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Roller City is a roller skating rink Lena’s father bought as a joke when he was drunk, but now that he’s gone, it’s Lena’s.
It’s a stupid name. It’s generic. Bland. One of her employees, Kara Danvers, always introduces it as ‘the one, the only…. the Roller City!’ which is ironic given at least a hundred other rinks in the country share the same name. Lena’s considered changing it, especially when Kara gets going with the puns.
“Just roll with it, Lena!” she smiles goofily. “Get it?”
“Honor roll! Get it?”
“He got steam rolled, get it, Lena?”
“Just rolling with my homies. Get it?” Kara wiggles her eyebrows as she skates by.
Lena thinks Kara might end 70% of her sentences that way.
Get it?
Lena hates her.
Regardless, Kara’s great for business and the rink is packed when Lena arrives. Along with their teenage and adult regulars, they have a birthday party booked tonight with the biggest package they offer. It includes drinks, food, a hoola hoop skate competition, a maypole dance, limbo, and Kara’s nonstop commentary over the rink microphone. She’s their resident DJ and MC.
Sometimes, Lena regrets giving her that job.
“Hey boss,” Nia greets from the ticket booth as Lena sweeps inside.
"Hey Nia," Lena waves. "I'll be right out, I need to change."
She drops her things off in the small, wood-paneled office off the entrance of the rink and changes quickly into a Roller City shirt and black leggings. She sniffs at the air, nose scrunching. The office has a grungy, stale sort of smell that suggests the walls should be checked for mold, but that’s not really in the budget.
When she exits, Nia is waiting for her.
“Did you see that the new skate boots came in? They’re dope!”
Dope, Lena thinks.
Nia’s the youngest of her employees, a junior in high school, and she works the various counters. She’s not even that much younger than Lena, maybe nine years? But Lena’s still lucky to understand half of what she says.
“No, I didn’t,” she answers congenially, pulling her straight hair back into a loose bun. It feels like finally clocking out of her main job for the day. “Show me?”
Nia squeals with excitement, and they make their way through small arcade, filtered through the light of the pixelated screens. It’s very 80s with its orange, purple, and yellow painted walls. A boy chases a girl with light up shoes, the carpet beneath them glowing neon in the dark. That carpet most certainly has not been updated since before Lena was born. The Skee-ball machines will need repairs soon, too, and the pool table is covered in a tapestry of stains. Or ‘well loved’ as Kara likes to say.
Why does she always think of that one employee?
Speaking of, Lena sees Kara standing at the birthday table in rainbow, knee high socks, 70s star shaped, purple tinted glasses, and gold glitter shorts. Gold glitter shorts.
As much as it would make her uptight, conservative father roll over in his grave, Kara’s somehow pulling off the look. If her blonde haired, blue eyed employee could skate even a little, it would be infinitely too attractive, the kind of thing that would break the universe. As it is, she sits on the event horizon of paralyzing allure, hair loose and laughing loud.
“—did you hear me, Lena?”
“Hm?”
Nia smiles a little too knowingly for a person still in braces.
“I said the new boots are white, not black,” she pulls a face, “and they actually have a combination of leather in them, less vinyl!”
“Oh,” Lena makes what she feels is a convincing expression for having heard any of those words. “Well, better made is good news, but do you think white will scuff more?”
Nia doesn’t answer and instead flourishes her hands in front of the skate rental counter.
“Here we are! What do you think?”
Brainy already has the box laid open and waiting. Brainy is Lena’s second teenaged employee, although he’s graduated early and is working on getting his basics out of the way at a community college. He’s too smart for this job, that much is clear, but he isn’t always adept at social graces.
“The white will scuff more,” he states bluntly, and Lena frowns.
“But white is so much prettier!” Nia whines. “Do you hate them?”
“No, of course not,” Lena replies, running a finger over the soft, new leather. They smell good. “I like them. It’s good to have options. We can always add a dollar to the rental to cover cleaning costs.”
“And who will do the cleaning?” Brainy asks.
“I’ll give you twenty percent of every dollar.”
“Thirty.”
