Plossie, for the wonderful people of TWL. And happy birthday in advance, Livvy! Thanks to Andi for beta-ing skills. I owe you one, you hoor.
I should be studying for finals. Procrastination is a wonderful thing.
"Nuh-uh. No way. There is no way this is happening."
I cross my arms and stare at them, refusing to give in to peer pressure. I'm about to add that hell will freeze over before it does happen, but it doesn't seem appropriate, considering our situation.
"Aw, c'mon, Mass." Claire pouts, blinking those gorgeous dark-lashed baby blues, those dang Bambi eyes, up at me like there was no tomorrow, something I was completely unprepared for. That girl is a force to be reckoned with, I tell you. "Please?"
Behind her, Plovert smirks, because he knows they've won. I focus my glare on him, but his smirk stays firmly in place, even becoming a little more pronounced.
Ugh.
I'd pulled on a clean sweatshirt and some jeans this morning when Kristen had called and informed me that the gang was meeting up at the park, under the pretense that Claire's four-year-old brother Todd wanted to 'feed the ducks',—a ruse I should have seen through right away, anyway, but my sleep-deprived and coffee-destituted (not to mention sugar-addled, with all those chocolate chip cookies I'd been coerced into helping make last night, and then eating most of the dough) brain had decided to let that one pass.
I sigh heavily, balling the ends of the sweatshirt into my fist, then bow my head in concession. "Fine. But only for an hour. I'm not staying more than—" My sentence never gets finished, cut off by Claire and Olivia squealing in unison. Then they leave me precise instructions including shoe sizes and color specifications and disperse to different areas of the park.
The woman in charge of the skates is blonde and wearing too much eyeliner and her scratched silver nametag reads Avery, and I dislike her from the moment I set eyes on her. Her gum smacks excessively loudly against her lips as she regards me over the counter in a bored fashion, and asks for my shoe size.
I recite the list and try to ignore the fact that she very indistinctively rolls her eyes as she heads to hunt down seven pairs of skates, already starting to get a migraine from the mother standing behind me in the queue trying to console her shrieking child. You'd think the child were being greatly wronged, or something, with the intensity of decibels her tantrum was being belted out in, but in truth she was only being denied a serving cotton candy, with the mother's sensible reasoning that 'the broccoli she will be having for lunch once she gets home would be much yummier'.
I resist the urge to bang my head on the wall and look around, catching Plovert's eye.
He's standing two metres away, balancing his elbows on the railing and ever the poster child of joy, (note heavy use of sarcasm here) watching the scene with a smirk playing across his lips.
My hands find their way to my hips as I focus my glare on him, but he only raises his hands up in a gesture of innocence.
Avery finally turns up again from the depths of the shoe store after a good five minutes and I gather them into my arms, with a little help from Plovert because hello, there are eight pairs and those little devils are sharp, and whatever you chose to believe, I am not Superwoman.
I glance around, locating the rest of the group pretty quickly. Kristen and Olivia are walking towards us, a large orange-and-pink swirled lollypop matching her huge smile, and Claire is dallying by the ice cream stand, giggling with Derrick, her red rain boots standing out in all the rainy-day bleakness. Josh is propped up on a bench, engrossed with the highly important task of shooting zombies on his newly acquired iPhone 4G.
Ten minutes later, everyone is already laced up and patiently waiting while I am still struggling to slip into the boots.
Plovert sighs and bends down to help me, his fingers brushing my ankle and a small, stupid, clichéd spark jolts my limbs. I jump back immediately.
"It's fine," I stutter, "I'll do it."
He gives me a puzzled look and then turns to walk off.
"Is something wrong with him?" Olivia asks, jerking her mitten-encased thumb back towards where Plovert still has his back facing me, putting distance between us.
I shrug in response, because I honestly don't know. Claire and Derrick share a knowing look.
...
Some time (okay, a lot of time) later, I finish tying my shoes. Th rest of them had ditched me by now, complaining about how I was taking forever and their precious hour was slipping away.
Todd was wearing some little kid ice skates in green, the kind with two sets of blades set up so he wouldn't fall. Claire and Derrick were racing around (don't ask me how the guy in the leg cast was doing it. I really wouldn't be able to answer.), Josh had taken a break to but a popsicle, Kristen was weaving in and out of groups of people gracefully, and Olivia was slowly but gracefully moving about. Me, I was taking my time, because I know this isn't going to end well.
Slowly, I go to stand up, only to wobble and sat back down on the bench. At least the kids were having fun going around in an oval on ice skates. Maybe, instead of ice skating, I should see what they had for food at the concession stand. A bunch of other kids were here as well, most of them were around my age. A group of girls were staring at Plovert, who was actually, I'm surprised to find myself into admitting, really good. Huh. Go figure.
He's is skating backwards, smoothly and gracefully, like he's been doing it his whole life. I breathe in, the cold air stinging my lungs. What the heck? His eyes connect with mine as he passed by and I catch a smirk. The smug jerk—he thinks he's better than me. My competitive side jumps in and I go to stand up. Big mistake.
