W
heels
?” Jo read the sign with the giant rotating roller skate. “You brought me to a roller-skating rink for our second date? Stay classy, Rivermont.”
Cam pulled into a parking spot and turned to face her, a grin breaking up the monotony of concern on his face ever since they had left the office.
“We can do classy anytime.” He leaned one elbow on the steering wheel. “Tonight you need fun.”
“And roller-skating is your idea of fun?”
“It used to be. You’ve been roller-skating before, right?
“Not exactly.”
“Does ‘not exactly’ actually mean no?”
“In this case, yes. I mean, it means no.”
Cam shook his head, got out of the car, and came around to open Jo’s door, pressing her into the passenger door, a habit he was forming.
“So you’ve been skiing in the Alps, but you’ve never been roller-skating?” He curled a warm hand around her waist, his thumb ghosting the side of her breast, sending her thoughts and good sense on a scavenger hunt. “The gaps in your education.”
Jo leaned forward until the last inch between her breasts and his chest disappeared. She looked at him through her lashes and rasped her voice to a whisper. “Are you going to close all my gaps, Cam?”
Want slow-boiled in the look Cam draped over her body, and if it was up to Jo, there would be no skating tonight. Foggy windows and a rocking Land Rover…yes.
“You make it sound really dirty, which is fine with me.” Cam turned that look down to a simmer Jo hoped would hold for the rest of the night. He raised her hand to his lips and nipped her wrist with his teeth. “Now stop trying to seduce me in the parking lot and come on.”
Jo drew a deep, mind-clearing breath, reminding her nether parts that she was a lady and mounting her new boyfriend in broad daylight would be frowned upon. She had no idea what to expect of this run-down skating rink, with grass growing through the cracks in the parking lot and missing bulbs in the neon sign. It looked basically like an ’80s time capsule, garish colors and all. Cyndi Lauper might come rolling out on wheels any moment singing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” And this somehow inspired the anticipation all over Cam’s face and humming from his body the closer they got to the dilapidated building.
“I take it you’ve been here before?” Jo stood beside him in line for rental skates.
“Countless times.” Cam walked backward toward the desk, blessing her with his rakish grin. “A couple of times I even paid.”
Before Jo could respond to that glimpse into Cam’s delinquent youth, they reached the front of the line.
Cam leaned forward, peering past the teenaged employee with the braids and oversized hoop earrings. “There used to be a manager here years ago named Lashaun. She lived in the neighborhood. You know her?” he asked her.
“I know her. She don’t work here no more, though.” The girl—Brandee, according to her peeling name tag—eyed Cam like he was a box of the Whoppers shelved behind her. “You want me to take your number in case I see her?”
Cam aimed that devastating arrangement of lips and teeth at Brandee.
“Nah. Thanks, though.” Cam’s face sobered a little. “You know if she’s doing okay?”
“Oh, yeah. She just works at Target now.” Brandee twirled a braid and popped her gum. “The new one off MLK. She might be in tonight, though, ’cause it’s Grown and Sexy Night.”
“Fridays used to be called Old School Night,” Cam said.
“Not for a long time.” Brandee’s eyes made quick work of Cam’s casual but well-cut clothes. “You from around here? I ain’t seen you before.”
“It’s been years since I’ve been back.” The slight smile Cam wore faded until there was nothing left of it. He pointed to the shelves behind Brandee. “We need skates.”
A few minutes later, Jo settled on the bench beside Cam, casting a discreet glance at the people around them lacing up skates, buying snacks, and rushing on wheels around the rink. She bent another inch trying to tie the laces on her skates.
“Could you have found jeans any tighter?” She gave up on tying the laces and plopped her foot in Cam’s lap.
He laughed and finished the laces for her, tugging on her leg until she was flush against him.
“I packed your bag for the weekend in a hurry.” He ran his fingers over one thigh, his touch burning through the denim and searing her skin. “Just grabbed the first pair of jeans I saw.”
“You’re getting a little too comfortable rifling through my underwear drawer.”
“A family could go camping in your closet.”
“Glamping maybe.”
