Page 24

Afterwards, Kroven and I started walking down the opposite way down the street from my apartment. I’d convinced him to take a nice stroll because honestly, I just needed the air. And I knew that if we went straight back to my apartment I’d be begging him to fuck me. As badly as I wanted that to happen, I wanted to make sure that Kroven and I could have fun without constantly thinking with our dicks. Even though he’d just gave me head and made me come all over the floor of a fucking movie theater.

We were walking down the busy street, and my heart sang. I hadn’t taken a walk down the street we lived on in too long. It was a busy street. There was a block of apartments, with ours being the closest one to any and all activities. On this street alone there was a bar, a strip club that only had male dancers, two different Chinese food places, a bank, and the club I’d first kissed Kroven at, Gossamer. There was much more once you rounded the corner, which Kroven and I did and I stilled as I heard familiar music pouring out of an establishment nearby.

It was playing a Sabrina Carpenter song, and considering she was my second favorite artist (second only to the incomparable Taylor Swift), I needed to know who or what was playing her song ‘Please Please Please’ at full volume.

Kroven laughed as I grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street until I realized that it was the skating rink that was playing the music that I usually only listened to through my headphones at home. My eyes lit up as I stared from the skating rink to Kroven.

“Please tell me you can skate.”

Though he was laughing, Kroven cocked an eyebrow. “You’re serious? The movie and orgasm wasn’t enough of a date?”

“Come on, I love this song! Don’t make me beg.”

Kroven scoffed. “You might get me to agree more if you begged for it.”

Feeling brave and wanting to call his bluff, I inched toward him and rocked back on my heels, batting my eyelashes for full effect. “Please, babe?”

Kroven’s face went fully ashen, turning a darker shade of pale (still not sure how that worked), but his lips curved in delight. He swept me into his arms and kissed my neck before saying, “Since you asked so nicely.”

The roller rink was absolutely packed. I knew that this place existed, but I had no idea it was this popular or played such good music. I guess that’s what I got for preferring to stay home with my nose buried in a book instead of exploring the nightlife Piper had to offer.

Inside, everything was a blur of pinks and blues and purples from the furniture where people could sit on by the concession stand to the lockers where people could put away their belongings safely so they could focus on skating to the skates themselves and the lighting covering every square inch of the skating floor and the carpeted area where bystanders could watch the bold skate to their hearts content.

I was in awe. I’d never been inside and clearly I’d been sorely missing out. I jumped up and down in glee, shaking Kroven’s arm with anticipation. He was a good sport, just shaking his head and laughing but going along with my attitude as he paid for us to skate. I was even more surprised that there was a huge mix of Orbs and humans here, like there had been at Gossamer. Clearly, there were hideaways within the city where people didn’t give a shit who mingled with who. I just wished this would finally spread to the blood centers so work didn’t have the words chaos carved into every work day.

“This is fucking awesome.” I said as Kroven handed me my skates, having had told him my size while I was taking in the sights of the roller rink. We made our way over to the lockers and benches where people could easily put their skates on. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here and I’ve been missing out on the great music.”

“You really like this Sabina Carpentry?”

I howled with quick laughter. “ Sabrina Carpenter , and yes. I think she’s amazing. Her and Taylor Swift are constantly on repeat for me.”

“I’ve heard of Taylor, but never listened to her or this Sabrina.”

“Oh well dating me, that’s about to seriously change.”

I was finally finished with my skates when I heard the opening strums of ‘Espresso’ starting to bleat around the rink. Seeing that Kroven was in his skates as well, I grabbed his hand and rolled our way onto the floor. “What is this, Sabrina Night?”

“Oh, this is her?”

“Yes, let’s skate!”

Kroven surprised me with how good a skater he was. He was probably better than I was. It’d been a few years since I last skated, but that had been ice skating with Thayer at the city square for Pride one year. I picked it back up pretty easily, but Kroven was a savant on skates. Had Kroven gotten together with Grey to learn or had he done it before back when it was really in style during the ‘60s and ‘70s? There was still so much to learn about him and that fact was more exciting than it was terrifying, which made me smile really wide as we kept skating.

I was mouthing the words and really enjoying the fact that not only was Kroven with me but he was keeping up with my pace as I danced to the music. He was laughing with me (I hoped) and I reached out to hold his hand. Kroven took it eagerly, and he lifted our conjoined hands during the chorus so he could spin me, skating in a perfect circle just to come back to him with a giddy laugh sputtering from my lips. This was how it was supposed to feel in a relationship. Fun. Effortless. Easy. I knew hardships were inevitable in relationships, but I knew that with Kroven, I could weather anything the universe had to throw at us.

We were so perfectly matched it was kind of scary. We still had a long way to go to see how things between us would fare in the future, but I felt so hopeful and excited about meshing our lives together. I needed to reign it in before I confessed my love for him right there in the roller rink.

Did I love Kroven? Was I falling madly, deeply in love with this handsome creature that had stumbled into my life by chance? It felt like it was too soon to answer but that didn’t stop my heart from beating faster thinking about it.

We skated for another half hour or so before the adrenaline of being out on a date caught up with me, the after effects of having already worked a twelve hour shift today taking me by the shoulders and shaking me into slowing down.

Kroven satiated my claim to call it a night, walking me back to my apartment. We braved the atmosphere that the roller rink had left us in and held hands the entire way back to my place, making my stomach knot into balloon shaped hearts. By the time he swept me into a quick kiss, I was hating that the night was over. I hated it even more that I groaned with want as Kroven started kissing my neck. Pulling back, I set an apology on my face. As much as my heart wanted to end the night with Kroven in my bed, my body was already screaming at me to go the fuck to bed.

“I’m so worn out. Otherwise, I’d gladly invite you in.”

Kroven delivered a perfectly timed lopsided smile. “That’s alright. You’ve worked really hard today, I understand.”

“I feel bad though. You funded this entire date that you wanted to go on! And then I upended it with the whole skating thing and then you weren’t able to get off like I did at the movie theater and—”

“Bas,” He chuckled, caressing my jaw with his long fingers and palm. “It’s okay. I’m not upset by anything that occurred or didn’t occur tonight. Plus, we have Exo and Watson flying in at some point tomorrow. I’d prefer you have some proper rest before we show them the blood center.”

That was a good point. Tomorrow was going to be the first time that both of us would see Exo since Kroven had told me the truth about their entangled pasts. I didn’t blame Exo for what he’d done, considering a big portion of what he’d been guilty of was saving Kroven’s life. But I hated that something he’d done, swiped all that money from Kroven’s victims, caused my favorite sangamar pain. I’d find a way to deal with it, for Kroven. It’d be nice to see Wallace again too because it felt good not being the only human wrapped up in this for a change.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Alright,” I nodded. “I know we haven’t seen as much of each other lately. What if we get together tomorrow? I’m only working a half day in the morning and maybe we can grab lunch or something?”

“Sounds delightful.” Kroven leaned in and kissed me, wrapping his arms around me and picking me up a little bit.

God, he was so perfect. My life had turned into the exact kind of thing we’d just seen at the movie theater. I was all heart eyes and hard-dicked all the time and there was no end in sight. Perfect.

We kissed again and I stared into his beautiful eyes. “So I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Until tomorrow, blomsjett .”

Laughing into a final crash of lips, I savored how I felt in that moment. Things were going to get better once Wallace and Exo saw the conditions we’d been dealing with at the blood center. With Kroven’s nickname for me ringing in my ears, one I was getting really attached to at this point, I wrapped my arms around my boyfriend and kissed him in the hallway outside my apartment feeling like everything in my life was finally clicking into place exactly where it was supposed to.