30.
If there was ever a time that the ice would magically open and swallow me whole, now would have been as good a time as ever.
I forced out a small cough, pushed myself back several feet to create some much-needed space between Aiden and me. A sensation of heat filled my body as I saw how everyone had stopped what they were doing look thanks to Brendon's outburst.
"Explain what?" Aiden asked, to which I titled my head. It was rather obvious what everyone was curious about. We had just kissed in front of everyone. Unprovoked. The last time any of them had seen us interact with one another, I had stormed out of the rink.
I looked back to Brendon. Nate had joined him on one side, Brett on the other. The three musketeers. They looked so intense, so serious. Arms crossed over their chest, straight faces. I felt like I was a kid about to be scolded by three dads.
"We made up," I confessed as it wasn't obvious.
Slowly, the serious expression on Brendon's face started to lose its grip. His eyebrows raised. He cracked a smile. "You mean made out?"
My cheeks burned. If I wasn't a tomato before, I had to have been one now. Brendon may have just be teasing, but unfortunately for me, his teasing held a lot of truth to it. In that moment my poker face was nonexistent.
His smile morphed into a smirk as he noticed my obvious blushing. I bit my tongue, braced myself for him to call me out on it. Thankfully, he never did.
"Come on guys," Chris suddenly called. "Back to work. There is a better time and place for this that is not the middle of a practice." He shot a warning glance around the ice at all of his teammates, watched as they one by one started to go back to working.
A rush of relief washed over me as the team's attention was no longer on me and Aiden. I knew that sooner rather than later I was going to have to face everyone and explain, but thanks to Chris, I could push it off a little longer.
"That includes you three too." Chris shot Brendon and his amigos a warning shot. "You can pester Zoe and Aiden all you want after we aren't paying for the ice."
To my surprise, none of them protested. They just quietly went back to working on dribbling and passing exercises.
I looked over to Aiden, who, unlike the rest of his teammates, had not gone back to working on anything. He shot me a sly smirk, regained the distance I had put between us. We were polar opposites when it came to being under scrutiny. I was mortified and he was cool as a cucumber. Practically unaffected.
"What am I going to do with you two?" Chris skated over, strategically placing himself between Aiden and I to cut Aiden off from coming any closer. He turned his blue eyes to mine, then to Aiden. He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. "I feel like I should not have to tell you guys this, but that had to have been the worst possible way that you could have let the cat out of the bag."
Aiden laughed, shrugging it off as though it was no big deal. "It wasn't my intention to draw everyone's attention."
I knew before he kissed me that it was a bad idea to do it in front of everyone. I knew that it would stir up questions and lots of confusion. I knew all that and yet I still couldn't help myself.
"Sorry." This got both Chris and Aiden's attention.
Aiden's lips lifted softly to one side, offering a sympathetic expression. He didn't say anything, but I could tell that he felt bad for causing a scene.
"You don't have to be sorry, Zoe." After being serious to defuse the situation, Chris couldn't resist a smile any longer. "I'm actually happy to see that you two are finally getting along. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner."
For a second I was going to ask him what he meant by his second comment. Then I remembered the conversation from the barbeque. All the boys seemed to have thought that there was something already going on between Aiden and me. At the time there wasn't, but it made sense that he was surprised it hadn't happened sooner.
I dropped my head. The boys probably thought I had been lying before.
"Right," Aiden mumbled lowly. I didn't have to look up to know that his face showed not an ounce of amusement. It made me wonder if the guys had teased him about it in the same way they had to me.
A silence fell over the three of us. The only sounds were of the hockey team chattering around us, skates and pucks gliding around the ice.
"I'm going to get back to practice." I didn't bother to look back at Chris or Aiden before I spun around on my skates to flee to the other side of the rink. I knew that I would be scolded for leaving, so I wasn't going to. But I was going to avoid as many of the team as possible, working on dribbling by myself.
I wanted nothing more than this dreaded hockey practice to be over and done with.
_-_-_
I sucked in a large breath of air, held onto it as I paced back and forth in front of the lockers. Somehow I had managed to survive the full hour on the ice with the hockey team. After Chris scolded everyone, no one tried to ask me any questions either.
It was the longest hour of my entire life.
"This is such a mess." I let out a frantic sigh. The more I thought the worse I felt. I should not have let Aiden kiss me in front of everyone. It was the wrong place and the wrong time. People aren't supposed to kiss in the middle of their practice.
