Looking Up

-----Steve's POV

When I got back from my morning Skate, I decide to see what Elle is up to. After the big loss in game three at home, I know the only thing that is going to be able to cheer me up is George, who is roughly 450 miles away, and of course Elle, who is luckily only 10 miles away. I want to ask her out on a date, but for some reason, I'm coming up short on courage. Sure, we went to lunch together before, but this time it is an actual date- she can easily shoot me down.

After pacing around the room for 5 minutes, I sum up some courage, and dial her phone number. My heart is racing, the ringing seems to go on forever.

"Hey Steve!"

"Elle! Hey! Please tell me that you have the day off" I plead.

She laughs, "Well you're in luck because I actually do!"

I sigh in relief, "Great! I'd love to take you out on a date- of course if you want it to be a date- I mean- I don't want to put any pressure on -"

"So now you're the one who's flustered," she laughs interrupting me, and I can feel myself starting to blush a tad, "of course, I'd love to Steve, what's on the agenda?"

"Well it's a surprise, just bring warm clothes okay? I'll pick you up around 2:30?" I ask, hoping it's a good time for her. Thankfully, she says the time is perfect for her and we say our goodbyes and hang up.

"Yes!" I yell aloud and plop onto my bed with a grin spread across my face. Suddenly, I hear my phone ring and to my surprise it's Elle.

"Hey Elle, what is it?" I ask, secretly hoping she didn't realize she had something else to do.

"Well Steve, you might want to know my address," she giggles, "guess you're not the smooth one now!" We laugh and she gives me her address and apartment number. We stay on the phone for a while talking about both of our apartments and some other random topics. By the time we get off the phone it is already 1 o'clock.

I want to surprise her with our date since I love catching her off guard. I decide to just wear what I already have on and grab some other essential items for the date. Before picking her up, I drive to a florist, 'Shop to Smell the Roses,' that is right around the corner from 'Sweetie Pies'. When I walk into the shop, the smell of spring and fresh flowers hit me immediately. I head straight to the daisies, remembering they're her favorite kind of flower.

As I was handing the cashier the money for the flowers I thought about how much I knew about Elle. It makes me so happy that I actually know a lot genuine things about her.Favorite genre: swing; favorite movie: 10 Things I Hate About You; favorite number: 16; favorite food: Philly cheesesteak; favorite artist: Monet.

Once I pull onto the street that her apartment is on, my heart starts to beat faster and my hands become clammy. I look down at the clock and notice I'm ten minutes early, so I put on my music that I listen to before every game to calm me down to get me ready for our date. Thankfully, it did the trick and I step out of my truck confident. I grab the white daisies and ring her doorbell.

"Hello?"

"It's Steve!"

"Great, I'll be right down!" she chirps back.

"Alright you got this, she likes you," I say to myself. I look at my feet, close my eyes and take a couple deep breaths. Suddenly, the door in front of me opens and I look up. We lock eyes and we can't hold back our big goofy grins. I bring the flowers to my chest from behind my back and her face lights up as bright as the sun.

"These are for you, Elle." I smile and hand her the daisies.

"Daisies! Thank you so much- I can't believe you remembered they're my favorite," she exclaims, smelling the daisies.

I lead Elle to the truck, open the passenger side door, and help her step up into the truck. I run around to the driver's side and start the car. She's already going through my phone to find a song to play. She picks one of my favorites, "I Hold On" by Dierks Bentley.

"Sooo where are we going?" She asks.

I sigh, look over to her and smile, "I told you it's a surprise, you'll see soon enough." I crank up the music, roll the windows down a little and start to sing along to music. After a couple verses, and a few laughs, she starts to sing along with me. Five songs later, we reach our destination and I pull into the parking lot.

------Elle's POV

My eyes begin to widen, "Ice skating!?" I'm absolutely terrible at ice skating- the last time I actually skated was at my friend Elaine's 14th birthday party.

"Yep! C'mon Elle!" he says enthusiastically.

We get out of the truck and he grabs his bag from the back seat. As we make our way to the entrance of the large gray building, a problem pops into my head.

