An Unexpected Love Story (Love Story Book Two) by Rachel Schurig Page A

leaning over to finish tying his skates.
    “They need to be tighter than that,” I said, glancing down and suppressing a smile. It was always nice when someone so put together and confident clearly had no idea what he was doing.
    “Thank you, oh guru of the municipal ice rink,” he said, tightening his laces. “Better?”
    “Much.”
    Finished with our skates, I stood up on the rubber mat, wobbling slightly. “Ready?” John looked up at me and sighed dramatically.
    “As I’ll ever be.”
    I reached out a gloved hand and took one of his, pulling him to his feet. He stumbled a bit on his blades, falling into me. Laughing, I wrapped my arms around him and looked up at his face. “Steady there, mister. I can’t hold you up on my own.”
    “You seem to be doing pretty well right now,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at me. His face was only inches away from me. Even through the layers of our coats, the warmth of his body made me feel slightly dizzy. “In fact,” he went on, lowering his head for a kiss, “if I had known there would be so much full-body contact in ice-skating, I wouldn’t have whined about this nearly as much.”
    I kissed him back, letting myself melt into him. As John was already wobbly on his blades, this didn’t work out so well. I had to reach out an arm to the glass wall behind us to keep us both from falling over.
    “Wow, I have literally knocked you off your feet with my charms,” John said.
    I snorted and pushed him away. “Think you can walk now?”
    “Yeah,” John said, taking a tentative step. “But maybe you better let me go on that side so I can hold onto the wall.”
    We made our way across the rubber mats to the entrance to the ice. There were a few couples already skating, along with a group of teenagers and a couple families. “Oh God,” John muttered. “I have to do this for the first time in front of teenagers?”
    “Are you chicken?” I asked, stepping out onto the ice. I took a few quick strides, then turned back to John, skating backward as I called out to him. “Come on, you can do it!”
    John took a tentative step out onto the ice, looking terrified. “Uh, Brooke? You left out one important step.”
    “What’s that?” I called, now a good ten feet away from him.
    “You didn’t tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do once I’m on the ice.”
    I laughed and skated back to him, offering him a gloved hand. “It’s pretty easy,” I said. “Like roller skating, a little bit. You just move one foot at a time. Try to take little strides until you’re comfortable.”
    “Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen,” he muttered. I watched him watching his own feet, a look of great concentration on his face. I had to admit, it was pretty cute. He looked younger, somehow, trying so hard to get it right. I held his hand tighter.
    “You’re doing great.”
    Ten minutes later, we had managed to cover about a quarter of the perimeter of the rink. John had finally stopped holding onto the outer wall, but he insisted on holding my hand in a death grip. “This must be getting pretty boring for you,” he said, glancing up briefly to smile at me.
    “It’s fun watching you fall on your ass,” I said, winking. John made a face at me, but he had no idea how serious I was. I couldn’t count how many guys I had gone out with whose sole intention seemed to be trying to impress me. Emily said I intimidated them and they felt like they needed to keep up; I just found it annoying. John was one of the first guys I had ever met that seemed confident enough not to try to impress me. His willingness to mess up and fall flat on his ass was incredibly endearing.
    “Why don’t I rest here for a minute and you can get a few laps in.” When I started to protest, he held up his hand. “Come on, Brooke. I could tell as soon as you got out on the ice you were good at this. Why don’t you skate on your own for a minute? I’ll wait here.”
    It did sound tempting. I reached up