Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“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.”