Lena lifts an eyebrow.
“I don’t know,” Kara rolls up inelegantly, Lena is sure. “They look like cheapskates to me.”
She giggles and leans a hip against the counter as Lena turns to look at her. She’s far too impressed with herself. “Get it—”
“Yes,” Lena places a hand on her shoulder, aimed originally to cover her mouth. She’s not sure she wants to be acquainted with the feel of Kara’s lips on her palm, however.
“How’s the birthday party going?” she asks in haste to distract from that last particular thought. She jerkily removes her hand.
Kara doesn’t notice, the bright smile on her face betraying her puppy-like enthusiasm. She launches into a highly detailed, minute-by-minute report that Lena hears about half of. Instead, she considers their age gap. A sophomore and a senior. Like Brainy, Kara goes to school part-time. She’s finishing a journalism degree, but Lena doesn’t know the finer details of her background. She’s scrupulous to avoid the appearance of favoritism.
“—and then Rachel ate two of his Dunkaroos, and Conner just couldn’t believe it. It was chaos! Anyways, better get back to my hot, floor grooves.” Kara shoots Lena finger guns, god help her, and tries to skate-dance away. Lena knows she can’t skate backwards, however, and sure enough she slams right into a Ninja Turtles arcade console and spills to the floor.
“Where—where did you come from?” Kara asks the machine, shocked that it would attack her so viciously.
“You’re talking to an ROM cartridge,” Lena deadpans.
“No worries, that didn’t hurt anyway,” Kara wheezes, still smiling, although it’s technically now a grimace. She uses the game box to pull herself into standing, skates scrabbling.
It’s adorably cute, and Lena hates her.
“You go girl!” Nia calls after her before she promptly catches Lena staring at Kara’s retreating form.
“You’re hopeless.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Ugh, you get all WASP-y when you’re flustered.”
“There’s a line at the slushie machine,” Lena points firmly. “I don’t want any more blue vomit on my floor. Make sure no one’s going for seconds.”
“Ay, ay,” Nia salutes with a smile and skates away.
“Statistically speaking, she’s right,” Brainy adds, pulling the box of new skates down from the bar. "You are hopeless."
Lena doesn't even know to know what statistics he's been tracking to prove this.
“Set up a pair of these skates for me, will you?” she indicates the new skates, artfully dodging the comment. "And twenty-five percent."
“Deal.”
While he makes his way to the back, Lena wanders away to find Kelly. She needs to check in with her floor manager over their accounting, it’s almost month end. It’s most of what Lena does for Roller City. She’s good with numbers, and it keeps the lights on. Or the disco ball turning, if you will. She’s pretty sure she makes about a dollar in profit a year for this whole ridiculous endeavor, but she keeps doing it.
Lena spends twenty minutes making minor corrections to the expenses before slamming the book shut.
“Thanks!” Kelly smiles at her. “I’ll set up at the front for ticketing while Nia does concessions.”
“Perfect,” Lena nods just as she hears the telltale signs of…
“Welcome to the one… the only… the Roller City!” Kara elongates the name over the mic, and all the kids cheer. She plays Rolling on the River by Tina Turner, a song Lena's heard her sing while skating by about fifty thousand times.
("Rollin' on the river, get it, Lena?")
“We have a very special birthday in the house tonight," Kara continues in real time, sweeping her arms open in introduction. "Everybody give it up for the coolest guy around, Conner!"
All the kids cheer again, pausing on the rink to stare at the DJ booth.
“My name is DJ Special K, and I'll be your host on this magic carpet ride. We're gonna' get this party started with a little race to warm you up for the best night of your lives. When you hear the siren, grab a hula hoop from the center of the rink. The first party monster to make it a full lap around wins a prize! Ready, set, go!"
Kara blares a siren over the speakers.
The kids bowl each other over in a rush to grab a hoop. They're glittery, glow in the dark, and extraordinarily obnoxious in the hands of children who are also on skates. Lena watches the shit show unfold under the multicolored floor lights of the rink, remembering they don’t quite touch the dark corners where she’s constantly catching older teens making out.
