"Afterglow"
It took an hour for them all to finish their showers, change, and pile into three cars to get to the pizza parlor owned by the Halls. Jesse had left the game when it ended, so they had a massive table loaded down with pizza ready and waiting when they arrived. The parlor had been closed for the party, and everybody was in a celebratory mood (I wonder why?).
Maurae and Adam hadn't released each other's hands since they'd finished changing, something Jesse was quick to take notice of when they arrived. "So…" he said, amused.
"You owe us money, Jess. I told you Charlie was going to kiss her before Homecoming," Maurae replied, letting go of Adam to hug her friend and kiss his cheek. "Speaking of Homecoming, what are you doing tomorrow night?"
"Not going, if that's what you're asking," Jesse said, crossing his arms stubbornly.
"You know you want to," she wheedled. Casting a look at Adam, she raised her eyebrows, letting him know she wasn't giving up until he'd agreed to go, so this could take a while. He smiled and went to join Charlie and Averman, who were still gratifying Goldberg with their verbal replays of his game-winning shot.
"Ro, look, we've been through this. I don't want to go to your preppy school, not even for a dance. I came to the game. Isn't that enough?"
"Jess…we miss you. I miss you, Adam misses you…Charlie misses you the most. What could it hurt for you to come to Homecoming with us, to be a whole team again like we used to be? Are you afraid you might like it so much that you end up wanting to rejoin the team? What?"
"Look, Ro, I like my school, and I like going out for other sports. Hockey isn't everything, you know."
"Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?" she asked gently. "Jess, I know that hockey isn't everything. But you're just afraid, I think. Afraid that if you do come back, that things will be different, and you'll be left out. What was it that you always told me? That once you're a Duck, you're a Duck for life? You don't have to play hockey to be with the team, Jess. Eden Hall has other sports, if that's what you really want. I think you should consider coming back, though. Since we've beaten the Varsity, things are going to get better and better."
"I thought this was about homecoming," Jesse replied weakly. She smiled. She had him now, and she knew it. Better still, he knew it. He sighed and gave up. "All right! All right, I'll come. Are you happy?"
"Very," she said, kissing his cheek. "Now, being the gossip-whore you are, I think you'll appreciate this tidbit. Not even Adam knows, so I'm trusting you to keep this to yourself…for a while."
He grinned and threw his arm around her shoulders, touching his forehead to hers conspiratorially. "Spill."
"Portman kissed me during the game," she whispered in his ear. Sure enough, chocolate eyes went wide with shock and he drew back, looking as though someone had hit him over the head with a brick.
"WHAT?" he squawked, loud enough to draw attention. She hissed at him and he dropped his voice. "What!" The whisper-shout was little better, but at least he wasn't broadcasting it anymore.
"Yup," she replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Whoa!" He wasn't sure whether to be amused or disgusted, so he settled for both. "You going to tell Adam?" he asked, lowering his voice further. She shook her head, then paused for a moment, and shrugged.
"Dunno. What's to tell? It's not like I reacted or anything."
"You liked it!" Jesse accused.
"So sue me for liking kisses!" she retorted.
He stared at her for a moment before he burst out laughing. "If you could hear how ridiculous that sounded!" he chuckled. She smirked and shook her head at him before shooting Adam a thumbs-up and walking over to sit down and grab a slice of pizza.
"Carrie owes me shoes," she said simply when he lifted an eyebrow.
"Sweet!" he said, leaving Charlie, Averman, and Goldberg in the dark. Then he took pity on them. "She convinced Jess to come to the dance tomorrow night."
"Ooohh…Okay, then," Charlie said, stuffing his mouth so full of pizza, not a sound came out of his mouth around it.
"Such a guy," Maurae muttered under her breath. Charlie grinned and nodded, making her shake her head. They all laughed. It really was a good day to be alive.
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The euphoria from their victory lasted late into the night. They left the Halls' place a little after midnight, and made their way back to the school, where they were on weekend curfew (one a.m.) so they wouldn't get into trouble. Heading back to their rooms, they slowly disappeared into them. Charlie and Fulton slapped palms again before Charlie entered his and Adam's shared room. Adam kissed Maurae one more time before following with a cheerful, if tired wave. Fulton shook his head at Portman's stubborn scowl and vanished. Maurae dug in her pocket for her keys and, finding them, got the door unlocked before he stopped her.
"Hey!" she exclaimed quietly. "I thought you were gone already. Are you sleeping in there tonight, or waiting until you get your stuff moved in tomorrow?"