Jo stood, aware that the fitted cotton shirt he’d chosen barely reached her waistband, not covering any of her considerable assets in the tight jeans. Cam’s eyes weren’t the only ones glued to her ass, but his were the only ones she cared about.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to skate in these jeans.”
Jo watched Cam’s lips twitch, fighting back a grin.
“Are they tight?” Cam wrapped one hand around her thigh, squeezing and steadying her on her wobbly skates. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“I think tight jeans will be the least of my problems. Falling and busting my ass is more of a concern.”
“Lucky for you the Barfield projects junior roller-skating champ is teaching you everything you need to know.”
“Is that a real thing?”
“Okay, so there wasn’t a trophy or an actual contest, but if there
had
been, I
would
have been the junior champion.”
Jo laughed when her ankle turned over and she almost fell. “I’m not sure I can trust you.”
Cam steadied her, hands at her hips, his eyes ditching the laughter and tracing her face, feature by feature.
“You can. Trust me, I mean.”
The teasing, the laughter had evaporated, and even with dozens of people skating, strobe lights flashing, and Madonna’s “Holiday” blaring through the sound system, intimacy curled around just the two of them, insulating them from everyone but the other.
Cam stood, one hand at the small of her back and one under her elbow. He cleared his throat, dispersing the intimate mist gathering between them.
“Come on,” he said. “The floor will only get more crowded, and I need some space to teach you all my moves.”
Jo nodded and followed his lead, taking a careful, shaky step onto the slick floor and out of the private space they’d made for themselves in the middle of the crowd.
“Let’s just start with walking.”
“I know how to walk, Cam. I need to learn how to skate.”
“Will you just listen? Let somebody else be in charge for once?”
“Are you saying I have control issues?”
“Are you saying you don’t?”
Of course she did. Jo drew a huffy breath and took the small steps forward like Cam instructed. After the first walking steps, learning the “T” position and the basics of forward and backward, Jo felt confident she was ready. Maybe not for the trophy, but at least for once around the rink.
“I’m ready.”
“Jo, let’s walk a little more.”
“I
do
have actual trophies for skiing, so I think I can manage once around a roller-skating rink.”
“Okay, just hold my hand.”
“I can do this on my own.”
Cam’s brows crept up and a small smile pulled at the corners of his lips. He threw his hands up, literally and figuratively, scooting back and gesturing for Jo to skate ahead. Jo moved forward, pushing one foot in front of the other. One minute she stood, semi-confident and fully vertical. Before she could draw her next breath, she landed horizontal in an undignified spill, all the breath knocked out of her lungs. For a second, she considered ignoring the hand Cam extended to help her up, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand on her own.
As soon as she was on her feet, Cam pulled her tight against his body and tucked his face into her neck. She might end up with a few bruises from the fall, but she was fine. Jo was about to reassure him when she realized Cam’s body was vibrating against hers.
“Are you…are you laughing at me, Cameron Mitchell?”
Cam pulled back completely and bent over, hands on knees, broad shoulders shaking. He covered his mouth but couldn’t catch the laugh fast enough.
“You should have seen—”
Gasping. Pointing.
“And you just—” Cam threw his arms out and reenacted her flailing from moments ago.
“And then you…bahahaha.”
Jo took advantage of the guard he’d left down and quickly kicked her skate behind his, sending him sprawling to the floor. She straddled him before he could recover, settling her butt onto the wheels and her knees alongside his hips, ignoring the strange looks from skaters whizzing around them.
“Now who’s laughing?” Jo poked his shoulder, shaking with the laughter he couldn’t seem to stop.
“Still me, baby.” He reached up and pushed a chunk of unruly hair over her shoulder, the laughter dying down to a grin. “I told you to let me teach you.”
“I will forgive you for laughing at me.” Jo balled her fist up at him in warning. “If you teach me how to do that.”
She pointed to a guy across the ring skating backward at top speed.
“You always were an overachiever.” Cam sat up until their chests touched, resting his hands at her hips. “Baby steps. For real this time. Follow my lead and you’ll spend more time on the skates and less time on the floor.”