I stopped my pacing the second my phone screen lit up. Someone was texting me. I leaned down to where my phone sat on the wooden bench, praying that it wasn't one of the guys. It was Lucy. Eagerly, I reached for my phone and hit dial.
"Hey, where have you been?" She answered after only one ring. "I just stopped by your house to see if you wanted to go get coffee and you weren't there."
I hesitated. My mouth hung slightly agape as my brain scrambled to think of an excuse that didn't involve the hockey team. "Mark called me into the rink for a last-minute thing." Lies.
A pang of guilt hit me knowing that I was lying to my best friend. I could really have used her advice right now, but she was as in the dark as the boys. It was late last night; I hadn't had time to call and fill her in on the many events of last night.
"Oh, well if you're almost done I can pick you up from there."
I could hear the door the locker room swing open and then footsteps. I swallowed. It wasn't likely that one of the guys would have come inside the girl's locker room... right? "Yeah, sounds fun. I'll see you in thirty minutes," I mumbled to Lucy right before I hung up.
The door banged shut and a second later, Kelsey had appeared from around the corner.
"Kelsey?" I asked, feeling relieved my paranoia was off. "You guys are still in town?"
"My dad has one last meeting with Mark Hansen tomorrow for his new sponsorship of the arena."
The new sponsorship. With everything that had happened with Aiden over the last few days, I had completely forgotten about the rink getting a new sponsor. Henry Olson was paying for a brand-new ice rink. Henry Olson must have been her dad.
"The ice rink," I mumbled. "I can't believe that your dad is paying for a new ice rink for our small town."
Kelsey snorted. "Yeah. He is." Kelsey rolled her eyes, looking unimpressed, but I didn't get the impression that it was meant for me. "My dad has a bad case of 'my bank account is bigger than your bank account' when it comes to my uncle Lance. He always has to one up him."
Aiden had mentioned that his dad and uncle were competitive with one another. "Aiden must not have exaggerated that Lance doesn't get along with your dad then?" I asked.
Kelsey shook her head. "You have no idea. Literally everything is a competition between them. Everything." She sighed, walked over to the bench and took a seat. "I feel bad for Dylan and Aiden. They compare them the most."
"They compare them?"
"Mostly they argue over who is the more successful athlete. They compare the different awards, the number of games won, that type of thing." Kelsey took in a breath and let it out slowly. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that's why my uncle sponsored the rink. He probably only did it so that his son wouldn't be a part of team with poor funding."
I frowned. That didn't seem healthy for the dad's or their kids. Comparing any kids to another was toxic enough. But to compare a football player to a hockey player was comparing apples to oranges. Two vastly different sports.
Aiden was right. It was painful irony that his dad cared so much about him being the best hockey player to compete with Henry Olson when he didn't want Aiden to try to go pro. That made no sense.
I took a seat on the bench a few feet down from Kelsey. "That sounds horrible."
"It is."
She sighed, stood from the bench watching me with a watchful eye. "Anyways," she began. "I came in here to check on you for the boys. They were worried about you."
My heart melted slightly. That was sweet of the boys to send someone in to check on me. "I'm fine. You can tell them I'll be out in a bit. I just have to shower quickly."
Kelsey nodded. "I'll let them know."
After showering I combed my hair, threw on a baby blue hoodie, white cut off jeans, and some white converse. There was no more postponing the inevitable. I had to face the boys at some point. I couldn't hide in the locker room forever.
Aiden was waiting for me as I pushed open the door. His back was to as he leaned his forearms against the railing, watching some young kids free skating. His hoodie was different than the one from practice, but it didn't appear that he had showered.
"Hey," I greeted him as I joined him by the railing. He turned to face me, shot me a warm smile that made my stomach start doing back flips.
"Are you doing okay?" He was worried about me. "You seemed flustered after we kissed, and you were in the locker room a long time."
I nodded. I was okay. I'd mentally talked myself off the deep end and realized that I was just being over dramatic. The boys were not going to judge me or him. "I'm just an overthinker."
Aiden's eyes narrowed skeptically like he wasn't sure that he believed me. But I was telling the truth. I was okay now.
"Aiden." I dropped my shoulder down, letting the strap to my duffel bag fall down my arm until the bag hit the ground with a gentle thud. I picked up Aiden's hand in my own. "Are we putting a label on this? What are we supposed to tell people if they ask?"
