Breaking The Ice

Switch

"You're a fucking moron, Teej." I mumbled to myself as I stripped out of my wet bathing suit, pulling the shirt over my head before I went across the hall into the other bathroom to brush my teeth.

I chugged as much water as I could, desperately trying to sober myself up so I didn't do anything more stupid than I'd already done, taking a good look in the mirror and wondering who the hell was staring back at me. It wasn't like me to make the first move in the first place, let alone pathetically long for them after they rejected me, but it appeared that's exactly what I was doing.

Kissing Harry had flipped some switch inside me, and I desperately wanted to turn it back off. It was as if I couldn't control my own thoughts or emotions, just a bunch of different things rushing through me, scattered around like puzzle pieces that I had no idea how to put together. I don't know how long I stood there just staring at myself, before I took a deep breath and tried to accept that I was drunk as fuck.

Go to bed, Teej.

I sighed and chugged one more glass of water, turned off the light and made my way back across the hall. For a second I contemplated just going to sleep on the couch, wanting to avoid the opportunity to make things any worse, but the sight of Harry all curled up in the bed waiting for me was something I just couldn't turn away from. As much as I wanted to crawl into a hole and die, I still wanted to be close to him so much that my pathetic neediness overshadowed my shame enough for me to climb in next to him.

The second I got into bed he turned and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into him and kissing my head, which suddenly felt different than it usually did. He was acting completely normal, but now it just felt confusing. I told myself it was the booze, that tomorrow morning maybe neither of us would even remember, but I think I knew I was lying to myself.

If I was actually being honest, I'd always been attracted to Harry. Even the first time I ever saw him and thought he was a complete douche, I couldn't deny that the natural confidence he exuded was sexy. It was easy to see why girls flocked to him, his face was annoyingly flawless and he had the body of a Greek god, but I'd been so desperate to not fall in line behind them that I think I'd overly compensated for my desire to not find him attractive. Instead of just acknowledging that he was good looking, I'd tried to pretend that I didn't see what all the fuss was about, and that had apparently led to me bottling up a ridiculous amount of physical attraction to him.

Aside from the fact that he was one of the most gorgeous guys I'd ever seen, I liked the way he challenged me. Not only did he challenge me, he treated me the way I'd always longed to be treated. He made me feel respected and safe, comfortable in my own skin and free to be who I was. He made me feel like being strong woman wasn't a bad thing, and his masculinity wasn't intimidated by it. He was confident in who he was, in what he stood for, and he wasn't afraid to stand up for what was right.

I think that's how I knew that me kissing him was a manifestation of much more than me just appreciating his nice body and my natural attraction to it. It was more than a drunken moment that occurred between two friends that had too much to drink. It was my subconscious forcing me to act on a bunch of things I didn't even know I'd buried, and they'd all come to the surface and blown up in my face.

I was up most of the night coming to the realization that I had much deeper feelings for him than I'd ever allowed myself to explore, and the fact that I'd somehow acted on those feelings and been rejected made me fear that it would change things. I didn't want things to be weird between us, we needed each other, but I knew that I needed some time to get over my embarrassment about the whole thing and I was thankful that school and hockey and all the distractions that came with it would be returning over the next couple of days as everyone slowly arrived home and things got back to normal.