Page 3 of First Dates and Birthday Cakes: MM Romantic Comedy

He picked up speed and I laughed, high and breathless. I softened into his embrace and went with it.

It was wonderful.

“Take me around again,” I demanded once we’d done a full circuit.

He obligingly did.

This.

This was what I’d been searching for when I came up with my stupid idea.

This feeling, right here. Freedom. Happiness. Being one hundred percent in the moment, something I’d struggled to do my whole life.

I was beaming as we completed the second circuit and came to a gentle stop.

“Did you like that?” Jake said, even though it was more than obvious that I did.

“Yes! It’s exactly what I needed today. What I came here for. Thank you.”

“Good, and you’re welcome.”

I released his arms. He held on a second longer before letting go.

“Ready to try it on your own?” he said.

“Yes,” I said, and struck off cautiously.

He followed, gliding along beside me, keeping me tucked between the barrier and his body.

We skated in comfortable silence for a full circuit, and then continued around for another.

“I really do appreciate this,” I said, risking my balance to sneak a quick glance up at him. He was watching me with a faint smile on his lips. “I was about to give up. If you hadn’t shown up, I’d have crawled off the ice, gone home, and done my best to erase the memory.”

And never, ever, told anyone about it.

Ever.

“Happy to help.” He turned his hips with a fluid twist and skated backwards a foot ahead of me.

“So, what’s your job title here?” I asked. “I want to get it right for when I give you a shoutout in my five star review on Trip Advisor.”

He looked at me blankly.

“Sorry. That was a joke. I don’t leave reviews. I am curious, though. Are you an ice…steward? Or something? Ice…host? Ice marshal?”

“I don’t work for the rink. I work here independently. I’m a coach.”

“You’re a coach? Are you…are you coaching me right now? Because I didn’t pay for a coach! I paid for the public skate. This isn’t a case of mistaken identity is it?”

I’d poached someone’s coach. That was worse than sitting in someone else’s reserved seat on the train.

“No. I have a class to teach when the public session ends in a bit, and I like to warm up on my own first. Ben, I didn’t come over and pick you up because I mistakenly thought you were a new client.”

“Oh.” I sagged. What a relief.

“I came over to help. I don’t like to see people struggling and in all my years skating, I’ve never seen anyone struggle quite like you. You fell over three times in three minutes.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” My arse was still complaining about it.

“All right. I didn’t come over just to help. I was thinking that maybe I could get your number. Oh, shit.”

I groaned and sat up.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes.” Seriously,my arse. I was going to have to swing by the pharmacy on the way home and pick up some arnica cream and ibuprofen.

I waited expectantly, but Jake just stood there, hands on hips, looking down at me.

I tipped my head back. “A little help?”

He smiled slowly. “I think you’d better do it on your own this time.”

I scowled. “Or we could skip the part where I flop around like a pillock, and you could get me up?”

“Nope,” he said with a cheerful shake of his head. “If I actually was your coach, we’d have started with this. Come on. You know what I want you to do. Get on your hands and knees for me.”

He gave me that innocent look again.

I wasn’t fooled.

I bit my lip to hide my smile and did as he said, feeling weird about getting on all fours at his feet as he towered over me now that I knew he was interested, but not hating it.

“What now?” I said.

“I want you to push up so you’re on one knee with the other leg bent in front of you, brace your hands on your bent thigh, and then push all the way up to standing. Don’t overthink it.”

I overthought everything.

“You can do it,” he said.

I blew out a breath and did as he said, going from hands and knees to kneeling.

I got one leg out in front of me, my skate shot over the ice, and I folded into an involuntary hamstring stretch, nose almost hitting my outstretched leg. “Ahhh. Oh, no. I think I pulled my groin.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, hooking his hands under my arms and scooping me up with another display of strength that hit me right in the gut. “You’re not being lazy and making me do it for you or anything.”

Fine, maybe I’d sort of leant into it unnecessarily when my blade skittered out from under me, but I wasn’t here to learn how to get up off the ice, I wanted to learn how to not fall in the first place.

And I told him so.

“Can’t do one without the other,” he said, a hand low at my back to propel me forwards. I went easily. “That’s good, Ben. Great balance. You’re improving.”

