Re: Rink: Max & Dylan
[Max hadn't looked for a firearm since she'd been here. She'd considered it, and she knew she'd feel safer with one, but this was a fresh start. One that wasn't based on the stuff the General wanted for her life. It was almost a defiant decision, even though she didn't know this city well, and she knew it even less in this decade. Maybe 4 am and no firearm in NYC was stupid, but she was also used to life two decades earlier. But he was right that she could shoot him dead with her eyes closed, even at this age. The difference was that she'd feel bad about it now, even if she still didn't hesitate.
Then the race was everything, and it was the Main competitiveness that kept her on her feet after her knees threatened to buckle, even more than her hands on the walled edge of the rink. Willpower that was almost for nothing when she felt him against her back, because for all her bravado she was still the last girl asked to dance. Since she'd joined the Army, she only got asked because she put-out, and she knew it. It wasn't the same as confidence built over years of being pretty, and it wasn't like the rom-coms she loved. She wasn't naive anymore, not in that way, but he felt better against her back than the other cadets did, and her knees threatened to buckle for a completely different reason.
But he drew back, and she recovered well, no hint of the almost-whatever that she'd just felt.
She kept her hands where they were as he leaned back against the edge of the rink, and she rolled her eyes when he mocked her.] The asthmatic still beat you. [A reminder, and she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was really coming to smooth the ice; a lingering sign of the naivete of her age.
She looked back at him.] Are you a criminal? Am I a criminal? I don't want to own a flower shop. [For all her deadpan, she asked the questions like being a criminal might be an adventure.
She watched his fingers near her jacket, and she tipped her head back a little too willingly when his fingers brushed the jacket at her throat. Her tone returned to deadpan, even though her dark gaze on him was curious, interested in what he would do next.] It has to be real gold. I know the difference. I don't come cheap.