"What about people recognizing you?"

"Got it covered!" He smiles, unzips his bag, pulls out a baseball cap, and puts it on.

Steve jogs ahead of me and holds the door open. He heads over to the rental desk and gets me a pair of skates. We sit down on the bench and start to lace up our skates. He sees me struggling, so he kneels down in front of me and starts to lace up my right skate. I bite my lip to keep from exposing a goofy smile.

"Just warning you, I haven't been ice skating in forever and I'm terribly clumsy," I say, expecting him to tease me for it.

"That's okay- that just gives me an excuse to stay close to you and hold your hand," he looks up at me and gives me a sincere, sweet smile. My heart melts into a pool; he has no clue what he does to me.

Steve stands up, takes my hand and helps me up from the bench; his 6'4 solid body towers over mine even more with his skates on. He puts our stuff in a locker and heads back over to me. Steve makes me walk in front of him so he can help me walk on my skates. As I open the door to the actual rink, the frosty cold air hits my face. He guides us over to the entrance and helps me onto the ice. I immediately start to wobble and lose my balance. Meanwhile, Steve is hunched over with his hands on his knees, laughing at my panicked facial expressions and my attempts to keep my balance. I want to try to skate without his help but if I do, I know I will fall straight on to the ice. 'C'mon, don't be a pansy- he's laughing at you!'I think to myself.

I stand up straight and quickly find my balance. I move one foot in front of the other and actually feel stable. All of the sudden, I start to fall sideways and I flail my arms to try to steady myself. However, this just throws my balance way off- in a split second I'm leaning forward, then left, then right, then left again. I start to fall back and let out a yelp. My skates go out from under me and I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for the impact I'm about to endure. Just before I hit the solid ice, I feel a pair of large, sturdy, firm hands grab my sides. I gasp, open up my eyes, and blink in disbelief. With great ease, Steve picks me up, sets me on my feet and turns me to face him.

"You alright there Bambi?" he laughs.

I playfully role my eyes and smile at him. "Maybe if you weren't busy laughing at me and watching me endure one of the biggest struggles of my life!"

"Was the biggest struggle when you were trying to talk to me when we first met? Or?..." he asks with his signature smile teasing me.

I feel my face start to blush remembering that day. I let out a small giggle, and hit him lightly on his shoulder, "Possibly!" I sneer at him playfully. I desperately wanted to skate away sassily to somehow prove a point, but we're on ice, and the chances of me falling again without his help is one million to one.

"Alright Bambi, let's try this again." Steve softly takes my right hand and intertwines his fingers with mine. My heart starts to flutter and a thousand butterflies erupt in my stomach. He starts to explain how to skate and guides me across the ice, steadying me whenever I start to lose my balance. Thankfully, there aren't too many people here since it's a week day.

We went around the rink several times, and I was starting to finally get the hang of it. After we get to the middle of the ride side of the rink, I force myself let go of Steve's hand. I turn to face the players' bench and I start to skate faster and faster across center ice, leaving him behind.

"Ah! Look! Steve! I actually got it!" I yell. I look back at him beaming.

Steve smiled back, but then his facial expression quickly changed to fear, "Elle! Look where you're-"

Before I know it, I slam into the half wall, my torso is flung over, and my feet fly over my head. I, thankfully, land on my butt. I open my eyes and find myself leaning against the half wall and the first thing I hear are skates racing towards me. I start to laugh uncontrollably at what I had just done.

Steve leans his head over the wall giving me a panicked look, "Are you okay?!"

Once he sees that I'm laughing, he starts to as well, calming down. He helps me up off of my butt and onto my skates. "I'm fine, probably just a couple bruises though."

Steve helps me climb back over the wall and we begin to skate again. He starts to tell me about his first time skating and playing hockey. During this, I didn't want him to let go of my hand so I kept pretending to lose my balance every so often. I loved having him so close.

After a while, we decide to leave. Steve guides me off the ice and onto a bench. As I am about to take off my skates, he pulls out his phone.