“Thanks!” I was gaining confidence with every passing minute. While I was nowhere near the hotshot I remembered being, I wasn’t doing too badly at all.

I was also on the fast track to developing a praise kink.

Whenever he said good like that, I felt the word resonate somewhere deep inside in a way it certainly hadn’t when my mother had said it earlier today.

And maybe I had a competence kink, too. I did admire a man who knew what the fuck he was doing.

Or maybe it was simply him.

I liked him.

He skated along beside me in silence for a few strokes, then held out his hand. I took it without thinking. He folded his fingers around mine, warm and firm.

It was lovely, right up until he said, “I’m going to turn you, okay?”

“Turn me? What do you—no, wait, I—ahhh!”

He drew me into his arms and turned me, swinging us around in an easy circle. My upper body snapped forwards and backwards suddenly, but I managed to keep my feet.

“Good,” he said.

Good.

My stomach tightened. Yeah, I was in trouble.

“Let’s do it again.”

“Jake! I—ahhh!”

I screeched then laughed, loud and happy. Jake’s grin faded but his amusement lingered. As did the warmth in his eyes.

This time when he turned us, once I was facing the right way, he let me go and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He skated backwards in front of me. “Keep looking at me. You’re doing great.”

I’d realised that while he was distracting me with the turns and the sparkle in his eyes and that beautiful smile on his beautiful face, I’d somehow slipped back into the rhythm of skating, making long, easy strokes over the ice. I didn’t even falter when I jittered over the deep gouges and ridges left by all the other skaters who’d been around since the ice was last Zamboni-ed.

It helped that the blades were sharper than on my first pair.

“Thank you for sorting my skates out,” I said. “It’s amazing the difference the right pair makes.”

Jake’s smile bloomed wider.

“What?” I said suspiciously.

“It’s all you, Ben,” he said.

I wanted to preen a bit at this confirmation that I was, as I had suspected all along, a natural, but while I could—and would—wilfully delude myself about many things, my arse, elbows and kneecaps were insisting I wasn’t remotely a natural. I was inclined to believe them.

“What does that mean, exactly? It’s all me?”

“It means they’re the same skates.”

I stared. “What?” I said after an indignant pause.

“They are the same skates.”

“You…? You tricked me?”

“You were tricking you. Telling yourself you couldn’t do it.”

“So you, what? You took them away, counted to sixty, and brought them back out to me?”

“One hundred and twenty,” he said.

“Huh?”

“I counted to one hundred and twenty. Two minutes. Thought you’d get suspicious if I was too quick about it.”

I glared at him. “You sharpened them, though? They’re not the exact same?”

“Nope. They are the exact same skates.”

I glared some more. “How did you know there was nothing wrong with them?”

“Two reasons. One, I’m a professional. I checked them out, and they’re fine. They’re shit because they’re rentals but other than that, they’re fine. And two, most people who have skated a few times before, even if it was a long time ago, can pick it back up well enough to at least stay upright within a few minutes. You just went straight out. It’s a mind game.”

“You know it all, huh?”

“I do,” he agreed mildly. “When it comes to skating, anyway. Look at you go.”

I was skating easily, freely, swinging my arms and chasing after him as he hip-swivelled his taunting way ahead of me.

“It’s my job,” he said. “This is what I do. I’m a coach. I’ve even got some fancy sports psychology qualifications. I know what it takes to compete, what makes you fail, what gives you the edge.”

“Yeah? Did you ever compete yourself?”

He ducked his head. “I did.”

“Here in the UK, or in Europe?”

“All over the world.”

“Really? Did you keep getting traded? I always thought that must be tough.”

He sighed. “I didn’t play hockey, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

It was what I was thinking. “No?”

He’d be a formidable sight in hockey gear, powering up the ice, putting the fear of God into the goalie.

Hockey wasn’t a big thing in the UK, not like in the rest of Europe and the US, but it was a thing. I was aware of it.

“Nope. I was a figure skater.”

I couldn’t help it. I checked him out, head to toe and back again, imagining the spandex and the sequins.

I swallowed hard.

