11.
Like clockwork my body was up and wide awake at 4:00AM. The headache and fatigue from yesterday was gone and I felt eager for a morning run.
A shiver shot through my body as my bare feet touched the cold wood flooring. I felt no lingering effects from yesterday's hangover. Never again would I drink the mystery punch at a bonfire.
I shuffled across my room to my closet, pulled out a pair of Nike pro shorts, the matching sports bra, and a loose-fitting tank top. From the top drawer of my dresser I grabbed a clean pair of underwear and quickly got changed. I ran a brush through my hair and threw it into a messy ponytail and topped it off with a headband to tame any flyaways. Then I slid on some socks and my running shoes and made my way to the kitchen.
In place of a more traditional breakfast, I liked to make myself a smoothie. It was a perfect alternative. Delicious, healthy, and most important, easy for me to make. I pulled the silver blender from its spot in the corner of the counter, plugged it in before I gathered my ingredients.
One by one I dropped each ingredient into the blender and hit start.
My gaze flickered to the doorway, hearing someone's footsteps. My parents never got up before 8:00 and they both could have slept through a tornado so I doubted it would be either of them. It wasn't.
"You're up early," I commented as Scott walked through the doorway. He looked as wide away as I felt. I hadn't seen him since the bonfire since by the time I got home from the rink he had left for a friend's house.
He shot me a lazy grin. "You aren't the only one who likes an early morning workout, sis."
"You want to join me for my run?"
I turned back to the blender that, by now, had finished blending together my smoothie. I dumped the contents into my glass and lifted it to my lips.
"Yeah, that'd be nice."
Scott walked over to the cupboard to get a glass. He filled it with ice water and turned to me with a wry smile. "I missed seeing you yesterday. How'd everything go?"
I took a small sip of my smoothie. He was likely inquiring about the hangover since I was pretty sure that he wasn't aware of my punishment with Aiden. Unless of course Aiden had told him.
"Well apart from being hungover?" I lowered my glass. "Terrible."
"Even without a hangover it was still terrible?"
I nodded. The hangover caused the majority of my issues. The pounding head. Being late to my meeting. Muscle Fatigue and light sensitivity. But, punishment with Aiden still sucked regardless of all that.
"Why didn't you stop me from drinking?" Chris had told me that I cut Scott off when he tried to tell me I was drinking alcohol, but he didn't push it. He should have grabbed the cup out of my hand and made me listen. He's my older brother. I feel like that should have made him protect over me.
He frowned. "I tried. You snapped at me. And besides, I figured you were drinking because you were upset 'cause I invited a couple hockey players."
I took a big gulp. "I guess no real harm was done. Chris filled me in on what happened since I couldn't remember anything."
"Chris?" Scott set his cup on the counter and turned to me with his eyes narrowed. Now he was protective. "Is there something going on between you two? I thought you didn't like hockey players."
I snorted. "No."
Although I did think Chris was a genuinely decent guy, I didn't seem him like that. He wasn't arrogant or cocky like Aiden. He was nice. There was a chance I was starting to see him as a friend, but nothing more. I mean I barely knew the guy.
"If you say so."
I rolled my eyes. "I do say so. Chris and I are just friends."
I quickly downed the rest of my smoothie.
----
Aiden was late.
Twenty-two minutes late to be exact.
The corners of my lips twitched down into a frown. My eyes darkened into a glare on Aiden as he finally made his way toward the ice. "You're late," I barked.
"Sorry," he grumbled. His face held a dull expression. "My dad wanted to talk."
My face softened. If his dad truly was the reason he was late, I couldn't hold that against him. Lance knew about our punishment, so their must have been a good reason for making him late.
"Whatever, let's just get started."
Aiden nodded in response before he changed into the pair of figure-skates that I had left on the bench for him.
I stayed in my spot on the center the ice as I watched him do his warmup. He seemed far more comfortable than I expected him to be. Like there was no major difference from his hockey skates. I just had to be patient; Aiden hadn't noticed the toe pick yet.
After a few minutes of letting him warm up, I skated over to the wall. "Are you ready to start?"
Aiden turned in my direction, let out a soft sigh as he started towards me. He skated over, skirted to a stop in front of me, intentionally spraying me with a wash of ice.
I frowned. It wasn't that he sprayed me with ice that bothered me, rather he used his hockey stop and didn't trip over his toe pick.
"Bring it on," he challenged. A wide grin swept across his features, causing my frown to deepen. Aiden seemed too eager for my liking. Figure skating was supposed to be a challenge. It was supposed to be torture for him. He was not supposed to try and challenge me.
"Today, you will learn how do a spiral."
I turned back to him, electing to ignore his challenging smirk. We weren't here to fight. This was supposed to be making us respect one another.
I placed my right hand on the wall. "A spiral," I explained, "is when you raise your free leg above your hip."
"You do this on the wall?" I whipped around to glare at him. It was obvious a diss was coming next. "Doesn't seem very hard."
And, there it was.
I let out a small huff of air. Dick.
He grinned, but listened to my instruction and put his right hand on the wall. He leaned down towards me, taunting me. "Now what?"
I bit down on my tongue. We had only just begun but I had already decided that teaching Aiden was much was than suffering through hockey.
"I'm starting you off on the wall so that you can learn proper positioning before attempting this while gliding across the ice." I dropped my voice, mumbled under breath, "We wouldn't want you to fall flat on your face, now would we?"
From the smirk on Aiden's face, I was positive he still heard me.
"Are you worried about me Lodge?"
