The photographer lowered the camera and peered at them over his glasses, not apologetic, merely finished with the urgent part of his work. He had a square, weathered face and a wool coat gone shiny at the elbows. The twin-lens hung from a worn strap against his chest like a second heart.
"You can unfreeze now," he said. "I got it."
"Got what, exactly?" Theo asked.
"The only honest second you've given each other all night," the man said, and then, as if that were ordinary conversation, he tipped his flat cap and skated two careful steps backward on rental blades that did not match his practiced hands. "Name's Ned Ashcroft. Don't mind me. I haunt this place in December."
Rowan released Theo slowly, the way you set down a glass that is still full. "Do you always interrupt strangers mid-panic?"
"Only when the panic looks like something worth keeping," Ned said. He patted the camera. "Film. Real film. None of that instant nonsense that forgets itself by morning. If the frame comes out, Lottie at the booth will have a contact sheet for you next Thursday. If it doesn't, you'll have the memory and I'll have wasted three dollars on chemistry, which is a risk I accept."
He skated away toward the boards without waiting for permission, already lifting the camera again toward a pair of teenagers clinging to each other for comic effect.
Theo exhaled. "That was—"
"A lot," Rowan finished.
"I was going to say cinematic, but yes. Also a lot."
They stood in the middle of the rink while other skaters curved around them like water around stones. Rowan tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a white-gloved finger. Theo tested his weight on his blades and found, to his mild surprise, that he had not died.
"Food?" he offered. "Before I invent a second fall and make him take a sequel."
"Food," Rowan agreed. "And then you can explain the part where owning skates counts as knowing how."
They made it to the boards without incident, which Theo counted as a personal triumph. Lottie, the rink attendant, took their names for the return of rental guards with the brisk kindness of someone who had seen every species of December romance and was no longer surprised by any of them. She had silver earrings shaped like tiny skates and a voice that cut cheerfully through cold.
"You two look like you survived," she said.