"She's a witch! Burn her already!" – Monte Python and the Holy Grail
Cassie's apartment wasn't at all what I was expecting. I'm not entirely sure what I expected, but I didn't picture something so normal. It was similar to mine, all the student housing in the area was set up pretty similarly, but there was something just more homey about her place. The lack of hockey gear all over the place probably had something to do with that.
Their kitchen looked like it got used a lot more than ours did, but was still relatively clean, and there were decorations and throw pillows everywhere, and possibly the most Cassie thing ever, a giant whiteboard blocking the window in the living room with all sorts of stuff written on it about grad schools and med schools.
I slipped my shoes off, hung my coat on one of the hooks by the door, and followed her over to the living room.
"My roommates are at this poetry thing in Vancouver tonight and probably won't be back until you're gone," she says as we sit down, explaining why it's so much quieter here than my place usually is.
"Cool," I respond, "So I was thinking, we should do a double feature tonight, get two movies out of the way so that way we don't have to meet up as often."
For a split second, I think there's maybe a hint of disappointment on her face, but I've got to be imagining it because she responds with, "That's probably a good idea since both our schedules seem to be getting pretty packed."
"So we can start with Dirty Dancing, then do Crazy Rich Asians," I say, trying to remember the order of the movies we'd decided to watch.
"Sounds good to me," she replies turning Dirty Dancing on and then grabbing her notebook to take notes for the movie. I always feel so bad when she pulls her notebook out because I don't take notes, but seriously this project does not require the sheer amount of notes she takes.
The movie is predictably boring, and my attention keeps going toward the whiteboard in the corner with all the schools on it. It looks like it's split between her and her roommates and has all their grad school stuff on it. It's somehow both insane and impressive how organized they are. Half the schools on the board I've never even heard of, but from what I know about Cassie they're all probably insanely competitive schools full of people who care about school the way she does.
She must realize how zoned out I am because halfway into the movie, she asks if I want to order a pizza or something."You didn't even have to ask, I'll never say no to food. Especially pizza," I respond, immediately opening the website for Sailor Slices, the best local pizza place in the area.
She scoots closer to me to see what I'm ordering, and without even asking yanks my phone out of my hand, "Hey," I call out in shock.
"You're doing it wrong," she responds, typing something and swiping on my phone.
"It's ordering pizza, how am I doing it wrong?"
She sighs, "Sailor Slices does a discount if you put your student number in, but you have to do it before you select a pizza."
"They do what," I ask, "You are not telling me that I could've been getting cheaper pizza for the last four years."
"You're right I'm not telling you, I'm showing you," she replies smiling as she shakes my phone in my face, with a much cheaper price than I'm used to.
"Wait," I say before she hits the order button, "What type of pizza are you getting?"
"Meat lovers," she responds, "Please tell me you're not one of those people who only likes like cheese pizza."
"God no," I respond, "the more meat the better. I just thought you'd be one of those cheese-only people."
She gasps in mock shock, "That right there, West, might be the rudest thing you've ever said to me."
"I don't know," I reply, grabbing my phone, 'I've said some pretty rude stuff."
"True", she replies, but with a small smile on her face as she unpauses the movie. She sets the remote down, then settles down on the couch. Right next to me.
Before there'd been an entire seat cushion between us, but now she's directly next to me. Which makes sense, it'd be weird if after sitting right next to me to pick out the pizza she just moved all the way back, but now she's sitting mere inches away from me, and she smells really good.
I don't think I register anything that happens in the movie for the next twenty minutes, and I don't even know why. I don't like Cassie Bennet. I don't. It's just a natural reaction to sitting this close to a girl. It has absolutely nothing to do with Cassie.
When she gets a text that the delivery guy is out front and gets up to go get the pizza, I take that as time to talk some sense into myself. Cassie Bennet is still one of the rudest people I've ever met. How good she smells, and how pretty she is, and how sometimes she's kind of okay to be around don't change anything.
When she gets back with the pizza, and sits down next to me again, balancing the pizza box so it's on one of her thighs and one of mine, I focus on just eating my part of the pizza and not thinking about her, I even start paying attention to the movie.
"Can you dance like that," I ask her during one of the many dance scenes in the movie.
"No, but I could probably dance better than you," she responds.
See, I tell myself. Rude. She could've just said no, but she had to insinuate that she was a better dancer than me. This is how we find ourselves, six minutes later having a dance-off in her living room. She and her roommates have Just Dance, and I'm guessing she had to be as bored as I was of that movie to have paused it for this.