“Hey!” she snaps at a couple, the sound almost as legendary as the one her mother produced at debutante training.
The two teens in the corner break apart, giggling and jumping back into the rink. Lena glowers after them.
Meanwhile, the hula hoop competition is in full swing ("get it, Lena?") and an absolute catastrophe. Meaning, a wild success. There’s a twelve person pile up around the second bend, all to the tune of Sufaris' Wipeout. Kara keeps up a stream of narration throughout the pandemonium like she’s some sort of horse racing host.
“We’ve got a leader out in front! With hair black as the night, this skater possesses the style of a zebra, the grace of a cougar, and the hooping skills of a mongoose.”
She’s such a dork, Lena thinks, but she can’t help but smile.
“She’s coming around third! Will she make it? She’s close! She’s close! And… we have a winner! We have a winner! Come to the DJ booth to collect your fabulous prize.”
The girl races up to the booth, and Kara wraps her wrists in about two dozen glow sticks. The girl smiles big like she’s been crowned the queen of England.
“On to the maypole dance!”
Kara pops out of the DJ booth to lead the birthday party to the middle of the rink. The maypole is one of their weirder games. From an outside perspective, it closely resembles some kind of ritual sacrifice. All the skaters tie the birthday guest in happy birthday streamers, thin like crime scene tape. After being mummified, the lucky birthday contender gets rolled around the floor like a sack of potatoes.
“Conner is down for the count!” Kara calls out as the boy topples over, paralyzed. All the children laugh as Conner struggles to break free.
“Which brings us up to Limboooo!”
Kara absurdly draws the word out. She always does, saying it the same way. And this extends to anything that even remotely rhymes with it.
“Gumboooo!”
“Mumbo Jumboooo!”
“Dumboooo!”
Stop, Lena thinks, and she focuses on lacing up her skates. Limbo requires the participation of the entire floor, so Lena usually likes to help. When she's done, she rolls out onto the rink, and she and Nia hold the stick while Kara announces.
“Ohhh, wipe out!” Kara calls out as one kid smacks into the stick and hits the deck. “That's going to leave a mark."
The kids, one by one, skate up and get knocked out until there's only a short line left.
“A feather couldn’t fit between the pole and Conner! This one's going to be close.”
Everything is going relatively routine until the final round when the stick is about two and a half feet off the ground. There’s two kids left, Conner and a little girl, but the girl skates up short, refusing to try.
“That can’t be done!” she complains loudly and with a lot of confidence for an eight year old. “That’s cheating!”
“Oh, really?” Lena balks back.
“Really!”
“Want to bet?”
The girl vigorously nods her head.
“Well, come over here and hold this,” Lena offers the limbo stick to the girl.
The girl grabs it and unjustly sets it even lower, but Lena knows it doesn’t really matter. It’s been awhile since she practiced this move, but she stretches regularly. She’s still got it.
"You're in for it now," Nia taunts the girl.
Lena circles to the front of the line, in front of Conner, and sprints towards the stick, gaining speed. Nia is smiling maniacally, and just before she approaches, Lena does the splits, easily soaring under the stick.
“Booyah!” Nia fist pumps in the girl's face.
Smugly, Lena rolls back into standing and, as she's turning to gloat, she finds Kara watching slack-jawed at the edge of the rink. When they make eye contact, Kara turns too fast, hits the edge of the small step up, and goes flying face first into the felt.
She’s a disaster.
“I’m fine!” she raises a hand, fingers outstretched. The kids laugh, and it can’t possibly be true. Kara's much too tall to be falling that hard. Her knees must be permanently black and blue.
"Conner wins!" she adds over the mic.
"What!" the girl yells.
"Disqualified," Nia tells her as Kara picks herself back up from the ground for the second time tonight.
“It’s Special K here on the 1 and 2’s,” she says, strangely breathless as she dusts herself off.
“Watch, she’s going to go hide in the booth and die from embarrassment,” Nia whispers to Lena, and sure enough, Kara climbs into the booth, head low.
“Grab a partner dosey doe, its couples skate!”
