22. #CanadianTire, January 2018

The closer Daya's plane drew to Calgary, the more impatient she became to see Mike. It felt like it had been months, not a few days since she had seen him last.

She jumped up to her feet the moment the seat belt sign turned off with a final ping and rolled from heel to toe while lined up with the other passengers at the back of the plane.

How, how, how could a plane be so full on the morning of January the 2nd?

Released from the metal cigar with wings, Daya marched down the concrete-floored passages in the domestic wing of the airport. Then she marched through glass-walled passages with the view of the airport's shops and lounges. Then she marched alone down an empty passage with a carpet on the floor and normal walls... wait, alone?

Oh, crap.

She backtracked, found the damned gate she'd missed on the account of being under-slept and recently airborne, and caught up to the families with toddlers, and elders in the wheelchairs pushed around by the Air Canada employees.

She burst through the gates, the 'you won't believe it' bubbling on her lips, and forgot that she had just been nearly running.

Mike's hair hung into his face, instead of being brushed back, a few golden spirals. He slouched, one hand stuffed into a side pocket of his dark-blue cardigan. In his other hand, he held a blue rose, about twice the size of the real long-stem.

"Mike!"

Oh, Mike... as he mumbled on about winter roses, she got engulfed into his warm sweater and familiar smell. Time slowed down while her cheek rested on his chest, listening to his racing heartbeat. She didn't feel like running anywhere.

"Mike and Calgary," she thought happily. Mike and Calgary. I'm home."

Then she remembered. The gift! She loathed to hurry Mike along, but the gift!

***

Mike was slow getting out of the car by the Canadian Tire, but she did not care. If he had guessed what she was up to, oh well, they were here now.

"Did someone give you a new hairband?" Mike asked as they crossed the parking lot.

She twirled the end of her braids in her hand. The scrunchies were scarlet, with a beaded pattern. "My baby brother, Nihal. He thinks I dress like a marathoner in mourning—his words, not mine—so he accessorized all my ensemble with scrunchies and a scarf, or something like that."

Mike chuckled. "He sounds like a fashionista. Where is the scarf?"

"Luggage."

"Ah... I see." Mike let her through the automatic doors of the Canadian Tire. "He's at the University still, right?"

"Uh-huh. And he just switched from Environmental Design at the uni to Fashion Arts at Humber College. The Christmas dinner at my folks' place was tense. The upside was that my mom was so hard on his tail, she postponed the interrogation about my living arrangements."

Mike sighed wistfully to some private thought. "So, you've concealed the fact that you are cohabiting with a knave. Well done, Miss Dhawan. Now, why are we here?"

The store was not particularly crowded, so they did not get jostled while they stood around chatting between the bins filled with the items on sale.

Daya took her bearings. The automotive stuff, and the name-sake tires—to the left; small appliances, seasonal paraphernalia and the gardening supplies—to the right.

Her goal, the sporting goods and outdoor gear aisles, loomed straight ahead.

"You'll see," she said, put her hand on his elbow and guided him on.

"Daya, you know I was just kidding about you teaching me how to skate, " he murmured as they crossed into the realm of hockey jerseys, sticks, pucks, helmets and, yes, the long shelves stacked with skates.

"Maybe, but I want to come and skate with you. Don't worry, I won't let you fall."

Mike paused at the entrance to the aisle. "If I do, you know the drill."

"I won't let you fall," she repeated forcefully and pointed at a small bench in the middle of the aisle. "Go sit down and take your boots off."

She could hear him muttering under his breath. "She wants me to take my boots off... why does she always want me to take my boots off? What's wrong with my boots?" But he did as instructed.

She twirled away, to face the shelves and hide another oh, Mike... smile. This special smile came on unexpectedly in his presence, triggered by the little things he had said or done, and it was extremely durable.

"What's your shoe size?"

"Nine."

She glanced at Mike over her shoulder. He was staring at his socks with a purposeful, thoughtful expression that a cat assumes while it sniffs a trash can.

The impulse to bang her forehead on the nearest box and laugh herself silly was pretty strong, but she focused on the boxes.

It is not a stupid idea.

She plucked a recreational skate in the right size. The pick zigzagged the front of the blade out of its box. She touched it with her finger, another thing she did not think of occurring to her. "Mike, have you done any skating before as a kid? Did they teach you on hockey skates?"

Because if he was taught on the skates without a pick, he'd just trip on the pick, instead of pushing off of it, and it could end in a disaster.

"No, ma'am. I'm one of the few Canadian boys with parents who didn't harbor hopes for an NHL future."

"Mike! The blade's not sharpened, but they're still blades. Be careful about calling me ma'am while I'm holding them in my hands."

He lifted his head. His eyes stopped on her, softening, magnified by his glasses, the colour—even lighter than she had remembered. "Daya."

The floor might as well had turned into fertile soil, and her feet—into a sapling sending out roots in an educational animation. She forced her mind into a greased grove and swallowed whatever obstructed her vocal cords.

