Revolve (Off the Ice #3)

by Bal Khabra

“Why? Am I too much to handle? Never had a girl that could put a skate to your throat?” His dimple appears. A fucking dimple. “Never, but I think I’d enjoy anything you’d do to me.”

screaming

“Who do we hate?” My skin prickles with awareness. “No one,” I mutter. Dylan’s low rumble sounds too close to me “Good. I don’t like someone else stealing your attention.”

Eli and Sage are wearing those under-eye patches looking as serious as ever on a video call,

Though that’s probably because she thinks Dylan and I won’t take this seriously. Understandable since we spent the first five minutes of practice elbowing each other out of the way as we tried to get through the gate and onto the ice first. I won, obviously.

i adore them

My stomach dips. “Greed is a sin, Donovan.” “Then you’re my temptation, Sierra,” he says.

Suddenly, a radio crackles, and “Wondering Why” by The Red Clay Strays plays.

this songggg

“This?” He runs his hand along the jagged scar like it’s something precious. “This scar is the reason you’re here right now. With me. There isn’t a single thing about you that’s ugly.”

“You are so much more than your scars.” He presses a kiss on the scar on my head. “So much more.”

He’s focused as he scribbles on the thin lantern paper. When he finally turns it my way, my heart constricts. Dylan + Firefly

shut uppppp

“I only have to ask and you’ll give it to me?” “You only have to look at me and I’ll give everything to you, Sierra.”

“Don’t do this,” he whispers, the warmth of his breath stirring the stillness between us. “Don’t go where I can’t follow.”

“Didn’t think there was anything worth looking at.” Dylan smiles. “You’re worth framing, baby.”

“But I’ll be right there with you if you do.” He lifts his head. “You’d go with me?” “I’d go anywhere with you.”

Lidia said it was her favorite picture of us because no matter how much we argue, we still unconsciously take care of each other.

“Just something Dylan drew on my hand. It’s silly.” “No, it’s not silly.” She smiles, touching the tiny retraced smiley face on my palm. “He used to draw the same thing on my hand.”

i'm crying

Above us, the ceiling is covered in smiley faces. So many of them, probably hundreds, glowing softly in a warm yellow-green hue. They shine gently, creating a quiet world just for us. “Why’d you do that?” I ask. “Why do you think, Sierra?”

“What are you wearing?” Sebastian asks me. The sweater Sierra knit me is a Christmas one with random patterns and our names stitched into the sleeve. I fucking love it. “A sweater,” I reply.

I thought winning the Grand Prix a few months back was our peak. But then came the Olympics. We became Olympic gold medalists together.

stop it

An hour later, we were married by an Elvis minister in a chapel off the Strip, with matching smiley-face tattoos on our ring fingers.

He bought me a real one to wear off the ice, delicate and gold, but I’d knit his as a joke until I could buy him one. Just a loop of black yarn, spiraled neat and small. He looked at it like it was made of diamonds. He still does.