Like the thousands of times before it, the floor instantly empties while Berlin's Take My Breath Away plays overhead. Kids all around shuffle awkwardly, holding their arms. A few adults take to the rink, but it's not enough. Kara jerks a thumb at Lena, and Lena mutinously mumbles, ‘yeah, yeah.’ Did Kara have to choose couples skate to go hide behind the turntables?
Lena sighs and starts pairing kids at random; a boy who looks like he might pass out. A girl with a purple wig. She grabs more and more until the floor is a quarter full again.
“Wassup, hottie? I’ll skate with you,” says an older teen Lena skates past.
“No."
Kara shoots her a thumbs up from the DJ booth.
Coward, Lena thinks.
After couples skate, the birthday party breaks for food, and Kara shifts the music back to her handpicked playlist of Ace of Base, Tag Team, Duran Duran, Michael Jackson, Snap!, and Madonna.
Lena barely hears the music any more, she’s heard these songs so many times. Instead, she follows the party back to the birthday table as the kids pile rowdily into their chairs. The girls are dressed in neon colors, spandex leggings, metallic skirts, and fanny packs. What they carry, Lena can only guess. Stick on earrings? Meanwhile, the boys are in oversized sweatshirts and jean jackets. The very youngest kids wear tie-dye shirts and slap bracelets. Two of them argue over a mini ice cream.
“You’re stupid.”
“So is your face!”
“That’s enough,” a harassed looking mother warns.
Outside of the birthday party, they’ve got more of a goth crowd tonight, too. They typically do for Costume Contest Fridays. Lena guesses it’s Edward Scissorhands’ influence, although she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t spent her fair share of time listening to The Cure on her bed and wearing all black. Even her nails are black right now. She gets it, at least, whereas Lena can’t much relate to the older teens in halter crop tops, bucket hats, and baby doll dresses. She wonders where they abandoned their tiny, little hand bags.
“None of that!” she snaps again at a boy in roller blades trying to do jumps off of a carpeted bench. He scowls at her.
Lena hates roller blades.
"Alright, alright everybody! I've seen some amazing outfits on the floor tonight. Now if you think that you've got the best costume, come down to the center of the rink for the costume contest!"
All of the kids spring away, hopeful to win, and Lena hangs back to help Nia clear the food from the birthday table. She pushes the smattering of torn open presents to the middle: Blockbuster gift cards, a Hungry Hungry Hippos game set, a pile of Goosebumps books, and a Tamagochi. But further down the table, she catches sight of a woman slouched in an empty plastic chair, nursing what appears to be a Coke, but what Lena knows is actually a vodka and Coke.
Alex Danvers. Kara’s cop sister. She broke up a teenaged fight in the parking lot once and she’s taken it upon herself to be the rink’s official security. Even in plain clothes and off duty.
Lena follows Alex’s gaze to the arcade prize counter, the real reason why she haunts Lena’s roller rink. And that reason is currently bargaining with a ten year old on how many tickets they need for a stuffed tiger.
“I told you it was fifty,” Kelly sing songs.
“But I don’t have fifty!”
“Then you better go win at Skee-ball.”
“My mom won’t give me any more money.”
“What about these? Have you heard of Gack?” Kelly suggests and quickly diverts the boy’s attention.
Ugh, Gack. Kids stick it on the walls, they shove it in each other’s faces. Lena's found it everywhere: under chairs and tabletops, in toilets, stuck to change and tickets. She regrets the day she bought it, and of course the boy’s eyes instantly light up. He gets two packs and a stack of pixie sticks.
Lena sighs and skates over to Alex, hopping up onto the table next to her. Alex startles, sitting up straighter.
“Still mooning over my manager?”
“Mooning—what? No—I’m just, that kid is terrible at skee ball. That’s all. His mom was right to stop giving him money—he’s not even—he’s not even good—”
Lena holds up a hand. “Calm down, you lie as bad at your sister.”
“Shut up,” Alex mutters, and Lena smirks.
“Ask her out already.”