If I’d thought that Jake would be an impressive sight in hockey gear, then the idea of him in skintight clothing with a bit of sparkle, some ruffles or feathers…well, it was a very different lens to view him through, and not a bad one.

At all.

What in the name of all that was holy did his arse look like, bouncing around in Lycra? People in the audience would faint at the sight of it, surely?

I knew I would.

“Were you any good?” I croaked.

“Not bad,” he said with a breezy shrug.

Too breezy. “How not bad?”

He just smiled.

I eyed him. “Out of ten, how not bad?”

“That’s not how the ISU scoring system works.”

I had no idea who or what the ISU was. “Pretend it is. On a scale of one to ten? What would you be?”

Another of those breezy shrugs. “I’d be a nine point five.”

“Can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t give you a ten.”

He slowed his pace so that I caught up to him, then slid an arm around my waist. I did another involuntary vertical jackknife and overcompensated in the opposite direction, but I managed to stay upright.

Okay, Jake managed to keep me upright.

“That’s sweet of you,” he said.

My hands rested on his chest as he lazily turned us and wove around the ice, never even getting close to colliding with anyone. I softened in his arms and let it happen.

“Were you a solo skater? Is that the right way to say it? I don’t know the proper term, sorry. Or were you a pair?”

“I competed single and with a partner. I was good at both, but I always preferred a partner.” His eyes gleamed at me.

“Did you win any competitions?”

He nodded, his cheeks dusted with colour. “One or two.”

That was way too modest.

“You won medals, didn’t you?” I asked.

He bit his lip. “One or two.”

“What kind of medal?” He’d said he competed all over the world. “Not the Olympics?”

He shrugged.

I gasped theatrically. “Am I really being taught how to skate by an Olympic medallist?”

“Maybe.”

“I thought everyone was staring at me because I was with the hottest guy on the ice, not because I was with a celebrity. I did not see this coming for my birthday.”

His arm flexed when I called him the hottest guy, and he drew us closer together. “It’s your birthday?” he said.

“You’re an Olympian?” I deflected. “Tell me more.”

“Yes, I was. A long time ago. In another life. But it’s your birthday? Today?”

“Ugh. Yes.”

“Happy birthday! How old are you?”

I froze, and we nearly went down. Jake gave a soft laugh as he executed some fancy footwork to keep us upright. Loosening his grip, he swung back to skate alongside me instead of turning us in our lazy, waltzing loops.

“Would you believe I’m twenty-one?” I asked.

His gaze tracked up to the slight scattering of grey at my temples. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

I scowled. “How about thirty-one? Would you believe that?”

He squeezed my hand. “You’re one of those people who get dramatic about birthdays, aren’t you?”

I gasped again. “Me?”

“I’m guessing thirty-five,” he said.

I beamed.

He snorted. “That means older than thirty-five.”

Well, I gave that one away. “I’m forty.”

“Huh.”

My heart sank and I shot him a cautious look from the corner of my eye.

“You make forty look good,” he said.

I couldn’t hide my stupid smile. “So, uh. How about you? How old are you?”

“Guess.”

I scanned him and sighed. “Twenty-five?” I said.

“You’re out by more than a decade. Thirty-seven.”

“You’re thirty-seven?” I’d thought he was younger than twenty-five. I’d tacked on a couple of years in a feeble attempt to make myself feel less like an old creep.

How could he be thirty-seven?

His fair skin was unlined and unwrinkled, apart from the faint creases by his eyes when he smiled. He was exuding rude health. Rude. Then again, he was a professional athlete. Kind of his job to be in peak physical form, I supposed. And since ice skating was an indoor sport, the sun had a hard time getting at him to turn him into a raisin like the rest of us.

“Yep,” he said. “Thirty-seven. Which is why my professional career is long over. Although, I stopped competing less because of my age and more because of my size.”

I gave him another, thorough, head to toe. “Is it not an advantage?” I thought it would be. Six-two, six-three. Wide shoulders, big arms, the aforementioned amazing arse, and let’s not forget the quads straining at his sweatpants.

He could lift a tiny little partner in each hand.

Forget pairs, he could do throuple figure skating.