Aiden's lips curled. "You are an overthinker."
More than he realized.
"Well?" I pushed, pressed upward on my toes to get closer to his height. I may have been an overthinker, but this was a crucial question that needed an answer. If people were going to start asking us questions, we needed to be able to tell them something.
Aiden laughed, placed his hands on my shoulders to press me back down to the ground. "I thought we talked about this last night?"
My lips pierced to a thin line. Yes, but he failed to give me an answer. Two people that like each other was not an appropriate answer. "That wasn't an answer that I can tell people."
"No, it is an answer you can tell people." He grinned with mirth. "It's just not the one that you are looking for, is it?"
I opened my mouth to protest but was quickly cut off. "Uhm, what the heck is going on here?" Lucy.
I spun to the side to see my best friend eying me as though I'd just committed a felony. My mind blanked. The last time I'd spoken about Aiden to Lucy was when her and Riley had convinced me that I liked him. The last she knew was that I was still made at him.
At least Lucy didn't catch us kissing.
"Hey Lucy," Aiden greeted with a casual smile. It wasn't weird at all that him and I were having a perfectly normal conversation. "It's been a while. How are you doing?"
Lucy raised her eyebrows at him as if it were bizarre that he actually talked. "Uhm I'm fine." Her dark blue eyes jumped to mine, and she swallowed. "Or maybe I'm hallucinating."
Aiden laughed. "You aren't."
"Zoe. What's going on?"
I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Aiden and I get along now?" It came out as more of a question rather the statement it was meant to be,
"Since when?"
My cheeks burned. "Uh... since we kissed?"
"But you hated him a couple days ago when we went hiking. You kissed at the bonfire over a we-" She broke mid-sentence, picking up on all of my signs of discomfort. My poker face was horrible today.
"You guys kissed again?" Lucy ran towards me squealing. "And you didn't tell me?!"
Lucy's sudden outburst of excitement scared me. It was not the reaction that I was expecting her to have. I thought she would have been upset that I hadn't told her about it the second it happened.
"When did this happen?"
"Last night."
She grinned, rocked forward on her toes. "So does this make you two a couple?"
There it was: the dreaded question that I knew people were going to ask. I turned to Aiden to answer with my eyebrows raised. Maybe he would give her a straight answer since he wouldn't me.
Aiden's eyes dropped down to me and smirked before turning toward Lucy. He swung his arm around my shoulder, pulling me lightly toward him. "Yes. She's my girlfriend."
My eyes stayed trained on Aiden's face as an uncontrollable smile lifted the corners of my lips upward. He did want to put a label on us after all. The word "girlfriend" sounded pretty darn good coming from his lips.
Lucy let out another squeal and seconds later her arms were wrapped around me, causing Aiden to pull his arm away. "I am so excited for you Zoe!!" She practically yelled as her arms tightened around me. "I told you that you liked him," she whispered quietly in my ear, earning an eye roll from me.
"Thanks Lucy."
"As much as I hate to steal you away from Aiden," Lucy started as she pulled her arms away. "But I told Riley we would meet her at the coffee shop in fifteen."
"It's twenty minutes to the coffee shop from here," I pointed out.
Lucy shrugged. "We are late."
I couldn't help but laugh. Typical Lucy.
I turned to Aiden. "Is it okay if I see you later?"
He gave a soft smile. "Yeah, come to my place this afternoon. Chris and the rest of the guys would love to talk I'm sure."
"She'll be there," Lucy answered for me when I failed to respond within a second. She grabbed onto my hand and began to pull me away. "Thank you, Aiden," she sung cheerfully.
I stumbled forward as Lucy began to drag me, almost face planting over my bag on the ground. Aiden couldn't help but laugh at my friend's obliviousness. "Lucy wait my bag." All of my skating gear was inside that duffel bag. It was too expensive to leave lying around.
Lucy didn't seem to hear me as she didn't stop. She just kept tugging me along.
Thankfully, Aiden had picked up my bag from the ground. "You can get it tonight," he called. As I looked over at him over my shoulder, he winked.
Lucy pulled my arm closer to her, forcing me to snap my head back straight. She turned her head to me excitedly. "What are you getting tonight?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows at me. Completely oblivious to my bag.
I threw my head back in laughter. "Not what you are thinking, I'm sure."