A harsh laugh erupted through me. "Worried about you?" I shook my head. As if. "But, I do need this to go well so that I don't get into any further trouble with Mark."
Aiden raised his eyebrows, pulling his hand off the wall. He crossed his arms over his black hoodie. "So you are worried about me. You're worried that I'll ruin this for you."
He wasn't wrong. I was worried that he wasn't going to take our time on the ice seriously. We only had one job and that was to teach each other about our sports. If we didn't take it seriously then I feared we would get into more trouble with Mark. That didn't mean that I was worried about him, rather his actions. I couldn't have cared less about what happened to him.
"Let's just get this over with," I mumbled. I went on to explain to him everything that we were going to work on in today's practice. To my surprise, Aiden didn't protest. Nor did he have any snarky comments. He actually listened.
"Both your legs need to be straight."
I skated off the wall, joined him at his side to demonstrate. I leaned forward, lifted my left leg up off the ice and extended it out above my hip, paused for several seconds, and slowly lowered it back down. "And you want to make sure that you turn out your foot."
He nodded, lifting his leg up for a second time. To my dismay, he didn't seem like he was struggling in the slightest. It was a decent attempt, but his leg was just below his hip. Not quite high enough.
"Lean forward. It will better allow yourself to be able to lift your leg higher. Keep your head up and chest out to prevent yourself from falling forward as you lift your leg higher."
His third attempt was much better than the first two, but his leg still wasn't quite high enough. I started to reach out my hand to adjust his leg when I paused. Yesterday it felt weird when he touched my hand to adjust it on the stick without permission. Was it weird if I touched his leg without asking? I bit my lip.
Conclusion: it was only weird if I made it weird.
I placed my hand under his skate, lifted his leg up another inch or two. "This is the minimum height that your leg needs to be."
"This isn't exactly the hardest thing," Aiden scoffed, and I immediately dropped his leg and rolled my eyes. He lowered his leg back down to the ice before he turned to face me.
"If this is so easy," I challenged him. "Then let's see you do a perfect spiral while gliding across the middle of the ice."
Aiden's lips pulled at the corner into a sly one-sided smirk. "Easy enough."
Yeah. I snorted. Until he noticed the toe pick.
He pushed himself to a slow skate, made his way to the middle of the ice. On his way he turned to face me, continuing in a backward skate. "Care to make things a little more interesting?"
I raised my eyebrows. "Like a bet?"
It seemed like a stupid Aiden to make a bet with Aiden. Something had to have been off if he felt cocky enough to challenge me to a bet in regard to figure skating. In my head, I knew that. But I had to admit, I was intrigued.
"What do you have in mind?"
"If I can pull off doing a correct spiral, first try, then you have to join the hockey team in a practice. But, if you win and I fall or mess up, then I will never make another comment about figure skating not being a real sport."
The proposal was intriguing. To never have Aiden ever say another diss at figure skating again would have been nice. It would have made things around the rink a whole lot easier. And, with the toe pick on the front of his blade that he had yet to notice, I had a feeling that he was more likely to eat ice then succeed.
On the flip side, if he managed to pull off a clean spiral I would be stuck joining the full hockey team for a full hour of their practice. I barely made it through the full hour with Aiden alone. I wasn't sure that I could handle a full team of them.
If I did agree though, there was a bigger chance of him falling than succeeding. I decided that, for worse or for better, it was worth the risk.
"Fine. You're on."
Aiden smiled, came to an abrupt stop. He reached his hand out in my direction. "Then let's make this official."
My eyes narrowed onto his skeptically, but I still found myself skating across the ice to accept his handshake. "Let's see if you can put your nonexistent skills where your mouth is."
A sense of triumph flickered on his face; his eyes sparkled like he had already won the bet. He winked.
A sense of triumph flickered on his face; his eyes sparkled like he had already won the bet. He winked. Pushed himself off into a medium skate as he made a large circle. As he came around the corner, he lifted his leg up in a fluid movement, executing a decent spiral. His legs were actually straight, and his off leg was just slightly above his hip. The worst part?
He didn't fall.
My jaw dropped to the ground. A mix of emotions filled my body. First shock. Then confusion. And last anger. Had I just somehow been played?
Aiden seemed way to at home on a pair of figure skates. For a hockey player who knew nothing about figure skating, he seemed to know his way around them. There was no way that he didn't trip over his toe pick at least once. I mean come on; he should have wiped out.
"Well, well, well." Aiden skated up to me with a full faced self-satisfied smirk that swept over his dark features. He was gloating. "It looks like you'll be joining the hockey team in the near future."
My arms fell across my chest as I puffed my chest out to look bigger. I let out a low laugh, my eyes narrowed onto his dark brown eyes. "How did you manage to pull that off so easily your first ever attempt on your first time in a pair of figure skates?"
Aiden shrugged, skated up next to me and tapped me on the shoulder with a grin. "It must have been my outstanding teacher."
I tilted my head at him. What a load of bull crap.
His lips fell into a toothless smirk, and he offered another wink before he turned and skated off the ice. "I'll see you tomorrow, Lodge."
What the heck had just happened? There was no way that Aiden had been able to pull that off his first ever time trying a spiral. It was his first time in figure skates. He should not have been so at ease. None of it made any sense.
My eyes flickered to where Aiden had already gotten off the ice. We were less than twenty minutes into our practice, and he was already done. I wasn't sure what was going on anymore.
There was only one thing that I was certain of: somehow, I had just been played.
—
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