Jo had always known there was a patient man in there somewhere, but she’d never imagined he’d make an appearance for her. Over the next thirty minutes, Cam taught her the basics, picked her up when she toppled over, and went slowly when he probably wanted to speed, making sure she felt confident and managed to enjoy herself.
“How did I not know skating was so much fun?” Jo kept pace with Cam beside her, holding his hand less for support and more because she wanted to feel any part of him she could wrap around her.
“It was the only fun I had sometimes.” Cam shrugged, looking around the now-crowded rink. “This and painting in the streets.”
Jo tried to reconstruct a past where Cam ran free in the streets as a ten-year-old. Where he snuck into skating rinks, unsupervised and alone at such a young age. A beautiful dark-haired boy on wheels, trying to outrun his life at home, here among the crowd on a Friday night, skating to songs written before he was even born. As Jo glanced around, she realized something for the first time.
“Cam, did you notice we’re the only white people here?”
“Baby,
you’re
the only white people here.”
Even knowing Cam’s heritage, she’d never thought of him any differently than Walsh or any of the other guys in her life. Had she been mistaken? Insensitive? Somehow racist?
“If you’re not white, what do you consider yourself?”
“Me? A chameleon.” Cam shrugged. “Instead of thinking I never quite fit, I guess I thought more that I could fit just about anywhere. I was born into this. I didn’t have to fake it. A guy who looks like me won’t make it in the projects if he doesn’t figure things out fast.”
“And when you came to us? What did you have to figure out?”
“Everything.” Cam guided them to one of the few empty benches on the sidelines, sitting and pulling her down beside him. “In some ways, it was much harder coming into your world than it was living in this one.”
“How?”
“I didn’t have to fake it here. My hair, my skin, my eyes might be different, but I grew up just like them. Your world? Another planet. The way you talked. The clothes you wore. The things you just knew that I had no clue about.”
“You didn’t have to fake those things for us.”
“I figured that out pretty quickly.” A rueful smile softened his face. “Ms. Kris picked up on it and demanded that I be nothing but myself.”
“That’s because she had that capacity for unconditional love so few people actually have.”
“You have it.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. Besides Ms. Kris, you’re the only person I’ve ever felt that kind of acceptance from. That’s why I didn’t ever…”
Cam crossed one ankle over his knee, pulling at the laces and allowing the noise-filled air around them to absorb the words he said and the thoughts he didn’t bother voicing.
“Didn’t ever what?”
Jo put a hand on either side of his face, forcing him to look into her eyes. He reached up to touch her wrist before turning his head and kissing the sensitive skin there, setting a small fire where his lips had been.
“Didn’t ever what, Cam?”
Before Jo could press for the rest of that thought, a voice came over the intercom, popping the tight, hot bubble they’d blown around themselves.
“Couples skate! Couples report to the dance floor.”
Cam pulled Jo to her skates and started toward the rink.
“We’re doing this.”
“I most certainly am not.” Jo dug her heels into the ragged carpet, ineffective really when your heels are on wheels. “I’ll fall.”
“All you have to do is follow my lead.”
“You’ve been saying that a lot tonight.”
“And, shocker, you’ve been doing it. See how much better your life has been for the last hour with me in charge?”
“Cam, I am not going out there under that big spotlight with those semi-professional skater couples and making a fool of myself.”
“Baby, I have you.” He stepped back onto the floor, hand waiting.
She must really love this man.
Duh. Seventeen-year news flash.
She stepped down and let him guide her in front of him, her back to his chest.
“You’ll be right here.” Cam settled his hands at her hips. “Just lean back into me and relax. I’ll keep us up.”
Jo leaned into his chest, jumping a little to feel his erection at her butt.
“Whoa. Seems like one of us is already up.”
“Watching you in those jeans all night. Just ignore the hard-on. I do.”
Jo laughed and leaned back on his shoulder, turning her head to catch his eyes in the flash of light created by the strobes.
“I think I’ll choose to enjoy it instead of ignore it.”
Cam propelled them forward, circling one arm around her waist and linking their fingers with his other hand.
“Enjoy what exactly?”
“Knowing that I affect you. For a long time I didn’t think I could.”