“Not beyond a certain point, no,” he said. “Most male skaters are under six foot. I was still growing when I retired at twenty.”

“That’s a shame. Do you miss it?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of the downside of any competitive career, though, not just figure skating. You’re on a clock from the second you start. The end is always coming at you, one way or the other. Either you finish early because of an injury, or you retire because you’re too old for it.”

Not unlike life. “That’s a bit bleak.”

“Ice skating isn’t all sequins and ruffles.”

I scanned him again.

He smiled slowly. “You’re imagining me in sequins and ruffles, aren’t you, Ben?”

Why lie? “Yes, I am. I’d like to see that some time. If I went onto YouTube and typed in Jake the Olympic Figure Skater, could I find some videos of you in all your fancy finery, busting a few medal-winning moves?”

“Yes. Or you could ask for a private performance.”

I gaped up at him.

He snorted a laugh. “Before you get too excited, it wouldn’t be in costume. I couldn’t fit into any of my costumes now. I was built a lot leaner back then.”

“Still think you’d look pretty good,” I said.

“Why, thank you, Ben.” He flipped around and skated backwards.

“Let’s see one of your fancy moves, then.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, you were the one who brought up a private performance, not me,” I said.

“All right.” He guided us to a stop by the barrier and pushed me backwards gently until my arse bumped into it. He shuffled closer and stared down at me, his body heat warming me through. “Try not to be too overcome with admiration.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The rink was significantly emptier than it had been earlier. I’d lost track of time completely.

Giving me a cocky grin, Jake shot backwards, going from stationary to top speed with zero apparent effort, and stopped dramatically in the open ice at the centre of the rink.

He held his long arms wide open, as if he was gathering, no, demanding attention, and the grace in his big body was astounding. I’d already noticed it, but now he was in performance mode it was deliberate, focused, turned all the way up.

And then he turned it up even higher, exploding into action.

He was absolutely mesmerising.

Jake didn’t glide over the ice, he struck out over it like he owned every last inch of it.

He powered over it, claiming it.

He was wearing close-fitting, forest-green sweatpants—not quite leggings—and they stretched tight over his quads and his arse as he moved. To my horror, I made an inappropriate wanting noise and had to cover with a gruff and incredibly fake cough, in case there was anyone close enough to hear me.

There could have been a thousand people right there, or we could have been the only two left on the rink. I only had eyes for Jake.

He scored over the ice, whooshed past me close enough that I felt the rush of his speed over my exposed skin, ruffling my hair, and turned backwards. He gathered himself, drew in tight, and leapt into the air, turning with his arms tucked in close, and landed on one freaking leg, and…well. Sigh.

What a spectacular sight.

I leaned against the barrier right where he’d put me, and watched wide-eyed as Jake really showed me his stuff. Big, looping circles. Quick direction changes, leaps and spins. On one leg, on two legs.

I was surprised he didn’t stand on his head.

If he wanted to, he probably could.

He pushed into one last, insanely fast turn, whipping around on the spot, then stopped and opened his arms out as wide as when he’d started, head dropped back to gaze artistically up at the rafters, long body arched. He held for a final, throbbing moment (well, I was throbbing, I didn’t know about him. His sweatpants were tight but not that tight) and then relaxed.

Hands in his pockets, crossing his skates casually one in front of the other, he sauntered over the ice, eyes on me, and came to a stop way too close.

Or not close enough. If I had my way, he’d have slid all the way up into my personal space until we were bumping chests again. He’d have been able to feel how damn fast my heart was beating, and I’d have been able to feel his.

I stared up at him. “Wow,” I croaked.

“Yeah?” He grinned, cheeks rosy. I’d thought he ran hot before, but the heat pouring off his body now was incredible.

I nodded. “That was amazing. I mean. Wow. Especially that bit just before the end. The jump? Double wow.”

“Triple Axel,” he said, “but close.”

I swallowed, still staring up at him. “Are you sure you didn’t retire too early? Not to pump your tires or anything, but that looked world class to me. I feel like I should be throwing flowers at you. Isn’t that what people do?”

“Sometimes.”

I mimed it.

