Jennie
"Have you loved other girls?" I asked.
"I can tell you this much," Lisa said, lacing up her skates on a bench. "I've never gone ice skating with another girl."
We'd circled around the city to Rockefeller Center. It'd taken a little bit of convincing on my part to get Lisa to do this, but not as much as I had thought. "Why'd you agree?" I asked, standing over her. I'd had my skates on in a third of the time it was taking her.
She glanced up at me, which wasn't saying much. Her head came up to my breasts while seated. "When you smile like that, it's hard to say no to you."
"And how come you never skated with any other girls?"
She tightened the lace on one boot and stood up to her full height, causing my head to fall back. With the blades, she must've been over six foot six. "You know why."
"Because you've never been asked?"
"I've been asked."
"Because you don't know how?"
"I've played hockey before. I know how." She took my hand, intertwining our fingers. "It's because I wasn't in love with any of them, Birdy."
"But you've been in love before."
"I've loved, and been loved, but I wouldn't say, after knowing you, that I'd ever been in love." Her brows sank. "I know that isn't enough. Not by a long shot. But it's something."
We made it about three laps around the rink before I fell. While holding Lisa's hand, I'd been watching her, not where I was going, and nearly collided with a child. When I overcorrected, her grip was strong enough to keep me from flying, but I still landed on my butt.
Lisa bent over me, lifting me by my armpits. "Are you hurt?"
I beamed up at her. "No."
"I'd better inspect you anyway." She led me over to the rink's low wall and lifted me onto it by my waist. I shivered as I remembered her putting me on a brick wall on a hot, sunny California day years ago. "This hurt?" she asked, feeling around my outer thighs.
"No."
She extended my arm, checking the red spot where I'd hit my elbow. She lowered her head to tenderly kiss the skin. "How about this?"
I giggled. "Of course not." I hooked my skates around the backs of her thighs and pulled her between my legs. "But you should inspect more places."
"Which places?"
"I think I hit my lips on the way down."
She narrowed her eyes at my mouth, then pecked me. "Seems all right to me."
"And also my . . ."
She was completely mine, on the hook, hanging on my words as if we were the only two people in the rink. And her eyes heated as if I were the only female on Earth. "Yes, Birdy?"
"Never mind."
"If you won't tell me where you hurt yourself, I'll have to go ahead and inspect everywhere. But best if we wait until later, when we're alone."
I wrinkled my nose, smiling. "I like that plan. Will you get on the wall with me?"
"How come?"
"So I can pretend we're back at the beginning. Like it's the first day I met you."
She didn't look at me, but upon me, her face full of adoration. "Why would I want to go back there? It was pure torture. I remember it clearly enough."
"Me too. You were as important as the sun."
"The sun blinds you."
"Yes you did." I nodded. "I've seen nothing but you ever since."
"Selfishly, I'm glad for it." She wrapped her arms around me, surprising me with a slow, uninhibited kiss. "If it's all right with you," she whispered into my mouth, "you stay on the wall, and I'll just stay here."
"It is easier to kiss like this."
"It's easier to do a lot of things like this. If we weren't in public right now, I'd open a few pesky buttons and zippers and be inside you."
I held onto her as the image of us together hit me hard. Sex was possibly the best thing I'd ever experienced, and we'd barely done it that much. "Can we go somewhere?" I asked.
"Where would you like to go, my love?"
"Anywhere. I have business with a few pesky buttons and zippers."
"Mmm." She kissed my neck, nipped my earlobe. "Yeah. Let's go somewhere."
"Your hotel?" I asked.
"Ah." She pulled back a little. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"Why not?"
"Because it's . . ." Hesitating, she rubbed the underside of her jaw. "I'm expensing the stay, obviously, but I put the room on my credit card, and I'll get reimbursed."
"Oh." It took me a few seconds to put it together. "Your credit card, which doesn't only belong to you."
"I can bring my things to your place," she said. "I felt bad last night about scratching you up."
I took my arms from around her. "Go then. Get your stuff and we can meet later."
"Hey." She pinched my chin to keep me from turning away. "Do you want to make love in a hotel I paid for with an account I share with your sister? What's the alternative?"
I wiggled to get off the wall and she let me. When my blades hit the ice, they began to slide out from under me, but she caught me by my waist like I was some kind of doll, setting me upright again.
A woman around my mom's age approached us, slowing to a stop with her pre-teen daughter in tow. "We were just saying you two are the most adorable couple we've ever seen," she gushed in a southern accent.
"Mom," the girl said, rolling her eyes before she sped off.
Lisa tensed and moved to stand a few inches in front of me. She reached back and took my hand. It felt protective rather than loving, as if something had her worried. For whatever reason, her uneasiness melted my anger.
"Thank you," I said.
"It's awfully sweet," she said. "I'm trying to figure out if you're the high school sweetheart type of couple or if you're in that honeymoon phase. Which is it?"
"We met in college," she said. "So I guess it's the first one."
"Well, you're precious."
"Yes," Lisa said, squeezing my hand. "She is."
"Oh my. She's a keeper." She winked at me, teasing. "Are you married, and if not, when's the wedding?"
Wedding? There was no wedding, and maybe there would never be. At least not anytime soon. And if there was, it would be a pretty lonely affair without my family in attendance.
She's already married.
I almost said it to see her reaction. Someone had to stop us, and maybe it was this woman. Things couldn't keep going as well as they had.
"In the summer. That's her favorite time of year." Lisa moved her arm around my shoulder. "It'll be intimate, just close friends."
"And family," the woman added.
"No, no family."
I couldn't have my own family at my wedding, but neither could Lisa. Realizing that actually made me feel closer to her. I cozied into her side. "Are you sure that's my favorite time of year?" I asked. "I never told you that."
"You're a summer baby." She looked down at me. "Born in June, grew up in the ocean and under the sun. Or has that changed?" She grinned. "Are you an ice queen now?"
I couldn't pick a favorite season. I loved them all for different reasons—although winter was certainly pulling ahead based on today. "Any time of year is fine with me," I said.
"She's an easy bride," Lisa told the woman. "Doesn't need much, and neither do I. Just her."
"Let's see the ring," the lady said.
Lisa smiled. "I haven't asked yet."
She gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth. "And I ruined it. Did I ruin it? You're too sweet." She winked at me. "Marry her. Surely you're already beating the women off with a stick. No reason to delay."
Lisa's mood visibly lightened. "You hear that? Why delay the inevitable?"
Feeding off their playfulness, I relaxed. "Okay. I guess so."
She clapped her hands. "Oh, you've made my afternoon. My entire trip. I'm going to go home and tell all my girlfriends I witnessed a proposal." She pushed off. "Best of luck to you both!"
"Why'd you lie to her?" I asked as Lisa watched her skate away.
"Not a lie so much as a fantasy. Didn't any of that sound good to you?"
"You said we met in college, though."
"I was teasing." She skated back from me, our hands locked between us. "Come on. I've seen enough of your New York for one day. Now I want to go back to heaven."
"And that would be . . .?"
"My precious girl," she said, mocking the woman's accent, "in her precious bed."
I pulled on her hand, but she was so solid that all I did was glide toward her. When I collided with her side, I leaned on her for a kiss. No matter how much of my weight I gave her, Lisa never budged, not even in skates.