Chapter 6 ALI – WITHWITHOUT YOU #2
Being held close like this, feeling his steady heartbeat, his warm skin against mine, the scratchiness of his beard against my hair, it completely evaporated all the work I’d done to convince myself I was good with being alone. And it made me regret wasting so many nights hiding away by myself.
Because I loved this feeling.
I loved being held.
I loved falling asleep in the arms of a man.
But I knew a girl could do some very stupid things just to keep this feeling.
Do not get used to this, Ali, I ordered myself.
I needed to just enjoy the moment and use it for what it was. And I needed to take a mental picture of this moment so I could bring it up in my mind during my next lonely night.
Because there would be another lonely night in my future.
There always was.
JP shifted slightly, then dropped a kiss on my forehead, making even more reservations sneak into my heart. Now he was giving me forehead kisses? This felt way too good to be true. I couldn’t fall for this. I couldn’t completely let myself love this.
It’s temporary, I told myself. Just one week, I internally screamed.
He probably would’ve cuddled and kissed any girl. And he might just be selfishly soaking up these cuddles as well.
He reached up and started stroking my hair, brushing it behind my ear. “Just so you know,” he whispered, “when I said let’s be together, this was what I meant. I’m not expecting anything else, okay? I just want to be with you, ya know?”
And those words did it.
They squashed the last of my hesitation, and I fully melted into him.
He hummed his approval as I snuggled further into him. “I really like the tattoo by the way,” he said, lifting his head slightly to make eye contact with me.
“Which one?” I asked sleepily. The way he was petting and stroking me was putting me right to sleep.
His hand froze.
My eyes darted to his. “What?”
His grey eyes widened. “You have more than one?”
I rolled my lips to contain a giggle. “G’night!”
“What?” he burst out. “You’re just gonna go to bed?”
I giggled against his skin, and I noticed some goosebumps starting to rise on his arm, ensuring me that I wasn’t the only one feeling attraction.
“Oh my God.” He laid his head back down with a thud. “The anticipation is killing me. You have more than one tattoo?” he asked again.
“I live on a cruise ship, JP,” I said with a yawn. “You can’t be that surprised.”
“Well, I like this one.” He rubbed his thumb over the small rose behind my ear, lulling me right into a dream about the two of us when we were teens…
__________
2010
“Hurry up,” Piper said, throwing her head forward to gather up all her blonde hair in a messy bun.
“We have to beat them to the pond. I honestly can’t believe Colt came up with this idea.
I guess not all hockey boys are stupid,” she mumbled more to herself than me. “It’s just so dang cute, isn’t it?”
“It really is,” I said as I yanked off my left skate with a hiss. My right toe was bloody from working on so many triple flips today.
“Jeez, you need some lamb’s wool to stuff in the front of your skate, girl.” Piper unzipped the front pocket of her bag to retrieve hers and handed me some.
“Thanks,” I said with a wince. The thought of putting my skates back on tonight after three hours of practice was not appealing, but I wasn’t about to miss out on this.
Colt, Mer’s boyfriend, organized a surprise 17th birthday party for her at the frozen pond a few miles outside of town.
A group of us were showing up there to surprise her.
I felt honored to be included because at the start of this year, I had absolutely no one to talk to in the rink.
I didn’t really get along with the other freestyle girls—probably because we all viewed each other as competition.
On top of that, my mom, an ice dance coach, and my twin sister, Anastasia, both moved to a rink in Texas so Annie could train with a new ice dance partner for the season.
After they left, I started using the rink lobby’s picnic tables as my locker room because I couldn't take the tension in the freestyle locker room, and I didn’t feel invited in the pairs locker room without Anastasia.
But then Piper found me.
She invited me back to locker room #6, which was used by only her and Mer.
Piper and Mer, who were both a year older than me, sort of took me under their wing after that.
Piper was a tall blonde ice dancer and cut-throat competitor.
Mer was a small brunette freestyle pairs girl who hated competition more than anything—she even got stress hives on her neck during competition weeks that only ever went away after her final skate.