I mimed it.

Shit.

“That was…I…me throwing flowers.”

“Ah.”

Aaaaand like the absolute pillock that I was, because my joke hadn’t landed, I decided to double down. “And here’s the medal.”

I mimed hanging it around his neck.

Back when I was a teenager, I’d spent many a moody hour lying on my bed, grumping up at the ceiling, sighing heavily at the trials of my life and waiting impatiently for the future to arrive.

Because in the future I’d have learned how to be a proper human being, I wouldn’t be such a fucking nerd, and I wouldn’t always act like a total idiot in front of cute boys.

And for sure when I was a proper oldie, like thirty or the horrifying and unimaginable forty, I’d be so far over the awkward embarrass-yourself-in-public stage that I wouldn’t even remember that time in life.

Right?

Sorry, Teenage Me.

Hard no.

I was going to keep making new and embarrassing memories until the day I died.

“That’s weird,” I said to Jake. “Forget I did it.”

He was smiling at me, a little bemused, with one side of his lips tipped up. His eyes were warm. He twisted his hips from side to side in that way he had, swaying a few inches this way, a few inches that. “I think I like weird.” He looked down at the invisible fucking medal I’d just hung around his neck, patted his chest right over where it would hang, and said, quite seriously, “This is a gold, right?”

“Eh. You were good, but you were a bit shaky on a couple of the landings, so?—”

He gripped my hips and tugged me into him quickly, pressing us together. “It’s a gold.”

“Yes. Congratulations. Gold for Great Britain.”

“Oh, no,” he shook his head slowly. “Jakub Kowalczyk. I’m only half-British. I skated for Poland.”

“My apologies. Gold for Poland!” I held up my hands and raised the roof.

Holy crap.

Was I trying to win gold in embarrassing myself? Because if I didn’t get my shit under control, I had a good chance of succeeding.

Jake’s smile faded but the warmth on his face remained. “Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have anything else planned for your birthday?”

“Nothing that can top a private coaching session and then an impromptu performance from an Olympian figure skater.” He waited. “Oh. No? I’ve got my gym bag in the car but let’s not fool ourselves here. I will not go. I’ll do my weekly shop and run some errands, but other than that I’ll just head home and hang out. Chill.” Have another panic about getting older, cry into a bottle of rosé Prosecco, and then get over it until my fiftieth birthday rolled around. “Nothing too exciting.”

“Would you like to go to dinner instead? With me?”

“Yes,” I said straight away. Goddammit, I practically choked, I answered so quickly. “Yes. I’d like that.”

“And perhaps I can give you a birthday kiss?”

He could give me a birthday anything. “That sounds—oh.”

He did it. Right there.

He lowered his head and dropped a firm, warm kiss on my lips.

“I didn”t think you meant now,” I said, once he’d pulled back and we’d stared at each other in silence.

Jake looked surprised, his eyes dark and pupils wide. “I didn’t,” he said. “I meant after dinner. Couldn’t help it. Sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t apologise. You can do it again, if you like.”

“I will.” His attention dropped to my lips and his chest expanded in a deep breath. “But I’ll have to wait until later. Public skate’s over and I’ve got to get to work.” He held me against him for another long moment, then reluctantly glided back a respectable few inches.

My surroundings swung back into focus. The crowd had dwindled to a mere handful of people. At the other end of the rink, the Zamboni trundled into view, getting ready to resurface the ice.

“Grab your phone and I’ll give you my number,” Jake said, one eye on the small group of loudly chattering people coming from the locker area.

I added him as a contact and sent him a text.

He knew a great restaurant, he said, and would make the booking, and text me the time and place when he’d finished work.

And that was it.

He whisked me to the gate—in case you fall over again—squeezed my hip gently, and skated off.

Well, I thought as I clomped towards the benches by the rental counter, this whole outing had worked out very differently from how I’d envisaged it.

I turned and looked over my shoulder at the rink, where Jake was standing in front of the people who’d flocked to him over the ice.

Instead of rekindling the innocent, optimistic joie de vivre of my extreme youth, I seemed to have snagged myself a date with a hot, interesting, nice guy.

I’d had worse birthdays.