He grinned, and then he kissed me again, and from the way he held me close and deepened that kiss, he didn’t want to talk anymore tonight. That was fine by me.
There was no telling how the future would play out.
All I knew was that tonight, we weren’t stopping for anything.
Jase was more relaxed the next day. He didn’t mention last night and neither did I—as I had in bed, I’d follow his lead, and if he didn’t want to talk about it, we wouldn’t. I was still concerned, and I hoped to gently nudge him toward getting some treatment, but I wanted to tread carefully on that.
In the meantime, since he was in town for a couple of days, and he had a few hours this morning, Haley met us at the practice arena to drop off Dallas for a skating lesson. She didn’t mind; we shifted our custody days around all the time if one of us wanted to take Dallas to something, and Haley was thrilled that Dallas was getting skating lessons from her idol.
So around ten, after I’d introduced her to Jase, Haley took off and Jase and I went inside with Dallas.
Jase and Dallas put on their skates in the locker room. As she stood, she wobbled. “Uh. How do you walk in these things?”
“You get used to it, I promise.” Jase held his arm in front of her. “Grab on to me if you need to steady yourself.”
She took him up on it, and they slowly made their way toward the entrance to the rink, Jase walking effortlessly in his skates while Dallas moved uncertainly and clumsily. He stayed slow for her, though, letting her set the pace. When she wavered, he stopped, keeping his arm out so she had something to hold on to, and when she was ready, they’d start moving again.
As soon as Dallas skated out onto the ice, she immediately went from clumsy to steady. “Is it weird that it’s easier to skate than it is to walk in these?”
Jase laughed. “Yeah, they’re kind of weird to walk in.” He skated a few feet ahead of her, then did a sharp turn to face her, stopping on a dime. “Okay, remember what I showed you last time? About making circles?”
Dallas nodded, and she skated a slow circle in front of him.
“Good!” Jase skated backwards and encouraged her to come toward him. “Do it again, nice and slow. You’re doing great!”
They continued across the arena, mostly out of my earshot as I sat on the bench and watched. Jase would show her a turn or a stop or something, then encourage her to do the same. He’d skate backwards while he watched her, alternating between praising her and patiently guiding her through the steps.
The two of them were so much fun to watch. It was great to see Dallas getting to try something new, and they got along great as coach and student. Whenever she’d get frustrated, he’d just calmly assure her and nudge her to try it again. As they skated past me at one point, he was saying to her, “You have to remember—I have thousands of miles of skating behind me. Trust me when I say I did plenty of falling on my ass before I got here.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. And I still fall on my ass once in a while.”
She laughed, and their voices faded out of earshot again.
I just smiled as I watched them. She was having a great time, and right now, Jase was so at ease, it was mind-blowing, especially after last night. It was reassuring, too; I was still kind of worried after seeing him have that brief anxiety attack. He’d insisted it didn’t happen often, but…did it? And did they get worse than that?
Except he clearly had not wanted to talk about it.
But I was worried. Of course I was. Not that he was hiding something, just that I might trigger him somehow. Maybe I was hypervigilant of things like that because of Dallas. I didn’t know. But I was definitely concerned.
For today, though, he was relaxed, and I had to say that watching Jase and Dallas on the ice still did funny things to my head. She was getting steadier on her skates, and though I was sure he’d rather be rocketing around the rink at his usual breakneck speed, he was endlessly patient with her. When she needed to, he let her hold on