Crossing his arms, he muttered, “Truth or dare.”

“Dare!”

“Do a full run-through of your free skate.”

My turn to roll my eyes. “Ha, ha. Come on—something fun.”

“A back flip.”

“Easy!” I skated off, gathering speed around the end of the rink before launching myself backward and landing easily on two feet. “Okay, you try it.”

His brows met. “You didn’t give me a choice.”

“Oh, right—truth or dare.”

“Dare. As long as it’s to do with skating.”

“That’s not a rule, by the way. But okay: I dare you to do a back flip and land it on one foot. There. Are you happy?”

He was already stroking down the ice, concentrating before executing an almost perfect back flip even if he had to put his other foot down on the landing. We took turns, each of us trying our back flips until we were breathing hard.

Sweat dampened my forehead, and I wiped my face with the sleeve of my jacket before taking it off and tossing it at the bench where Henry had left his after warming up. I added in little dance moves before the flip for fun, trying to get him to smile again.

Nope. Nothing. He was laser focused, watching me silently before he took his next turn, and I could practically see his brain working on what we were doing wrong and how to improve the technique.

I didn’t really care about landing on one foot, so on my next pass I did that flossing dance move that used to be popular. I screwed up my timing and didn’t even get into the air, instead plopping back on my ass, laughing as I slid toward center ice.

Without even the hint of a smile, Henry sped by and nailed the one-foot landing—because of course he did. I applauded and hollered, and he nodded. No smile, but he looked satisfied that his hard work had paid off. I hauled myself up.

Gaining speed with a few crossovers, I shot my arms back and used my right toe pick to propel me up and over—and fuck! I landed way short, pitching forward on my toes as gravity said, “Merry Christmas, bitch!”

Now splatted flat on my stomach, I wheezed through the pain in my chest. From the corner of my eye, I could see Henry blur toward me so fast I was afraid he’d run me over, but he stopped with a sharp, whooshing turn of his blades and was on his knees at my side. He squeezed my shoulder.

“Fuck, that hurt,” I gritted out.

“Don’t talk.”

It was solid advice, so I followed it, my lungs expanding barely an inch. I sounded like my sister having an asthma attack. “’M fine,” I mumbled.

Henry stayed put, his strong hand on my shoulder. One of the emergency lights high above buzzed faintly, but it was silent except for that and my pathetic gasping. It helped a lot when he stroked my hair, sending shivers down my spine.