By some malicious joke of the universe, two seconds after I step onto the rink I've already fallen flat on my face.
I feel the impact reverberate in my bones, bruising my knees. The ice burns my cheeks and I bite down on my lip, a curse at the tip of my tongue.
'You okay?"
I look up to see Plovert looking over me, the omnipresent smirk of his suspiciously missing. "Fine," I grunt, picking myself up and brushing off my jeans. "Just great."
He looks thoughtful for a minute. "Do you want me to help?" I raise an eyebrow at this, and have to turn around and properly look at him to see if he's being serious. Apparantly, he is.
I run a hand through my hair and pull out a couple of shards of ice, considering this. What the hell. It can't hurt, right?
...
"Okay, left right lef-"
"Aaahhhh…oof!"
The sound of blades scraping against ice and shavings flying everywhere breaks him off, and I find myself sprawled out on the ice for the seventeenth time in twenty minutes, wincing as the ice-impact induced pain shooting through my butt.
"Ow. Ow. Crap, ow." I moan, sitting up and rubbing my leg, where I can already feel the bruise forming.
Plovert comes to a graceful stop before me, a reassuring smile gracing his face. "You're doing great, Massie, don't worry." I don't bother telling him I'm not worried about not excelling; I'm worried that I won't be able to leave this stupid place unscathed, possibly in an ambulance and with or without a concussion.
As he bends over to help me up, his wrinkled gray v-neck shirt rides up to his waist, and I catch sight of the rim of his boxers under his belt, my heart doing a tumultuous flip in my chest. To add to my misery, as soon as I'm standing, I manage, in all elegance, to slip again,—incorporating a scream this time, because it's scary for an infinite amount of reasons—except Plovert's arm slides around my waist and he catches me.
"I'm fine, I really don't need—"
Our proximity catches me off guard, because I can feel the warmth radiating from his body and he smells so nice, like sandalwood and smoke fire and clean shampoo and that distinct lovely smell of boy, and it feels kind of right. My voice is muffled against his shirt, and I pull away quickly, stumbling slightly backwards as I lose my balance.
I let out an impatient huff, my breath mixing with the cold air outside to form a puff of steam. Plovert looks part amused and part something else, something I can't distinguish.
"Figured you were stuck on skates, I might as well take advantage of it." He smirks. I let go to try and smack him but only managed to fall into him.
He raises an eyebrow as if I had just proved his point.
And I did, (prove his point, I mean) because in the next seconds, Plovert was holding my hand again and helping skate across the rink.
...
He's the only one left around when I present the eight pairs of skates back to Avery half an hour later, — all in perfect condition except for one, which had a slight indentation at the toe (I'll give you three guesses as to whose it is), — because everyone else has gone to grab seats at the café and order half a dozen hot plus one chocolates, marshmallow topping and smarties included.
I slump down on the bench next to him, pulling off my gloves and stuffing them into my windbreaker's pockets. "I can't even tell you how glad I am that that's over."
He glances at me and grins, a rare occurrence for him. usually it's just obnoxious smirking. I'm wondering what triggered it when he says, "C'mon, it wasn't so bad. You were doing pretty good towards the end."
I stare at him like he's just grown an extra head.
"You're kidding, right? Where have you been for the past half an hour? I'll be lucky if I'm able to walk tomorrow. It was awful."
There's a short pause and when he doesn't say anything, I sigh and lean back onto the bench, stretching my legs out. Someone had scratched J+D forever, '07, in a messy black-magic-marker scrawl onto the wood, and my finger traced the pattern the letters dented while I mulled something over.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Sure."
"I'm kind of glad you're the one who taught me."
A wry smile lifts the corner of his lips.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Sure." I glance over at Plovert.
"So am I."
I begin to tremble.
"Your teeth are chattering," He says, touching his fingers to my lips. The gesture is so intimate and takes me off guard so much that I blush. He seems to realize it top and draws back his hand, sheepish, backpedaling.
He looks awkward and out of place and I have to smile a little. And then I can't help myself. I lean in and press my mouth to his.
Feeling his lips against mine, tender and moist, sends a current through my shoulder blade and down my back. We wrap our arms around each other and I rest my head on his shoulder. He pulls away after a while, and I nuzzle my face in his sweatshirt, peeking up to see him smile again, my heart doing an Olympic-gold-medalist-worthy backflip in my chest. He runs a finger through my hair and kisses me again softly, but only for a second before he pulls me up and claps his fingers with mine, and starts to drag me in the direction of the café, where we can already see the Kristen, Josh, Olivia, Claire, and little bright-eyed Todd—Derrick and Claire are nowhere in sight—wreaking havoc with the catering staff in the distance.
The huge, goofy smile on Christopher Plovert's face is an exact replica of mine.
"Come on, we wouldn't want to miss that hot chocolate."
Heck, no.