The Crimson Chariot

12 | Mirage of Myths

Just as I was about to exit the Facetime as well, Aiden stops me.

"Hey rookie, send me the address of the Ice Rink that your roommate invited me to?" he asks. Sadie went through my phone a few days ago and the moment she got a hold of Aiden's number, she asked him to come to this Ice Rink she and Javier love going to. I don't know why she wouldn't just ask me for his number instead of fishing through my phone in my sleep. Well, I think I know why. There is no way I would've given her the number without knowing the context.

"Yup, will do," I say. "Also, I'm not your rookie today. Day off, remember?"

"But you still responded to my question, rookie," he says, flashing a cocky smile that makes me sigh.

"I'll kill you one day," I say.

"Cross your heart," he says and ends the call with one last smirk. I shake my head and scream into my pillow both in frustration and anxiety at the thought of meeting up with him at some place other than work. Well, Sadie and Javier will be there too so I guess it would be less awkward, right? You know what they say — Ignore the problem and it ceases to exist.

"Breakfast in bed?" Sadie sings on a broken note as she arrives in my room, carrying a bed tray table with some steaming pancakes with maple syrup poured on them. I'm pretty sure she had been listening to the whole conversation like the eavesdropper she is.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask her, dejected.

"Doin...whaf?" she asks, her mouth stuffed with pancakes to the brim.

"The Ice Rink. You know what you're doing."

She shrugs and swallows the bolus of food. "I just want to get to know your co-worker better."

"That's all?"

"Mhmm," she says, about to eat another piece of the pancake when I grab her hand, stopping her from doing so.

"Sadie, this isn't going to be a double date. Aiden and I are colleagues and trust me, he's...insufferable and he talks like he has the wisdom of a seventy-year-old man! I mean, who goes to operas these days? You don't even know the language they're performing in. And not to mention, he's kind of a dick with that awful attitude. He and I? Polar opposites!'

"You like him," Sadie says with a nod and that makes me about to go on another tangent when she pokes a piece of pancake into my mouth. "Eat up, Amy. I can give you a thousand reasons why opposites attract while you do."

***

At around five, Sadie, Javier, and I meet up at the Indoor Ice Skating Rink. It's located in a buzzing commercial intersection in New Orleans, the neighboring city of Valenchester. Also, I finally realized ice skating was the one thing Aiden is not good at, and I make sure to laugh under my breath every time he falls over.

"Go help your pal, Amy!" Sadie says with a wink and my laughs stop.

"You were a figure skater in high school, right? Why don't you help him out?" I ask.

Sadie, instead of answering me, takes Javier by the hand as the both of them skate away, leaving me alone with my doomed fate.

"A little help here?" Aiden groans, trying to get back on his feet but flails his arms and falls flat on the ice...yet again.

I give out a long exhale and make my way over to him, reaching out my hand for him to hold. "That's the most compassion you will get out of me," I say.

He manages to extend his hand and grabs onto it and finally gets on his feet.