TBNRDuty- Ice Skating Lessons

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Preston's P.O.V.

As the cold air hit my face, I grinned. I had been there so many times it was nothing new to me and all of the staff now recognised me any time I showed up.

"Hey Preston, who's your friend?" Beside me stood my tall, blonde, Australian friend, who had flown down to Texas to stay with me for about a month. He was looking a little nervous, clutching at my hand gently out of sight from the others.

"This is Lachlan, he's from Australia." Mase, one of the workers in the café, nodded his head towards him. He was Australian too.

I gently pulled him towards the skate hire area, getting in line behind the crowd of people all waiting for skates. We were there for a public session as I couldn't get any ice time when I was by myself as it was the holidays, and they ran twice as many public sessions as normal.

The girl behind the counter handing out skates, Bee, waved at me once we got to the front of the cue. She handed me my skates from behind the counter, which I had handed in the last time I had been there, less than a week ago to get them sharpened.

"Size?" Lachlan shrugged and a squeezed his hand gently. He normally didn't like crowds and tried to withdraw from everyone, not talking much to anyone who tried to interact with him.

"Just get your shoe size and then go up one, I find that normally works." He nodded, giving Bee his size and she went to grab them from the shelves, handing them to him.

"Thanks Bee, you getting on or staying back?" She shrugged.

"Might get Mase on, give him a bit of time out of the kitchen. He spends too much time there." I laughed, squeezing Lachlan's hand reassuringly and pulling him over to one of the free seats and helping him with his skates.

I was well used to putting skates on and taking them off again so I was done in under a minutes, then moving to help Lachlan. He had put them on but was struggling with the laces so I leaned over and tied them up for him, making sure they were tight enough so they supported his ankles.

"Right, you ready?" He nodded but I could tell he was a little bit apprehensive as he had only been on the ice once or twice in his life. "Hey, it's okay and I won't let you go okay."

He nodded, letting me guide him towards the ice and then pull him on. I was going backwards, holding onto Lachlan's hands tightly and as soon as his blades hit the ice, he tilted forwards and started shaking, unable to hold himself up on his own without my help.

"Okay you've got to push with the side of your blade, not with the toe." I'd seen it plenty of times and it was plain ugly and I hated it. My coach, Michelle, kept pointing it out when I was skating and I'd grown used to pointing it out to other people.

He picked up one foot gingerly and attempted to push, almost knocking himself over in the process and making me laugh.

"Easy, it just takes a while to get your balance." He nodded uncertainly, still trying to keep his balance while we were moving and I knew it was incredibly difficult.

"Do you reckon you can try again? Push with your foot- hey there you go!" He had done it again and this time I had felt him push me along a little bit, along with the force of my wiggling, which was how you moved when going backwards.

When he did it again, still gingerly and uncertain, I grinned at him, standing up on the toes of my skates to kiss his cheek.

It took another half an hour before he would let me let go of his hands, and even then he wouldn't let me go more than a metre away from him in case he fell. There had been a few incidents where he had managed to slip or jolt and had almost fallen over, but he hadn't actually ended up on the ice, unlike most of the other people.

"Preston?" I looked up at Lachlan, whose face and nose were bright red and looking a little more confident than when he got on the ice, and tilted my head to the side.

"Yeah?"

"How the fuck do you do that?" He was refering to my going backwards, something I did all the time.

"Practise." I laughed. "Once you've done this for 10 years you get used to it." I was 13 when I had first started ice skating lessons and discovered that I had a natrual talent for it, picking up most things easily. 3 years later I moved onto figure skating, with a lot of jumps and spins, after passing through the eaiser levels.

"Do you want me to teach you?" He shook his head frantically.

"I can still hardly go forwards! I don't pick things up as easily as you do." He was laughing as he said it, his fear fading away as he relaxed.

"Yeah well, you're picking this up pretty fast though." He yelped as his body jolted again, a speed skater going past at a ridiculous speed which I thought was very inconsiderate considering there were children dooted around the rink, many of them unsteady.

"Hey easy." I pulled him closer until he had steadied himself and he sighed, wrapping his arms around my waist. I smiled, leaning up to kiss him again.

"Whoo! Get it boy!" I looked around to the side of the rink to see Mase and Bee, both yelling and cheering at us. Lachlan was bright red and trying to hide his face in my shoulder and out of sight from everyone else.

"Well I mean they're right." I whispered in Lachlan's ear and he went an even deeper shade of red, trying not to smile. "That was my aim."

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