Slapshot

Chapter 35: Interrupted

He heard me coming because of the stupid crutches, turning to look at me. "Hey." He said.

"I have to talk to you." I say.

He looks around. "Here?"

I look around, too. There were lots of students passing by. "Somewhere private."

"There's only, like, ten minutes until homeroom." He points out.

"That's all I need." I say. "Let's go to the rink."

We start walking in that direction, and he chuckles. "It's going to take you ten minutes just to get there."

"Shut up." I laugh. It does take us a few minutes to get there, but I don't mind being late to homeroom.

He opens the rink door, and the cool air immediately hits us. "I'm not getting to the top, let's just sit here." I say, sitting on the first row of the bleachers. He takes a seat beside me.

"What's up?" He asked.

I take a deep breath. "I don't know how I feel yet—".

"That's fine." He cuts me off.

"But it's not." I continue. "Because last night I couldn't do anything, I couldn't even focus on my homework or on anything because of what happened."

He pauses. "So now you know how I felt."

I sigh. He was right. "I'm sorry." I shake my head, because now I felt selfish.

"Don't be sorry." He says quietly.

"What am I supposed to do? I'm even nervous right now, Jon." I say, looking at the ground. My leg was bouncing up and down subconsciously.

"Yeah, your hands are shaking." He mumbled. "Why are you so nervous?"

"I'm worried that I ruined it between us. I'm worried that I can't give you what you want, and then you're never going to want to talk to me again. I'm worried that this isn't going to work out. I'm just overthinking everything, I guess." I say, not able to look at him. I don't know what it was, but for some reason I was always my most honest self with him. 

"Taylor..." He trails off, cupping my cold hands in his warm ones. The bell rings, but neither of us make a move to stand or get to class. "You didn't ruin our friendship, if anything I ruined it." He pauses before continuing. "What do you want?"

"What do you mean?" I say, finally looking at him.

"Not in the future, but right now, in this moment. What do you want?" He asks.

"I want to be your friend, and I want things to go back to normal. At least for right now."

"Okay..." He says.

"But I don't know if I can do that." I say with a sigh. He looked confused. Obviously he was confused, even I was confused.

"Contrary to what you may think, not everything always has to be planned out, it doesn't always have to be in order." He says.

"Meaning...?" I ask.

"Meaning don't worry. We're here right now, just go with it."

"Jon..." I start.

"Don't worry. If you wanna be friends, we'll be friends. If you want advice, I'll give you advice. If you want to kiss me, then go ahead." He said, his face breaking out into a smile.

"If you want to hold my hands, then go ahead." I chuckled, gesturing to our hands.

He smiled. "Just treat this like normal. Don't overthink anything, just go with it." He says.

"Okay." I say.

"So we're all good?" He asked.

I nodded. "Isn't this weird? Me and you? You used to hate me." I say with a chuckle. "Like, despise me." 

"Yeah, I did." He says, giving me a sheepish look. "I'm sorry."

"I was so offended because nobody's ever hated me." I reply.

"I'm sorry. At least I taught you how to play hockey." He points out.

"Only because you were forced to teach me." I remind him. He laughs.

"Are you gonna want to play again? After your foot's healed?" He asks.

"Maybe. I don't really know. I kinda sucked before." I say truthfully. "I'm going to physio tonight, though."

"Oh." He says. "Are you going alone?"

I shake my head. "Cameron's offered to come."

"Oh," says Jon. "That's nice."

I laughed at how uncomfortable he looked. "You know yesterday he almost got into a fight for me." He said.

I remember seeing that and being surprised. "So you don't hate him anymore?"

He shrugs. "He's alright." I smile. At least my two friends were getting along.

I shrug my hands away and take out my phone to check the time. "Maybe we should go to class." I say quietly.

Jonathan shakes his head no, leaning forward and tucking my hair behind my ear. He kept playing with it, smoothing it out. I observed his face, how he was able to look so interested in such a simple task. Then when his eyes met mine, he leaned in very, very slowly. Our faces were just inches apart and I could feel his breath against me when the rink door opened very loudly. Jonathan immediately stood up.

My gaze shot to him first, standing straight with his hands behind his back, and then the door. The head janitor, Mr. Norberg, stood at the door, looking at us oddly.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you two be in class?" He asked, his eyes trailing between the two of us.

"We're on spare." Jon said for the both of us.

"Well I don't know about you, but I know Taylor isn't. Come on, get to class." He says, and I reluctantly stand up with my bag. Jon gives me a weird look, but I gesture for him to follow me out of the rink.

"Bye Mr. Norberg." I say as I pass by him. He closes the door behind us.

"How the hell does he know your schedule? I don't even know your schedule." Jon mumbles as we walk out.

"Back when I sprained my ankle I had to use the elevator a few times in the morning and didn't have a key. So I had to talk to him to use his." I inform him.

"Oh." He huffed. I looked at him with a smile.

"Don't be angry, you can kiss me some other time." I chuckled. His face burned red.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He said, turning to me and this time chuckling as well.

I smirked as we continued to walk down the hall to my class. I'd probably walk in 10 minutes late, but I could always just blame it on the crutches.

"Sorry for making us late," I said as we neared my class.

"I don't mind." He says.

We both stopped outside of my class. "I'll see you around." I say, "Thanks."

"Yeah, see you." He says, an unreadable expression on his face as I walked into my class and he left.

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