Alex doesn’t answer, taking a sullen drink of her faux coke. Lena turns to watch Kara. She’s currently leading a rousing, if not quite traditional rendition of ‘happy birthday.’ It’s one of the more annoying songs in human existence (why was there such a high note in it?) but the passion Kara always puts behind it every single time is impressive.
“You’re one to talk,” she hears Alex condemn from behind her.
Lena twists back around to look at her, eyes narrowed.
“Whatever, give me some of that,” she demands Alex’s coke.
Alex raises her eyebrows, but passes it over. Lena takes a monster drink.
“Hey!” Alex objects, pulling it back from Lena. “Vodk—” she comes to a dead stop as a kid walks by. “Coca-Cola doesn’t grow on trees!”
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I had the night off.”
“M'hm.”
There’s a small pause, overshadowed by Kara belting out her hugely unnecessary end of happy birthday.
“—and many moooore on channel 4, and Scooby Doo on Channel 2, and Frankenstein on Channel 9, and the big fat lady on channel eighty—”
“She’s a good singer despite, you know, all of that,” Lena motions a hand over Kara’s general appearance. It's a slightly unfair assessment when Kara actually has the voice of an angel.
“We’re in a band together, did you know?”
“Really?” Lena looks at Alex. “You and Kara?”
“Yep. I play piano. The electric keyboard.”
“Piano… isn’t that a little fancy?” Lena asks with a sweeping look over Alex’s person. She would’ve pegged Alex as a moody electric guitarist or even a drummer.
“I’m allowed to contain multitudes.”
“Okay, Whitman,” Lena rolls her eyes. She knows she’s going to hate herself for asking but…
“What’s the band name?”
“The Rainbow Brites.”
Lena snorts.
“What would your cop buddies think?”
“They don’t. I haven't—I don't talk to them,” Alex frowns. “The force isn’t exactly, you know…”
She trails off, taking another sip of her Coke.
“Yeah. I do,” Lena answers, and Alex gazes at her from over the top of her drink.
“So, why haven’t you sold this place?”
Lena lifts an eyebrow.
“Cutting the pleasantries? Is that an interrogation tactic?”
“No, just curious," Alex answers casually.
Lena sighs again, glancing back at Kara, and considers answering truthfully.
Why hasn’t she sold this place?
For starters, it’s a break from the typical monotony of her days. It’s… fun. Which is weird to admit. Even in her own mind.
Because Lena’s normal life isn’t very fun. She’s an engineer at a failing computer company, IBM. She designs switches, the kind of thing you tell people about and their faces go totally blank. After being cut out of her inheritance, she didn’t have much choice. She scraped her way through college with a half dozen different scholarships and school funded work programs. She chose a major where she’d have a steady income. She needed it with only the rink to her name. It might’ve been a jibe from her cruel, older half-brother Lex during the estate proceedings, letting her keep the rink, but for Lena, it wasn’t all bad. It held a bit of nostalgia. She used to skate here with her father.
“I don’t know,” she answers finally, and Alex taps the outside of her bottle with a finger.
Kara shifts the music then, saving Lena from further explanation.
"Last chance to shake your groove thangs, everybody. Get on the floor and skate, skate, skate," she calls over the mic. "Skate, skate, skate, skate your booties!"
Christ.
Predictably, it's followed by KC and the Sunshine Band, and that’s Lena’s cue to start closing out the registers.
“See ya’,” she says to Alex.
She spends about half an hour stacking bills and counting change next to Nia in concessions, or at least that's what she's doing until Kara rolls up next to them. She removes a ridiculous silver wig that Lena's not even sure where it came from, her own closet? Her blonde hair is matted attractively to her temple.
“I’ve got something for you, Lena,” she says with a too sweet smile.
Lena prays to god it isn’t a pun, but Kara digs in her pocket eagerly. Lena's never seen her use a prop in her bits, but there's a first time for everything.
Instead, what she reveals is almost worse than a pun. It’s a red ring pop, and Lena's jaw hangs open. She might literally strangle Kara to death if she gets on one knee and asks—but she only says,
“Here you go,” with a wink, and she skates away.