"Tonight. My stuff isn't here yet, and I have nowhere else to go."
"Cool. Goodnight. See you tomorrow." She turned, but he stopped her again.
"Hey, Ro?"
"Yeah?" she asked, trying not to heave a sigh of exasperation.
"When I kissed you earlier…um…well, see, I was…I mean, I didn't…"
"Dean, you don't sound normal. Is it bothering you? Look, I didn't mind. It was no big deal, really. Don't worry about it, okay?"
He let out a deep breath, and smirked. "I knew you liked it."
She lifted one eyebrow. "Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren't you? I said no such thing. I merely said that it didn't bother me as much as it seems to bother you."
"You liked it."
"Jess accused me of the same thing," she said with a shrug. "I like kissing. It has nothing to do with…okay, that's stupid. It does have to do with you, but I didn't mean that I like y-" He shut her up effectively by kissing her again. When he backed up and ducked into the room he'd be sharing with Fulton, she could only glare at the solid slab of wood between her foot and his ass. "Stupid, arrogant, jackass," she muttered. "Thinks just because I let him kiss me once that makes it all right for him to kiss me again." Growling under her breath, she shoved open her door and slammed it closed.
Carrie jumped off her bed, grinning. "So? How did the party go?"
"First, Jess is coming; you owe me shoes. Second, if I'm going shopping with you at nine, I'm going to bed. Third, if Dean Portman kisses me one more time, I'm going to kill him with my bare hands."
"Dean Portman…he's the gorilla-man, right? The one who was giving a striptease in the penalty box? The loud one who showed up halfway through the game?"
"Yeah," Maurae huffed, dropping onto her bed in a show of how tired she actually was. Celebratory mood or not, she had taken quite a hit to her head during the game. The adrenaline and euphoria had pushed it away for a while, but it had started creeping back about an hour before. "And fourth, this headache is turning into a killer."
"I saw you. Don't you know that's what goalies are for?"
"Ha ha ha. Oh yeah, and ha. You and Adam, I swear…"
"Speaking of Adam…" Carrie prompted. Maurae shot her a glare, which quickly dissolved into a grin.
"I kissed him. Or he kissed me. I don't really know who started it, but we kissed. I suppose you saw that as well?"
"I did. Derek and Teresa owe me money now, so we'll be able to accessorize tomorrow."
Maurae growled at her and turned off the over head light, muttering under her breath about people who needed to get lives of their own. Carrie shook her head and let her roommate grumble as she changed for bed and crawled under the covers. Turning off her desk lamp, Maurae rolled over to face the wall, closed her eyes and fell almost instantly asleep.
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"Huh! Whozzair!" Maurae jolted out of bed the next morning when someone knocked vigorously on the door. Carrie, sitting on her own bed, fully dressed and reading a book, smirked and got up to answer it.
"Connie, Julie," she announced for Maurae's benefit.
"Huh? What're you guys doing here?" She glanced groggily at the clock. "At seven-thirty?"
"Carrie said you didn't have a Homecoming dress for tonight and that she was going to take you shopping. We volunteered to come with," Julie replied, plopping down on the end of Carrie's bed. Connie dropped onto the end of Maurae's bed, forcing her to move her feet.
"Yeah, we don't get enough girl time, hanging around this bunch anyways," Connie added with a shrug. She smacked Maurae's knee through the blanket. "So get up! Get dressed, we're going shopping."
"Whoopee," Maurae muttered as she grudgingly did as she was told. "S'seven-thirty, though. Counnent you wait till nine?"
"No. Now," Carrie said.
"Stores don't even open until eight, anyway."
"Enough deliberation, Maurae Nicole. Get your ass out of bed!" Carrie said, shoving Maurae towards the bathroom. Grumbling, the yawning brunette stumbled in and shut the door. As soon as they heard the lock click, the three girls in the room shared a laugh.
"Give her twenty minutes, then go in after her. She has been known to fall asleep in the shower," Julie chuckled.
"You know that shopping for homecoming with her, much less for her, is going to be like pulling teeth, right?" Connie asked. "Trust me on this, unless she's the mastermind behind the shopping trip, she'll make it hell."
"Yeah, well, she's psyched about this dance. Don't worry. She'll be good today," Carrie grinned. "Besides, I bribed her."
"How on earth did you get her to agree to a day of shopping?" Julie asked, curious how to get her friend to shop peacefully in future.
