Oliver paid for our tickets, and I insisted on a hot chocolate from the vendor before we started walking around. He asked me to take a picture of him on top of a giant snow fort castle. I even got in a selfie with him in front of one of the snow sculptures that looked like a giant elf.

As we moved through the displays, my anxiousness had finally started to subside. Every moment with Oliver was easy. Whatever pressure I had felt about tonight was gone as soon as he slung an arm around my shoulders. While I still wasn’t sure exactly what to make of us, I couldn’t deny how outright good it felt to be with him.

“Admit I can plan a good date,” Oliver said, smiling down at me as we walked through one of the larger light displays.

“I don’t know. I kind of wish you’d taken me snowboarding again,” I said.

We walked by a few other sculptures, one resembling a penguin eating an ice cream cone. “You’ll never let me live that down.” He chuckled.

“It’s okay. I’ve realized you like forcing me to do things I suck at. Snowboarding. Snowshoeing. You get a thrill out of me struggling while you breeze through the activity.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” he asked sarcastically. “I could have sworn I was just trying to have some fun with you.”

“Fun with me or fun at my expense?” I teased.

“Can’t it be both?”

I stopped when he stopped. His eyes lit up at something in the distance.

“Speaking of fun.” He pointed.

I squinted to see a small ice-skating rink with people swirling around it.

“What? No way.” I let out a laugh of disbelief. “I was thoroughly enjoying how chill this was.”

He pouted and reached for my hand. “Come on, Frankie. Please? Ice-skating is easy. It’s nothing like snowboarding.”

I bit my tongue, not wanting to mention that I also had never ice-skated before. He probably thought I was the lamest excuse for a date.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been ice-skating either?” Oliver’s eyebrows pulled together.

“I mean, growing up, we had these skating rinks made out of plastic they set out at malls in the winter. Does that count?”

Oliver gave a quick shake of his head. “Plastic? What? Absolutely not.”

“I’m from Florida,” I said defensively.

“Then we have a lot of catching up to do.” He pulled me forward, toward the skating rink, and before I could protest further, he was shoving a pair of ice skates at me. He practically dragged me to the bench where we were supposed to take our shoes off and put on the skates. There were little cubbies underneath to store our boots.

“You can’t sit still, can you?” I mumbled, but I was already putting on the skates to appease him. At this point, I was kind of convinced that he could talk me into anything. At least with this activity, the worst that could happen was falling from a standing position. There was no hurtling down a hill involved. But as I had that thought, I looked up to see another couple shakily skating around. The girl flailed her hands a few times before falling backward, right onto her butt. Ouch. That had to have hurt.