Lena holds the candy ring between her two fingers like a lit firecracker. Next to her, Nia stares down at it, reminding Lena of her presence with a loud, childlike crooning.
“Aw, that’s so adorable,” Nia pinches her own cheeks.
Lena is quick to hide the ring, shoving it into her leggings. She wonders what to do with it later. Throw it away? Bury it? Set it on fire? It's probably going to congeal to her leg.
Nia is still staring at her, misty-eyed.
“Please stop.”
“Oh come on. Everyone wants you two to be together.”
“No, they do not," Lena grumbles loudly. "Why do you always bring this up?”
“Can you blame me? I’m bored.”
“Well, go be bored while you restock the prizes.”
“You’re our office romance,” Nia ignores her, and Lena blushes even harder (if that’s humanly possible.)
“You realize that’s not a good thing, right? Office romances are bad.”
“Why?”
“I’m her boss. There’s an unfair power dynamic.”
“I’m her boss,” Kelly corrects, sidling up to the conversation and continuing Lena’s counting of the register.
Right. She’d been doing something before Kara gave her a candy proposal ring.
Ugh.
“See?” Nia points out. “And is it really a bad thing when it’s mutual?”
Lena happens to look at Kara as Nia says it. She's a short distance away being a giant goof and waving goodbye to Conner excitedly.
"Yes. It’s bad."
“Okay, Okay, I give up,” Nia begins to roll away. After she gets a good fifteen feet, safe from Lena's reach, she turns to yell,
“NOT!”
When the doors are locked and all the kids are gone, they finish their closing activities. Lena's not ready to leave, though, and laces up a pair of the new white roller skates Brainy left out for her. She tells herself it's just prudent business practice to test them out before they rent them to customers, but really, she enjoys the rink to herself. It's something she and her father had done after hours, and it's her time to unwind.
As she takes a few loops around the floor, she spots Nia and Brainy, hushed and talking near the exit. She lifts a hand in goodbye to Alex who's leaving with Kelly on her arm. There's an accompanying smirk to her wave, but Alex motions a cutthroat signal back at her. It only makes Lena laugh quietly to herself.
It's hard to be right all the time.
Either way, it's when she switches to skating backwards that she realizes she's not totally alone. Kara's seated on the edge of the rink, watching her with those curious blue eyes.
“What’re you still doing here?” Lena asks, betraying more fondness than she’d like.
She skates up to Kara expectantly, and Kara stands, looking for a moment just as awkward as the teens loitering on the outskirts of the rink during couples skate.
“Can you… can you teach me to skate backwards?”
Lena takes a second to process the question.
"Teach you?"
Nia overhears this proposition, snapping to attention by the doors.
"Good night, Nia!" Lena heads her off, and Brainy takes Nia by the shoulder, practically dragging her from the building. Lena waits for her loud complaints to be muffled behind the closing door before turning back to Kara.
"You want to learn to skate backwards?"
"It's so pretty when you—well," Kara stutters, wiping her hands on those glittery, gold shorts. Lena tries to keep her eyes from lingering too long on her thighs. "I mean, you do it so well. It can just be a quick lesson?"
Internally, Lena weighs the risk and rewards. She really shouldn't, but if there is a person in dire need of lessons, it's Kara.
"Please?"
Lena groans. She is hopeless in the face of Kara Danvers.
"Come on," she offers a hand.
Kara's face breaks into a bright smile, and it's almost too much for Lena. Especially with the warm feel of her fingers grasped in Lena's hand. It's a concerted effort not to intertwine them as Lena pulls Kara to the center of the rink.
"First off, let's work on your posture. Chin up, eye level," Lena directs, using her body as a model. "Your shoulders need to be straight across. Abs tight."
She swallows, viciously fighting off a highly detailed image of Kara's abs.
"Like this?" Kara mimics her pose.
"Perfect. Next, palms down, hips low, thighs and knees together," why was she blushing? "Your toes need to be pointed towards each other. Drop your body weight down and back up."
Kara mirrors her, and they practice the motion of going up and down to create momentum. After several runs, Kara has it solid.