With a grin worthy of the Cheshire cat, Carrie winked. "I told her we'd hit up Borders on the way back here to get ready." Connie and Julie, who had been on the edge of their seats, waiting for this profound insight into Maurae's mentality, laughed. Everyone knew how much Ro liked books. And how much more she loved bookstores.
Five minutes after she went into the bathroom, Maurae came out again, toothbrush in her mouth. "Forgot my clothes," she muttered around the toothbrush and foam. Sheepishly, she gathered up jeans and the first shirt she found, then retreated again to the bathroom. They heard her spit and then the shower started.
As much as Carrie and Julie and Connie had interacted so far, they didn't really know each other, so it was a quiet twenty minutes until the water stopped running. Five minutes after that, Maurae came out, this time running a comb through her long wet hair.
"Let it dry itself," Carrie said. "I'll curl it better later. We'll put some of it up and leave most of it down…let me think about it a little more. Hurry up!"
"Calm down. It's only eight. We've got twelve hours."
"No, we've got six hours."
"It doesn't take six hours to get ready!" Maurae protested.
"No, it won't, but the dance starts at eight, and dinner starts at five. And we need three hours to get all of us ready. So stop arguing and put some shoes on!"
"Fine!" Maurae finished combing out her hair and then put the comb down to pull on her socks and shoes. "Where are we going first?"
"Penney's. It's where I got my dress, and they're bound to have some left for slackers like you."
The barb didn't even register in the still-sleepy girl's mind. "Cool. Whatever. Who's driving?"
"My sister. You met Andi when we moved in, remember, Rae?"
"Pretty redhead with a great smile? Cheerful, friendly girl. I still don't believe she's related to you," Maurae said blandly. Julie and Connie, more used to this bland, dry sense of humor, laughed first, before Carrie even realized the insult. Then the redhead propped her hands on her hips and glared silently at her roommate. "Oh, breathe, Carrie." Smirking, and acting much more awake than she actually was, she grabbed a sweatshirt and her wallet and skipped out of the room.
She had recently acquired (read: stolen) a chain for her wallet, from Carrie. She had a bad habit of losing things like her wallet, her keys, her cell phone. Which, actually, she had misplaced the night before. "Remind me to call Jess when we get back to see if I left my phone at the table last night," she said idly as the others caught up to her.
"Lost it again, have you?" Carrie asked. "Good thing you stole my chain, or you'd have lost your wallet too."
"Yes, I know I'm hopeless," she sighed melodramatically. "No need to rub it in."
"But rubbing it in is so fun!" Carrie pouted, trying hard not to smile. "Okay, in all seriousness, I know you don't like shopping, so I'm going to play this last card. The less time we spend shopping for a dress and shoes and accessories for you, the more time we can spend hanging out in the bookstore."
"That's not fair, Carrie!"
"Life isn't fair, princess," Carrie shot back, then danced ahead, hiding behind her sister, waiting by her car.
"Yeah, nice to see you too, little sister." This was obviously an old joke, since Andrea, who was four years older than Carrie, was also a foot shorter. "Maurae, nice to see you again."
"Hi, Andrea. These are two of my teammates, Connie Moreau and Julie Gaffney. Connie, Jules, this is Carrie's sister, Andrea Martin." The three girls shook hands and then Andrea ushered them all into the waiting car. There was just enough room for the three hockey players in the back seat, and even so, by the time they got to the mall, the three girls were all too eager to get out.
"I'm going to see a movie with some friends, and then to lunch, so I'll meet you guys in front of the food court bathrooms in four hours. We'll see if you need longer then." She smirked. "Do any of you fine athletes have a watch?"
Connie nodded, and Carrie waved her hand. "And I have my cell phone," Julie said. "So between the three of us, we're all set."
Maurae didn't bother to respond to the subtle dig, and grinned. "Oh goody. Four hours of letting them use me as a dress-up doll."
"One thing I can guarantee you about my sister," Andrea said with a wink. "Is that her taste in clothes is perfect. She'll have you looking like a princess in no time."
"If that was supposed to be comforting, it wasn't," Maurae grumbled. "But thanks just the same."
"Come on, Rae," Connie said, grabbing her arm and dragging her away. Andrea was left laughing uproariously as she walked towards the movie theater.
AN: Yes, I know I've been gone a looooooong time. This time, however, it was not my fault. My internet is not cooperative, and I have had no connection since the beginning of December. For this, though, I've had plenty of time to work on this story, so I've gotthis chapter ready for you, and asecond uploading (my harddrive was erased and wasn't it smart of me to have backed everything up on disc!), and a thirdwell on the way. Love to you all; hope you like it!