He grinned at me.
"Well, a certain Megan Wong let it slip that someone thought I was a terrible kisser. So I've brushing up on my skills for a while now."
I suddenly felt my face go red. I shouldn't be here. I don't need another stupid relationship.
"I have to go. This was a stupid idea," I muttered under my breath, trying to pull away from his grasp.
"Cass." Zach's blue eyes are serious all of a sudden. "I know that whatever went down with Tristan is still pretty fresh, but I can wait. It's what I've been doing forever, isn't it?"
I make sure not to look at him as I wriggle out of his arms.
"Zach. No. I'm sorry, but I don't want all this boyfriend drama-rama, as Coach Larsen put it." I try to smile ruefully.
He sighs, but let's me go. As I stalk off to my own car, I hear him call out after me.
"I'm serious Cass, I'll be here if you need me. "
Like I care.
On my drive to the rink, I ponder what the kiss means. Should I have acted the way I did? Argh. Feelings are so hard to deal with. At times like these, I wish I could just revert to 7th grade me.
I try to shove thoughts of the kiss out of my brain, which I manage at the rink, but I fail miserably at home. I can't focus on anything but the sensation of his lips on mine. It was different, somehow, then all those previous times we'd kissed. Yet, I couldn't quite place my finger on what exactly that difference was.
I avoided him like the plague for the next couple weeks, walking in the opposite direction whenever I saw him coming. But I kept thinking about that kiss.
I swore I was crazy at that time. The only place I could think was out on the ice, so I guess it's not much of a shock that I realized what I had to do during a private skating session late one Thursday night.
I texted Zach the next night.
Meet me in at the baseball field.
Then I booked on over there myself. It was kind of weird being there again. I had quit baseball last year, because hockey, and then Chicks with Sticks took up so much of my time.
It's also kind of weird being here at night. It's pretty, but kind of - what's the word – ominous. Up above, the stars seem to be winking at me, almost like they were encouraging me for what I needed to do. I sat on the pitcher's mound and waited.
I heard the sound of a car engine roll up, then splutter to a stop. I looked up at the sky again, and before I knew it, there he was, standing like, 10 feet away.
I scrambled to my feet.
"So what's up, Sloane? " he asked. "What did you ask me to come here for?
"I was wondering if your offer still stands…" I asked, trying to keep my voice from wavering.
He looked at me intently for a while. A long while. And when he spoke, his voice was soft.
"Yeah. Of course." He took a step closer.
But it was me who closed the gap. Even now, it feels weird saying this, but that night felt right. We stayed for a while, just lying on the pitcher's mound, talking, before texts from our mothers recalled us home.
"Good night, Cass," he added as he leaned in to kiss me.
"Good night, you dork." But even I couldn't keep the smile off my face.