"Hold on, I need to take a picture of our skates for Instagram!" I chuckle and watch him upload the photo and write the caption: 'Skating went well today, can't say the same for Elle. #Bambi #somebodygetherofftheice #watchout #goodthingshescute #georgecanskatebetterthanher #cleartheice'

I let out a loud laugh and shake my head, "You and your hashtags."

Once we return my skates, we head out to his truck.

"We should do that again sometime- even though I'm disastrous on skates." I admit.

Steve laughs a bit, turns towards me, and raises his eyebrows, "Ya know Elle, you don't have to pretend to lose your balance so I keep holding your hand; I'll do it regardless" He shoots me playful smile and starts the car. I start to blush, and hit him lightly on the shoulder.

"You hungry, Bambi?"

"Yeah sure! I could go for something to eat." I reply.

"I'm not surprised- all of that falling and wobbling looked like it worked up an appetite," he teases.

Steve puts his arm around the back of my head rest, turns on the radio, starts to sing, and pulls out of the parking lot. It surprises me how much Steve and I actually click -even his off-key singing doesn't seem to bother me. Any other time, someone's bad singing would get on my nerves- but with Steve, it's a completely different story.

We pull into the restaurant, Steve rushes over to my side and opens my door for me. We are seated quickly and order our dinner with no hesitation. I guess we both under estimated how hungry we were before. After we finish eating, we stay in our booth- talking and telling each other stories about our friends and childhood. It felt good to talk to Steve without being interrupted by reality.

When we get back to my apartment, I start to feel my mood sink. It was time to leave Steve and get back to the real world. He always succeeds in making me forget about all the bad in my life when we're together. We stay seated in his truck, both silent, not wanting to end the perfect day we had with each other.

It is Steve who breaks the silence first, "I'll walk you to your door." I smile and nod. We get out of his truck and head towards the door of my building. We hop in the elevator and start to talk about Game 4.

"I didn't want to tell you- since I mean it's no big deal and all- but I'm actually going to it with my cousin Andy and his girlfriend," I admit.

"Oh! Perfect! All of the guys want to meet you- I'll let you into the locker room after all of the interviews are done." Steve insists.

I felt my heart pound in my chest; all of the guys want to meet me? "Sure- sounds good- hopefully I won't have a heart attack on the spot," I say nervously. We walk down the hallway and arrive at my door.

"Don't worry I'll be the one to give you CPR when you have one." He laughs softly, grabs my hand, and starts to stroke it with his thumb.

I tilt my head down and look at our hands touching in an effort to hide my reddened face, "Thank you for such a great day Steve."

"My pleasure Bambi," he says softly. He puts his hand underneath my chin and tilts it upwards so he can see my entire face. We search each other's eyes trying to find out if we were thinking the same thing. Steve runs his tongue across his bottom lip and starts to lean in. Butterflies fill my stomach as our lips become only a few inches apart.

A door slams shut down the hallway; we gasp and jump away from each other startled by the loud booming echo- the sound ripping us from our own world and bringing us back to reality.' Just my luck.'

"Well, uhm, I'll see you Friday after the game," I say awkwardly, not really knowing what to say after what just happened- well, what didn't happen.

"Yeah, just text me after the game and I'll let you know when you're able to come in the locker room."

"Great-uh-well-uh goodnight Steve- good luck on Friday!"

"Thanks, goodnight Elle," he lightly strokes my hand, smiles, and then walks to the elevator.

I let out one huge sigh and start to fumble for my keys in my bag. Once I get in, I lean up against my door and slide all the way down it until I land on the hardwood floor. I look over to my end table where an array of family photos are on display.

I focus in on a photo of my father and I on our old boat called The Escape. I want to tell Steve about what is actually going on in my life whenever he asks but I can never sum up enough courage to tell him about my father's debilitating cancer. The last thing I need to do is scare him away with what I'm going through- but is it better to risk telling him instead of lying about it and hiding it from him?

Notes

Hey guys! Hope you like this chapter- I really enjoyed writing it. Make sure to rate, comment and subscribe! I love getting feedback. Thank you so much for reading!

1. Elle's Outfit
2. Steve's Outfit