"This isn't that hard."
"No," Lena agrees. "I knew a lady who would describe this part as, 'down with the butt, up with the gut."
Kara laughs in the quiet rink, the sound melodic.
"Thanks, I'll never forget that. What's next?"
"So, next," Lena rolls around Kara to stand next to her. "A big mistake beginners usually make is their arms are all over the place. Steady arms," Lena demonstrates. "Also, they break at the waist. You need to have good control over your upper body, no bending."
Kara makes a pained face.
"I do that a lot."
"I know. Now, let's do the same thing, but just pick up your feet a little. Don't lift your back foot up and stick it behind you, just shift and lift your opposite foot."
"Okay," Kara attempts this much more slowly while Lena skates beside her. She does well, but she's very focused on the movement.
"Remember, this is all about the transfer of body weight," Lena coaches softly. "When you pick up your feet, your movement from side to side should have the same pressure, force, and time on each foot. It should be a nice rhythm, like dancing."
Kara looks up at Lena with a charmed smile.
"Is that why you look so good doing it?"
Lena's cheeks flare hot again.
"Don't look down," she tells Kara, who had briefly glanced down to check her skates. "Don't think about your feet."
"That's not very intuitive," Kara pouts.
Lena shrugs in apology, and they continue the exercise. Lena touches Kara, little adjustments to her hips and wrists, and it's both pleasure and pain.
"Butt down, chest up," Lena reminds her as they stop and start again. "Your feet need to be pigeon toed and knock kneed. Zipped up nice and tight, closed for business."
And god. Lena's done a million lessons and these words have never felt so overtly sexual. She can't quite bring herself to make eye contact as they get going again.
"Now, make bigger movements, really transfer your body weight."
Kara does so, and there's a moment where they're both skating together, smiling slightly and staring into each other's eyes. It's a bit hypnotic, the sound of the wheels on the wood, the seamless, side-by-side motion, the light breeze. It's a feeling like flying, and it's absolutely why Lena still enjoys skating. Especially in tandem.
Kara seems to realize after another few moments that she's been skating backwards perfectly almost the full length of the rink.
“Look, I’m doing it!” she exclaims.
It's cute, and Lena tries to remind herself how annoying Kara is, but she can’t.
While Kara celebrates, though, her posture changes, her upper body less controlled. Lena anticipates the consequence of it before it happens.
Unable to bear the idea of watching Kara fall again, she slows down as Kara's arms go wind milling. She half circles, positioning herself in front of Kara, and slides a steadying arm around her waist. She extends a leg between Kara's thighs to keep her upright and balanced.
That's what she tells herself in the moment, at least. That she's helping Kara. Because after a second, the reality of what a huge mistake she's made comes crashing down on her. They're practically in a tango dip, faces close, bodies pressed together, Kara's cheeks tingeing a rosy pink as she glances down at Lena's mouth. The muscles in her forearms bunch as she holds onto Lena in a death grip. The smell of her isn’t altogether that appealing, sweat and polyester like the inside of a Halloween costume mask, but regardless Lena wants to bury her face fully into it.
Needless to say, it takes a moment for her to regain control over the inner spiral of her gayness. Lena doesn't trust herself to say a word, instead making sure Kara is stable as she pulls her into standing.
She clears her throat.
"Next time, if you need to stop, do a calf stretch and use your toe stop," Lena displays, pushing a leg back behind her. She hopes it distracts from the scratchiness of her voice, but Kara doesn't look like she's much listening, anyway. She's gazing at Lena, unfocused, like she’s some sort of snake tamer.
"Is that good for a first time?" Lena asks to ease the tension, her face and neck still feeling incredibly hot. And why was her phrasing so tragic?
"Oh, yes," Kara comes back to herself. "You ready to go?"
Lena nods, and they untie their boots in a charged sort of silence. After, they turn off all the lights and lock the doors as they leave.
As the quiet between them stretches on, Lena finds herself blurting the first thing that comes to mind just to have something to say.
"Finally, a break from your music."
