"Hunter, where are we going?"

"I told you, it's a surprise."

"Are we at least almost there?"

"Yes. Which means now is the part where you close your eyes."

"UGHHH!!" She groans.

"Just trust me."

I knew she'd be too curious to ditch the idea now, so she listened and closed her eyes.

"Fine, they're closed."

"No peeking."

"I'm not peeking. But if you ram me into a pole or something it's your head on a pike."

"Don't worry, I believe you." We both laugh and I grab her other hand to start guiding her where I want to go. I know I didn't have to grab both of her hands, but I loved the way her hands felt when I held them. "Okay stay right there and don't move." I let go of her hands and opened the door.

"Hunter?"

"I'm here." I say from behind her as I set my hands on her shoulders. "Start walking, i've got you."

"I know. I trust you." Just hearing her say that made me smile. I felt her shoulders relax and I relaxed my hands. I wanted to make her feel safe.

"Aaaaaaand stop." I took my hands off of her shoulders and she instantly reached out and grabbed onto my hand. I don't know why she did it, to be honest I don't think she knew either by the way I saw her face change.

"Sorry, my eyes are still closed and I just needed to know you were there."

"Don't worry. I'm here." I smile again. "Okay, open your eyes."

She opened them and saw the ice skating rink.

"Oh no."

"Oh yes." She looked over to see me grinning from ear to ear.

"Shawn you know I suck at ice skating. I fall even when I have the plastic skate pushers. Not even 7 year olds fall with those!"

"Well today you are learning. And we are going to stay here and practice even if it takes the rest of the day."

"But it's closed. We shouldn't even be in here."

"It's okay, my dad's coworker's brother owns this place. We are free to stay however long we want." I walk over to the counter and jump over it. "Now, what size shoe are you?"

She rolled her eyes. "7 1/2 ." I took out some skates for the both of us and hopped back over to her side of the counter.

"Here." She took the skates and we went to sit down to change our shoes.

"This is going to be a disaster."

"No it won't. Now shut up and let's skate."

I grabbed Shawn's hand to help me up and as soon as he let go of my hand I fell.

"See! We aren't even on the ice yet and i'm already falling on my ass!"

"I almost forgot how bad you were." He laughed so I playfully hit his arm. He flinched but continued laughing. "How come you can roller skate just fine, but suck at ice skating?"

"Roller skating is easy. The skates have four wheels so you don't have to worry about balance. Ice skates have one blade down the middle so now I have to worry about moving while trying not to fall."

"Excuses excuses."

"Whatever. Let's just get this started so you can eventually get sick of me and we can go home."

"I could never get sick of you Cristina." I swear my heart skipped a beat when he said that. But I know he only meant that in a best friend type of way so I got back up and brushed off his comment.

"Yeah? Give it an hour of me stumbling all over the place and remind me again would ya?"

"Sure."

He opened the door to the rink. He waited on the other side to help me get onto the ice, but I was hesitating.

"I already know this is gonna hurt."

"You'll be fine. I'm waiting here to catch you even if you do fall."

"Okay." I stop hesitating and just go for it. I step onto the ice and immediately start to lose balance. Shawn grabs my arm and helps me stabilize myself.

"Don't worry, i've got you." I grab onto his other arm for more balance and I eventually stop wobbling.

"Okay, what now?"

"Now we skate."

"Are you sure? Because I think i'm ready to call it a day."

"Nope. C'mon, just try to start skating and i'll help you figure it out."

"What do you mean 'just start skating'? The hell does that mean?"

"Like you're roller skating. Just put one of your feet forward and see what happens. If you don't fall then try the other foot."

"What do you mean 'if I don't fall'?!"

"Just trust me!"

I groan and take a step forward. As soon as I put my foot down I fall straight on my ass.

"And this is why you can never trust a man."

"Okay Humpty Dumpty, get up and try again."

"What did you just call me?"

"Well you both had great falls, so I thought it was perfect."

"That's it! I'm out!" As I was getting up I slipped once again, but this time Shawn caught me. Our faces were only inches apart and I felt my heart rate pick up speed. The moment ended though when Shawn helped me stand upright on my own.