"No way," she calls out after I beat her a third time, "I want a rematch you've got to be cheating."
"I mean if you want to lose again, I guess," I respond teasingly, "You've seen how good our hockey team is, you should know I don't lose often."
"Well you're going to lose tonight," she replies determinedly, "Seriously though how are you this good?"
"Okay," I reply, "But you have to promise not to tell anyone. It'll completely ruin my reputation."
"What are you like a secret ballerina or something," she asks laughing, then she looks at my face, "Holy Shit you're a secret ballerina?"
"No not that," I respond, "It's worse? Or maybe better? Equally as bad? My grandma put me in ballroom dancing as a kid."
She laughs, "Ballroom dancing," she asks, "so like the waltz and stuff? How old were you?"
"Don't laugh," I respond, "I did it for a few years in middle school. She said if I wanted to play hockey, I needed to do something 'gentlemanlike' as well."
She continues laughing, then turns serious for a second, "Prove it."
"What," I ask.
"Prove that you can ballroom dance. I won't believe it until I see it."
"Well I'd need music," I stammer, not expecting this, "And a partner. You can't do a waltz alone."
She makes a show of pulling out her phone and searching for a ballroom dancing song, then walks over to me, "You better not step on my toes, West."
"This is just to prove to you that I can," I reply, hoping she can't tell how nervous I am, "Otherwise I'd never dance with you."
"Well obviously," she responds, reminding me of where I am and who I'm with. Cassie Bennet does not like me, and I do not like her.
I pull her in closer, grab one of her hands, and place the other on her waist, "Is this okay," I ask her, our faces mere inches apart.
She nods, her eyes wide. I'd never paid much attention to her eyes before, but being this close to her it's impossible not to. They're a green-brown color that I couldn't begin to describe. There's something so soft and pure about them at this moment, something so different than the usual glare I'm met with. Right now her eyes are mesmerizing, somehow both challenging and inviting.
I start leading her through a very basic waltz, trying to keep pace with whatever song is playing, it's something classical I have no doubt is on her study playlist. She's definitely the type to listen to classical music while she studies.
We probably look ridiculous, she's wearing leggings and an oversized crewneck and I have on athletic shorts and a Seaport Hockey hoodie and we're waltzing in her living room.
I guide her around to the song, and I assume she must have some sort of experience because she's keeping up better than I thought, I'm still the better dancer though. We keep making brief eye contact then both look away almost immediately. It gives me time to notice her up close. Everything from the soft smile on her face from the ridiculousness of this all, to the way the whisps of hair outside of her ponytail frame her face. I can't say I'd never noticed how beautiful she was before, you'd have to be blind not to have noticed, but I'd never appreciated it before. Not like this.
Before the song ends, I pull my arm up and spin her, but she wasn't completely ready for it and loses her balance slightly, falling on me, and I in turn fall onto the couch. We land so she's completely on top of me.
She looks up at me, "I am so sorry," she says, but she's laughing as she says it, we both are.
"It's fine," I respond, "I think that just proves that I'm the better dancer after all."
She sighs, but unlike normally, it doesn't bother me this time, "I guess."
"No, say it," I say, moving my face closer to hers, she's still on top of me, so now we're close enough that if I leaned just a little closer, our lips would be touching.
"I'm not going to say it," she replies pursing her lips together, then she starts to move, but before she can I use my hips to flip us over on the couch so suddenly I'm on top, leaning over her.
"Say it," I almost growl, using my hands to pin her into place underneath me.
"Make me," she replies, grabbing one of the arms I was pinning her with, catching me slightly off guard so she rotates us back so she's in the position of power, hovering over me.
"I don't think you want to do that," I respond, but before I can do anything, the sound of people opening the door comes, and just as quickly as she was over me, she's back on her side of the couch, putting the movie back on. As if nothing just happened.
"Hey," Lyra calls out, entering the room with two other girls," Cassie moved away so quickly, there's no way they can tell how close we just were, or what was just about to happen.
"Hey," Cassie says, sounding somewhat flustered, I look over towards her and there's a slight flush to her cheeks as if she got caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. "You guys are back earlier than I thought."
"Well, we got to the border, and were ready to get in line, when someone realized she'd left her passport here," The girl with really curly black hair said.
"Listen," the blonde one started to say, "I put it in my purse, then I switched bags last minute and it slipped my mind."
