Brook shuddered as a cold blast of air hit her when Nathan finally forced the icy door open. The lights snapped on, their intensely bright beams falling on a glittery white surface. Bleachers lined the silvery oval surrounded by a two foot tall cement wall with another two feet of strong glass on top of it.
“What is this place?” Brook murmured, looking at her misty breath with wonder. She heard a slight rustling and a thick jacket landed on her head.
“It’s an ice rink,” Nathan replied, dragging her to a counter in front of long racks. Strange black shoes with knifes jutting out of the bottom of them hung row after row on the hooks. “What shoe size are you?”
“I don’t need this; you wear it.” Brook shoved the jacket back at him. “I’m perfectly okay with cold weather.” Courtesy of IMG. She wasn’t about to lose to the cold when it killed her sister.
“If you get a fever-”
“I won’t, so just get me size six.”
“Fine; take off your shoes.”
Brook took a seat and pulled off her shoes. “So what are we doing?”
Nathan simply ignored all her questions and helped Brook “lace up”.
Brook stopped stomaching the vague smugness of his after her fifth question and kicked her shoed foot up so that the blade was a hair’s breath away from his neck.
“Tell me why we’re the only ones here or I’ll lop your head off.”
“Easy, girl,” Nathan said slowly, remaining perfectly still. He didn’t put it past the heinous witch, no matter how hot she might be, to kill him. “I rented the entire rink.”
“What do we do on it?”
“Skate around on it.”
“How do you ‘skate’?”
Nathan sighed and carefully pushed away her foot. “Just follow me.”
***
Her scream echoed across the entire building. Nathan watched her slip and slide on the ice, flailing her arms like a chicken trying to take flight as she crashed into the wall again. He skated, with intense boredom, over to his clumsy fiancée who scrambled to get up only to fall back down.
Nathan held out his hand and offered some help. Brook stubbornly refused yet again and shakily got up like a newborn colt, legs wobbling.
It was only several crashes later did Brook finally take Nathan’s hand. He winced as she heaved herself up with it.
“Your fingers are freezing!”
“It’s just ice; deal with it,” she grumbled, annoyed that her pride as a survivor of the cruel winters in IMG was stomped on by a human of all things.
“Here.” Nathan pulled off his jacket and forced it onto Brook, taking advantage of her weakness when on a frozen surface. “Wear it or I’ll share it with you.”
“…I feel like a fat person,” Brook muttered to the ground after putting it on. The jacket was warm and smelled like Nathan, which strangely didn’t repulse her.
“When have you cared about fashion?”
“Shut up.”
“You’d be in a better mood if you didn’t pounce on the opportunity to compete against me. If you’d been calm about it, you would’ve had the sense not to go charging onto the ice for a race.”
“So how am I supposed to move on this chunk of frost?”
“Take my hand.”
“…” She didn’t move and eyed his outstretched hand like it was a rotten piece of meat.
“Grow up.”
Brook reluctantly grasped his hand, embarrassed to death.
Nathan spent the next half hour getting her to move her feet correctly and showing her how to make turns. When she finally got the hang of it, Brook started speeding across the ice with uncontrollable giggles.
Naturally, Brook took it too far at a certain point and careened into Nathan, taking him down with her.
The two, covered in ice but not even noticing, stared at each other as they lay on the ground for an immeasurable amount of time. Brook lay on top of him, her face an inch away from his.
I leave you to imagine the intensity of that awkward silence between the girl unable to recognize her own feelings and the guy giving his all to suppress his own.
***
“You’re a disgusting sadist, do you know that?”
Brook stopped walking back to her room, froze, and hid behind the wall. What happened? Who was Nathan talking to?
It was an hour after the couple arrived at the house, cheerful but slightly flustered by each other’s presence. Brook just finished recounting the date in Lily’s room to her adoptive little sister, Angela, Jessica, and ten other maids looking for spicy gossip tales.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” an amused voice laughed.
Will.
“‘Take her to an adult romance’? ‘She’ll love a fancy lunch’? ‘Women love cruise ships for dates’? You completely tried to sabotage me on purpose!”
“It’s technically not my fault that you believed what I told you, especially when you’re the one who came to me first,” Will snickered.
“It is.”
“Oh, what do you care? She loved your date.”
“I’ll kill y-”
“Well, if that’s all you wanted to talk to me about, I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.”
Brook heard a set of footsteps walk away, and to her horror, angry stomping approaching at a breakneck pace. She hastily fled to her room, not even daring to look behind her in case Nathan really spotted her and was glaring at her back.
Brook skittered into the room, accidentally tripping over some stuff hard stacked on the floor. When Nathan walked in, to his horror, he found her buried under a pile of books, magazines, and hotel brochures.
“Nathan,” Brook said slowly, reading through a tabbed cook book. “Did you make that soup apparently called ‘Consommé’ we had for lunch yourself? It looks ridiculously hard!”
Nathan ripped it out of her hands and flung it out the open window. “AS IF I’D DO ANYTHING UNCOOL LIKE COOKING!”
Brook picked up another book and flipped through its heavily tabbed contents. “Is this a field guide on birds?”
Nathan opened his mouth several times, but nothing came out. Finally, he somewhat sank to the floor in a cloud of despair and humiliation. “Please don’t laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?” Brook asked honestly, without any trace of humor. “I think it’s adorable and very sweet of you.”
“I’m begging you, just shut up.”
“But Nathan, dear,” Brook smiled saccharinely, batting her eyelashes at him, “I’m touched by your act of love and compassion beyond words!”
“Then stop talking!”
When they both got in bed, facing different ways as usual, Nathan thought he heard her murmur, “Thank you.”
When he turned around to verify what she said, Brook was already asleep. Nathan smiled in spite of himself and whispered, “Oh, shut up.”
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somehow, I feel like this was an extremely cliché upload.... o___0