Chapter 4: A Date?

Notes: Thanks for the reviews! Again, I'm trying to work the other ducks in there but I keep getting sidetracked.

"Taz!" Fulton pushed through the crowd, muttering apologies as he tried to catch up with her. "Taz!" He put his hand on her shoulder.

She turned towards him with a faint smile. "Hey."

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Thank god it's Friday."

"Bad day?" He fell in step beside her.

"Tennis. Muchas catcalling."

"I thought you didn't have to do phys ed," he said.

"No, I just get out of the stuff that's hard on my hip. Tennis doesn't count. It doesn't help that I have no co-ordination. Naturally they started picking on me. I think you're the only person who doesn't call me Limpet." She shrugged again. "It could be worse."

"Not everyone in this school is that horrible," he told her.

"I know." She smiled. "This girl called Julie stood up for me. She seemed nice."

"Julie Gaffney?"

"Yeah, do you know her?"

"She's a Duck." He led her out of the crowd that was pushing to get out of the gates over to a bench. "Anyway, I was wondering if you had plans for tomorrow."

"Just a busy weekend of logging on to the net and emailing my friends in Ireland. Not much really." She smiled self-deprecatingly.

"Ireland? Is that where you're from originally?"

"Kinda, my Dad's American and my Mum was Irish. We lived in Ireland until I was nine. When my Mum died we moved back to the US to be closer to his family. Most of the people I email haven't seen me since I was nine."

"Sorry about your Mom," he said, not quite knowing if it was the right thing to say.

"It's ok, long time ago. Anyway, before that delve into my past, what were we talking about?"

"I was asking if you had plans for tomorrow."

She shook her head. "Not really. I was maybe going to go into town and get some more folders and stuff. Pretty thrilling. If I can take the excitement, I may clean my room."

"Well, I guess you don't want to meet me tomorrow then." He smiled at her. "I know it won't be as much fun as cleaning your room, but I'd really like it if you could tear yourself away from the vacuum cleaner to keep me company."

"I can probably handle it," she said. "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

"Will I like it?" she asked suspiciously.

"I hope so."

Taz was rushing around her room, trying to work out what to wear. Last night when she had told her Dad that she was meeting a guy from school he had asked her if it was a date. She had replied instantly that it wasn't.

However, now she was beginning to panic. Was it a date? She wasn't sure. She was pretty sure that she wanted it to be a date. Well, she probably did.

But if it wasn't a date she didn't want to dress up too much and embarrass herself.

She finally decided on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. It really wasn't much of a choice to make, most of her stuff was in boxes in the attic thanks to a mix-up with the removal men. She still hadn't gotten around to getting them back down to her room.

Add to that her Dad's paranoia that she would fall off the ladder and break her hip… she doubted she'd get the clothes down any time soon.

She heard the doorbell and hurried downstairs to try to get there before her father.

She failed.

"Hi, Mr. McDonald, I'm Fulton Reed. Is Taz around?"

She smiled in amusement as Fulton shook hands with her father. He seemed to be making a good impression.

"Fulton Reed?" Her father repeated. "Aren't you the kid from the Junior Goodwill Games?"

Fulton smiled nervously. "Yeah. Are you a hockey fan?"

"Not really, but Taryn was watching the tape so intently last night—"

"Hi!" Taz interrupted quickly. "I'm ready. Shall we go?" She decided to leave before her Dad gave one of those talks that all Dads—or at least, the Dads on TV—seemed to give young men taking out their daughters.

"It was nice to meet you, Mr. McDonald," Fulton said politely as they walked away.

"Your Dad seems cool," he commented.

"He is," she agreed. "Well, most of the time. So where are we going?"

"You'll see when we get there. C'mon."

"The ice rink," she said dubiously as he led her to a seat. "Have I mentioned the difference in the length of my legs?"

He reached into his bag and brought out a pair of skates. "These are for you." He handed them to her.

On closer inspection she saw that the right skate was a lot higher than the left. She crinkled her brow at him, a slow smile creeping over her face. "You got me built-up skates?"

"Well, yeah. I wanted you to try skating. I talked to Dwayne and he said that horse riding is all about balance and I figured that if you could balance on a horse maybe you—"

He stopped abruptly when she flung her arms around him. "Thank you."

He was quite stunned, but very happy at her sudden show of warmth.

She disentangled herself from him, somewhat embarrassed, and refocused on the skates.

"Jan made it an inch and a half higher, he said something about leaving a certain amount of difference." He shrugged. "Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, when I get my shoes built up by the doctors they leave a gap too. I don't really get why, but they have letters after they name and I don't, so I trust them."

Fulton sat down and started pulling on his own skates. He looked at her. "I have a question."

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to put those on, or are you just going to stare at them?"

She grinned and pulled off her shoes.

"Make sure the laces are tight," he advised.

"This is really nice of you. Thanks." She smiled at him.

"C'mon." He offered his hand and she took it, wobbling to her feet.

She glanced at the few kids already on the rink zooming around. "This isn't going to be as easy as it looks, is it?"

He smiled and pulled her on to the ice.

She was surprised that she didn't fall over straight away. Fulton very patiently taught her how to move, and gently pulled her along, his eyes never leaving hers.

"You're skating, Taz," he said encouragingly.

"No, I'm not skating. I'm being pulled along by an ice hockey player without falling over." She grinned. "Not that I'm not enjoying it."

"Good. You should come and watch one of our games. We're playing on Monday." He moved from in front of her to her side.

"Really? You'd want me to come?"

"I asked didn't I?" He squeezed her hand. "When are you going to learn that I'm not out to upset you. I like being around you."

She gave him what she was sure was a very goofy smile. In fact she was so busy smiling at him she didn't see the young boy zip between them. He knocked into her skates, stumbled then regained his balance and carried on skating.

Taz wasn't so lucky, she lost her balance and nearly hit the ice before Fulton grabbed her. His arms went around her waist as he helped her stand again.

"You ok?" he asked.

She nodded shyly, aware of his arms around her, and his hand absently stroking her back.

"Thanks for catching me," she said inching closer to him.

"You're welcome." He leant forward and kissed her.

Taz almost fell over again from the shock, but gave into the kiss.

When they separated she was aware that a large group of kids her age were staring at catcalling.

On closer inspection she realised that they were Fulton's team.

She smiled shyly at them.