"Alyssa," Cassie said, that must've meant Alyssa was the blonde one, "I asked you if you had it before you guys left."
"And I thought I did," she replied, holding up her hands as if to say 'I'm innocent.'
"We ended up just getting dinner instead, hopefully, Julia's not too mad we missed the show," Lyra says with a shrug as the three of them take off their shoes and coats.
"Well we're still finishing up our movie so," Cassie starts to say, but gets cut off.
"Hi, you must be Hayden, I'm Alyssa, Cassie has not told us nearly enough about you."
I glance over at Cassie and see her shooting daggers at Alyssa with her eyes. And to think I thought that look was reserved for me.
"Alyssa, and Adrianna, this is Hayden," Cassie says so fast I can hardly tell what she's saying, "and you've already met Lyra, great introductions are made now let's get back to our movie, while they go to their rooms."
I stifle a laugh, Cassie so clearly does not want me talking to her roommates, it's kind of cute how hard she's trying to get them to go away.
"It's so nice to meet you," I say offering Cassie a devilish grin before I turn to face her roommates better, "and it's nice to see you again Lyra."
Lyra blushes as if she's surprised I remembered her, "It's nice to see you again too, thank you again for making sure Cassie got home safely last night."
"Oh that was no problem," I replied, "just doing what any good person would do."
"Last night," Alyssa asked confused, "what happened last night."
"Lyra can fill you in from your room," Cassie says, once again shooting daggers at them with her eyes.
"We've tortured her enough," Adrianna says, dragging the other two girls into one of their rooms, then closing the door.
"I'm sorry, they weren't supposed to be back yet, and well they tend to be either very protective or say anything to embarrass me."
"That's no problem, they seem nice," I respond, "plus I like seeing you embarrassed."
She throws a pillow at me, but I catch it. "Let's just finish the movie."
"Fine, but you need to stop throwing things at me, violence is not the answer."
She snorts, "This coming from a hockey player?"
I shrug, then we both turn out attention back to the end of the movie, whatever moment we were having earlier completely gone. I can't help but wonder what would've happened had her roommates not barged in.
After we finish the first movie, we start a second that way we don't have to meet up again for a few days, and unlike the first one, this one is actually kind of good. There are at least some good jokes in it. I do my best to ignore Cassie on her end of the couch for the entirety of the movie, and at the end when I turn towards her to make a comment, I see that she's completely passed out.
She's kind of cute when she's sleeping, maybe that's just because she's not glaring at or arguing with me though. I glance around the apartment, trying to figure out which room is hers, and landing on the one the door is cracked open. I don't want to just leave her here asleep on the couch, but also know if I wake her up she'll probably try to fight me about something.
So I pick her up, she's not that heavy, and that's one of the perks to being an athlete, I'm pretty good at carrying stuff. As I'm carrying her, bridal style, towards her room, one of her roommates comes out of the door next to her and gives me a funny look. I attempt to put a finger up to my lip, the universal shh sign.
Her roommate watches as I place Cassie down on her bed, then quietly exit the room.
"What'd you do that for," the roommate, I think it's Alyssa asks cautiously.
"That couch isn't comfortable enough to sleep on all night," I respond, shrugging.
"I thought you didn't like each other," Alyssa replies, arms crossed.
"We don't," I say back, "that's why I did it. Otherwise, she'd blame me when her neck was sore tomorrow morning."
"Hmm," is all she says as I walk towards the door to get my shoes on. After a minute she calls out, "Don't hurt her."
"What," I ask.
"Cassie. She's been through a lot. Her ex, he took a lot of her. And we just finally got her back. Don't hurt her."
"Look," I reply, "nothing is going on between me and Cassie, we don't even semi-like each other and even if there was I wouldn't do whatever the hell that guy did."
"I saw the way you looked at her and the way she looked at you. Lie to yourselves all you want, but there's something there. And Cassie isn't like the girls you hook up with, she does serious relationships, and come the end of the school year you're both going completely different places. Don't hurt her."
I nod, then walk out the door, completely unsure of what to say. I mean sure we'd been getting along a little bit better, and if her roommates hadn't walked in, who knows what would've happened tonight, but Cassie and I didn't think of each other like that, and one of the few things we'd probably agree on is how the last thing either of us wanted to do was date the other.So why did I feel somewhat disappointed as I thought about everything from what almost happened, to what her roommate just said as I drove back to my place?