She cringes internally. It feels like immaturely punching Kara on the playground, but Kara only scoffs good-naturedly.
"You don't like my music?!"
"It's just not my style."
"My style is everyone's style!" Kara claims. "I'm friends with the guy at the record store. I get everything early. I know what's going to be big before the radio does."
Kara regards her suspiciously. "Who's your favorite band?"
"Fugazi, Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie."
"Are you telling me you're an industrial glam rocker?"
Lena laughs. "I'm not telling you anything."
"You're wrong, Lena," Kara shakes her head, certain. "I'm going to make you a mixed tape, and you're going to love it."
Lena refuses to encourage her, but something in her goes soft at the idea that Kara would actually do that. No one's ever made her a playlist.
“Are you from National City?” she asks, searching for a subject change and slightly kicking herself for giving into her curiosity.
“No, Midvale farther up the coast," Kara answers breezily. "I grew up in foster care before the Danvers’ adopted me.”
“You’re adopted?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
Or she was. Lena’s not quite sure what her status is now. Family-less?
"Wow, really? Who knew we had that in common?"
It is an odd thing to have in common, certainly. She resonates with the difficulty of that kind of upbringing, and it makes Kara all the more dangerous. She doesn't need to empathize with her even further.
"You're not from California, though, right?"
"No," Lena frowns. "Connecticut."
"Ew. The North East."
"I can't say I disagree," Lena smiles ruefully. "The weather here is a huge upgrade."
Kara's brows knit in thought as they continue out into the parking lot.
"How did you come to own this place if you're not from here?"
"We used to visit every summer. My family owned a business branch in National City. My dad would take me to this rink to blow off steam from ice skating."
"You're an ice skater? No wonder you're so good!"
Lena smiles, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Not anymore."
It's the most she's talked to any of her employees about Roller City, but they've already reached their respective cars. Lena finds herself indulgently wishing they had more time and lingers by Kara's yellow Volkswagen bug, looking for an excuse to stay. Kara kicks at the asphalt, her posture tense again.
"Did you move here for college then?"
"M'hm."
"Still, uh, seeing anyone from there?"
"Am I 'seeing anyone' from college?" Lena tries her god damndest not to smile at the transparency of the question, but she doesn't fully manage. "Are you asking if I'm single?"
"Sure," Kara breathes, and Lena's convinced she sees a drop of sweat roll from her brow. "Are you, well, seeing, you know, any person? Or people?"
Lena can't help but laugh again.
"No, no… person. Or people."
"Oh, cool, cool," Kara says, the relief as palpable as the car she's leaning against, hips angled towards Lena. “You want to go see a movie some time then?"
“Like what?” Lena asks, postponing the inevitable moment she has to say no.
“Sleepless in Seattle? Mrs. Doubtfire? I just got Thelma & Louise on VHS. You can come over, and I can make popcorn.”
Kara is enticingly hopeful, and it’s tempting. The two of them sharing a couch in a dark room, thighs touching under the guise of casual closeness, Kara staring at Lena until they give up the pretense of watching the movie. It's certainly a deviation from how Lena typically spends her nights indiscreetly lusting after the assistant D.A.'s on Law & Order and Gillian Anderson on the X-Files. When she’s feeling especially self-destructive, she watches old recorded tapes of Baywatch. That CJ...
Another hot blonde. God, Lena has a type.
“Come on,” Kara begs in response to Lena's clear reluctance. "It'll be fun. Just a movie."
But Lena knows that it won't be just a movie. Not quite, at least.
“I can’t," she says finally, experiencing the resulting twinge of regret in her chest.
But Kara only looks at her whimsically, seemingly undeterred.
“See you next Friday, then?” she pushes off from her car, standing a little closer, her proximity seductive.
“Sure.”
Lena forces herself to turn her two feet and walk away before she does something stupid. As she reaches for her keys, though, Kara pulls up beside her, driver's window down.
“One of these days, we'll see that movie, Lena Luthor," she smiles, and Lena can't help but think she's probably right. "You'll roll over. Get it?"
And Lena hates her again.