"Listen, you're never gonna get better at this unless you keep going. So you can either crawl back to the shoe rack or you can get the falling over with and have fun skating with me."

I swear all he has to do is just look at me with his gorgeous blue eyes and he'd be able to convince me to jump off a bridge.

"I hate that you're so convincing."

"Hey, I can't help it." He said nonchalantly.

"Yeah yeah, shut up. Let's start. The sooner you get the bruises the sooner you'll heal."

"Okay. This time when you go forward try to slide into it and not step onto the ice as much."

"Okay." I slide into it and I don't fall this time. "I DIDN'T FALL! WHAT THE HELL!? HOW?!"

"Calm down before you actually do fall."

I contain my excitement in a smile and Shawn looks at me and chuckles. But not a mocking way, it's like he's happy that i'm happy. It's moments like these where I have to really control myself. I snap myself out of it and change the subject.

"Okay what do I do now?"

"You do the same with the other foot."

I copied exactly what I did on the other foot while Shawn was holding both of my hands and once again I didn't fall.

"I'm doing it." I say in shock. I repeat the movement again and again. "I'M DOING IT!" I wobble as I shout but Shawn stops me from falling.

"Okay, that's it, keep going."

We kept going and Shawn kept giving me tips like; try not to look down, bend your knees more, don't lean back (that one I learned the hard way). I still fell, a lot, but at least now I was determined to get back up. He caught me most of the time though.

"I think you should try it on your own now."

"Noooooo! I'm doing so good holding onto you."

"Skating backwards is hard. I may be your teacher, but i'm not an expert."

"Yeah, that makes me feel so safe." She says sarcastically.

"Cristina."

"Shawn." She copies my tone and I sigh.

"Cristina, the whole point of bringing you here was for you to learn how to do it on your own."

"How about you only hold one of my arms?"

Her asking me to hold her was slightly distracting to tell say the truth. I'd kill to hold her any day. But right now that's not the point.

"How about I just hold onto your arms from behind?" She made a confused face. "Let me show you." I went behind her and moved her arms upwards so they were in a straight line. "Here, hold them out like this so you can balance yourself. I'll just hold onto your elbows gently so you won't fall."

"I swear if you let go—"

"I won't let go."

We both started skating slowly. I was holding on less and less by the second to see if she was able to balance on her own. After a minute or two, I let go completely and since I was still skating being her she didn't notice.

I decided to go into a completely different direction then her so she'd notice she was on her own. She might kill me, but by the time she'll realize i'll have a good chance of getting away. When she turned around and saw me and her eyes widened.

"WHY AREN'T YOU BEHIND ME?!"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE SKATING ON YOUR OWN!"

She looked down and behind her, she smiled and started laughing.

"I'M SKATING BY MYSELF!" She put her arms down slowly to see if she could keep her balance. She still glided across the ice without falling or wobbling. "HOLY SHIT THIS IS AMAZING!" She turns and starts skating in my direction. "WAIT HOW DO I STOP?!"

"TURN YOUR HEALS OUT AND TOES IN!"

Once she was about two feet away from me, she attempted to stop but somehow launched herself forward. I caught her, but I ended up falling with her on top of me.

"I'm so sorry are you okay?!"

Shawn looked up at Cristina, whose face was about an inch and a half away. He couldn't help but gaze into her eyes. He continued to fight the urge to kiss her. What he didn't know was that Cristina was fighting the same urge. After about a minute he noticed he was staring and hadn't responded to her question yet. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"You sure? You hit the ice hard." Both of their heart beats quicken from how close they were.

"I promise, i'm okay." Shawn saw a piece of hair fall over her eye and on instinct he moves the piece of hair behind her ear without thinking.

'Oh shit.' He thought. 'Why the hell did I just do that?'

Cristina finally managed to tear herself away from him and sat down on the ice. 'Why the hell did he just do that?' She thought.

"Guess we still need to work on my stopping huh?" She said, hoping to break the tension.

"Yeah, right now you're about as graceful as a bulldozer."

"Rude." She said as she slapped his arm.

After they got up, they took off their skates, put their own shoes back on, and began walking home. As they left the building one thought was lingering in both of their minds.

'I was way too close to kissing you'