ALESSIA
I fell down eleven times before I stayed upright for a full lap, and Jasper counted every single one out loud from the boards like it was a scoreboard he was personally invested in.
"Twelve," he called, as I went down again, knee first, palms slapping the ice a half-second after. "That's a new record. I'm framing this."
"You said that at nine."
"Nine was also a record. You're an overachiever." He skated over, easy, unhurried, the same effortless motion he brought to everything physical, and offered a hand I took with considerably less grace than I wanted to. "Okay. Weight forward. You're leaning back like the ice insulted your mother."
"The ice did insult my mother. Repeatedly. For forty minutes."
He laughed — the real laugh, the one that came from somewhere unguarded, and it
