Tricks to Sticks

part three

"What do I win?" Taylor asked with a smile on her face.

"Whatever you want," he said.

"And if you win?" she asked.

"Then you have to go on a date with me," he smiled.

She debated whether she should take up his offer on the challenge, or if she should just tell him to leave so she could practice, "All right," she accepted, "first, you gotta do a simple axel," she said before landing a perfect axel.

Charlie whistled, making her blush slightly, as he said, "I don't know if I can do that, but here goes nothing."

It amazed Taylor how he just went for it, 'It must be the arrogance,' she thought to herself.

The axel wasn't perfect, but he did it.

"Ta-da!" He said as he landed a very wobbly axel.

"Not bad," Taylor congratulated.

"Whatever you have in store, Jones, I'm ready for it," he joked.

"Yeah, right," she said as she began skating backward, which confused Charlie slightly by the look on his face. She then completed a perfect lutz, "Try that, Conway," she teased.

But in return, he just smirked at her. He skated backward, and completed a lutz, again, it wasn't perfect but he landed it.

"Just one more, and you have to go on a date with me," he said with a smirk.

Taylor scoured her brain to try to think of a trick that was hard, but not where he could potentially get seriously hurt by doing so.

"Hm," she hummed before prepping a flip jump. The jump required a lot of important steps to be able to land it, making it hard.

"Fair enough," he said before he just went for it.

Taylor flinched slightly as he barely landed it, which led to him falling, but smoothly recovering with a smile plastered on his face.

"So?" He asked as he approached the girl, "Is it a date?"

Taylor thought about it, "I'll give it to you," she smiled as the boy silently cheered, "But!" she said, "You have to tell me how you seemed to know what you were doing," she said with a smile.

"All right, so how does dinner at Mickey's on Friday sound?" he asked with a hopeful glint in his eyes.

"Sure," Taylor nodded with a smile.

Charlie looked at the clock, "Shoot," he said, "I gotta go, I promised Fulton I'd help him with Chemistry. I'm really sorry. But this was fun."

"Yeah, it was. I've gotta practice anyway. Ya know, gotta live up to the last name," she chuckled.

"I'll see you tomorrow!" he yelled.

And with that, he was out of the arena in no time.

This sure wasn't how Taylor had imagined her monday afternoon to go.

_________________

Although Taylor didn't practice like she'd intended to, she just headed back to her dorm. When she unlocked the door, she saw Connie and Julie just casually sitting on the wooden floor chatting.

"Hey, Taylor," Connie greeted cheerily.

"Hey," Taylor said as she closed the door behind her, and shoved her skates under her bed.

"So, how was the skate? It hasn't been that long," Julie stated.

"I only had the rink for a little while, but Varsity came, so I just left," she lied, joining them on the floor.

"Yeah, they're some real jerks," Connie said and Julie nodded in agreement.

Taylor scoffed, "Tell me about it, I'm related to Rick Riley's partner in crime."

Their conversation lasted about an hour until Connie had to leave.

"So, what did you do at the rink earlier?" Julie asked.

Taylor looked at her friend, confused, "What do you mean? I already told you, Varsity came," she chuckled.

"If there's one thing you need to know about me, it is that I know everyone's schedules, and as far as I know, Varsity doesn't have practice at six-thirty in the evening on Mondays," Julie said.

"Fine," Taylor said as she quickly produced another lie, "I forgot my tape."

"Fair enough," Julie said as she got up to go brush her teeth in the bathroom, which was at the end of the hall.

Taylor then grabbed her book and started reading, she wasn't gonna sleep till she finished it.