"I... I was thinking that we need to introduce the larger variety of movements. The things your body isn't accustomed to. Your metabolic rate seems to be on the lower end, but your thyroid and sugar are normal, so I hope this might help us boost it."

That wasn't what she was thinking at all. But Mike, I want to kiss your eyelashes, would have been out of context.

Mike dropped his gaze back to his white socks. They were as clean and as hole-free as they were a minute ago. "I'm down five pounds."

She was getting a great view of his frizzly hair and not much else. The telltale scarlet flooded his cheek and neck. Something was getting him all hot and bothered. Something? Maybe you should have been more tactful.

She knelt next to Mike, setting the box to the floor by his feet. "Mike, we can try something else, if you can't put the skates on because of the lingering trauma. Sorry if I got carried away. It felt like a good idea..."

The disappointment she felt while saying it was absurd, and in combination with guilt... ouch. Whether Mike went skating with her, didn't matter. Plenty of people never stepped on the ice and lived happy productive lives. It was not even a life skill like swimming.

Heck, maybe her own life would have turned out better if she never went to that stupid kid's fifth birthday party, or if Shanti had given up lacing those boots on her.

It didn't truly matter... It didn't!

Mike looked into her face and pushed his slipping glasses up onto the bridge of his nose.

Belatedly, she tried to assume a neutral expression. And guess what it had been beforehand. Had her lips trembled or something?

Whatever he noticed, he did not comment. He took the boot from her hand, rotated it awkwardly, because the second boot hung from it by the tied together laces. He picked at the knot, loosening it. "Let me try it on. The worst-case scenario? I'll be just like you, owning a pair of skates I never use."

Daya pushed up to her feet, just as he stuck his never-broken left foot into the boot and huffed.

The impulsive half of her was dying to tell him how he was right, how she could not wait to buy more ice time and about Pavel's unexpected offer.

The other half of her recoiled, terrified of ruining—what? If only he hadn't promised to fall in love with her by Christmas... and then missed the deadline.

The confession and the skates were her surprise, her gift, but now that the skates were no longer a secret, the rest of the iceberg loomed darkly under the water.

Everything, she was terrified of ruining everything.

If she took off wrong, if she tried to muscle this as she would a jump, she'd most likely fail. Maybe she did not know how to bracket their relationship, but she knew that the fall would hurt.

"This is harder than it looks," Mike groaned, grabbing the boot by the heel, shaking, twisting and wrestling it off his foot. "Who designed this? Spanish Inquisition?"

"Don't fight it, oh, stop it before you hurt yourself... it's just a higher rise than you.. oh, stop fighting it!" Glad to do something familiar, she gripped his foot between her knees and loosened the laces more. "Point your toes."

"I am pointing!"

"That's not pointing."

He squinted to show how hard he was pointing.

She slipped the boot off. "Let me see if I can find something wider."

He curled the toes self-consciously, and—what else?—stared at his socks.

This is definitely not the time to bring up Pavel. The anxiety zipped her lips, while she searched for different skates, watched him lace them up with clumsy fingers and stumble around.

With a sheen of perspiration coating his forehead, and his glasses slipping towards the end of his nose from the efforts of squatting on the bench, he more and more resembled a victim of a medieval torture.

Just when she was about to suggest putting a pin in the idea, Mike stopped his hobbling around and tilted his head to one side. "Okay, these ones are good. I can walk in them, though I wouldn't be as optimistic about skating."

He scratched his cheek. "Yet."

"Are you sure?" Daya asked suspiciously. She was on her tiptoes, jamming the rejected box number two on its shelf. Why is it always so much easier to pull the items off the shelf than to put them back?

"Let a professional handle this." Mike's breath tickled her ear, as he took the box from her and slipped it into its place.

"A smooth move," she said. He was as tall as Pavel, she realized, when he didn't slouch. Unlike Pavel's, his body this close to hers set her thoughts on unprofessional track, tempting her to lean against his comforting figure.

"You don't want to know how many books I've restocked just in the last month. Carol loves me on the shelving duty." Mike seemed mighty pleased with doing something he was good at. Aren't we all...

Guilt returned to jam its knitting needles into her heart. Mike was too nice. And too close to her in a warehouse store. She cleared her throat and took a step back from the shelves. "Are you sure?"

"I am positive. So, what's next?"

"I'll have them sharpened for you. Then, depending on how your foot feels, I'll put you on the ice."

Mike snorted. "Don't panic just yet, but my axel might not be ready in time for the Olympics."

"Hold the presses!" She grabbed a pair of blade guards and led the way to the checkouts.

Bubbly excitement fought with guilt, turning her mind to mush. The right moment to tell Mike everything would come, and it would be fine. He wouldn't get hurt, he took nothing seriously, and it would be fine, it all would be fine...

But once she ensconced herself in the car, she tugged off the gloves and pressed her palms to her burning cheeks.

Just how many things could one woman want?

She expelled a slow sigh before Mike noticed her gesture, reigning the confusion in. One thing at a time.

Get the skates sharpened.

Teach Mike how to fall before he falls.

Tell him about her plans.

And...

Don't ruin everything.