It doesn’t matter now, though. We’re heading back home, and the moment is gone.

But there will be other moments. And soon I’m going to have what I want, and she’s going to wonder why she ever second-guessed giving in to me.