And then there was me: landing somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.
Piper scowled at something on her phone.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing, I’m just not looking forward to seeing Richard Charles Kappers the Third tonight,” she scowled, making me laugh.
While Colt was a strait-laced Captain America, play-by-the-rules kind of guy, his best friend Richard, known as Kappy, was the rink’s biggest troublemaker.
It was rumored that he was the one who rigged up the buzzer to sound like a fart.
Hans couldn’t figure out how to change it back for, like, a whole week.
“Who else is going to be there?” I asked.
A knock came on the locker room door, interrupting us. A second later, Patrick—Piper’s ice dance partner—stuck his ginger head inside. “You girls ready to head out to the pond?”
Patrick and Piper’s eyes landed on me, making me cringe. “Yes, I know, I’m always late,” I chided. I still had to clean off my skates and throw on some warmer clothes. “Just give me two more minutes.”
“I’ll bring the car around front,” Patrick said with a laugh.
“You gotta work on your hustle, girl,” Piper said, kneeling to help me clean my skates off. “And to answer your question, I think it’s just gonna be us three girls, Patrick, Colt, Kappy, and JP.”
Hearing his name had my heart picking up speed, which I knew was bad. So, so bad.
I harbored a small crush on JP ever since I met him two years ago in the locker room hallway after he was kicked out of a game for fighting.
We talked here and there, never exchanging more than a couple of sentences, but he was somehow always there when I needed him.
He was the one who helped me a year ago when I was throwing up in the rink lobby after getting a concussion from hitting my head on the ice.
He rubbed my back and whispered that I was going to be okay the whole time until my dad came.
If Anastasia didn’t re-tell me the story, I would’ve thought I hallucinated it.
He was also the one who brought me ice when I twisted my ankle in the weight room last winter.
And he was the one who saved me with my EpiPen when I accidentally ate a homemade dessert with nuts in it during the spring ice show rehearsal.
Piper had my EpiPen in her hand but was freaking out and crying.
JP took it from her and acted quickly, expertly injecting it and rubbing the area.
He stayed with me the whole time, even answering questions when the paramedics arrived.
But each time I set him up to ask me out, his cheeks would flame up in two round red circles and he’d dip away.
Clearly, he was just a nice guy and I had to stop bugging him and holding out hope that he’d like me back.
But I couldn’t stop looking out for him around the rink. It’s like I had a little beacon system installed in my brain, always searching for his easy grin and kind grey eyes.
Piper eyed me curiously. “What’s that look for?”
“What look?” I squeaked out, then cleared my throat. “There’s no look.”
She snorted. “Yeah, okay.”
There wasn’t a look.
There couldn’t be.
Not for JP when I already had a boyfriend.
__________
We drove down a dark, bumpy dirt road for about ten minutes before Patrick finally came to a clearing in the woods.
“Wow,” Piper breathed out as she stepped out of the shotgun seat.
“Yeah,” I whispered in agreement.
The sight before us was breathtaking. A construction light that was plugged into JP’s truck illuminated both JP and Kappy as they cleared the snow off the ice with shovels.
On the edge of the pond, a bonfire was going strong with camping chairs set up next to it, as well as a little picnic table holding a large thermos and snacks.
Spotting us, JP and Kappy stopped shoveling and gave us big waves, ushering us to join them out on the ice.
Darting through the deep snow, we made our way down to the snowbank on the edge of the pond. Sitting next to the boombox playing static-y country music, my fingers were freezing as I laced up my skates as quickly as possible.
While it felt like we were in a beautiful little snow globe with the snow lightly falling around us, I was a little worried I was going to die of hypothermia.
JP glided over the bumpy pond ice and leaned his chin on the butt of the shovel. “So, what do you think of the set up?”
“It’s beautiful, like a little winter wonderland,” I said.
“Yeah?” JP gave me his signature crooked grin.
“Definitely.” I smiled and looked around. “It makes me want to skate, ya know?” I shivered against the cold.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said, looking out at the frozen pond. When his grey eyes landed on me, they narrowed. “You cold?”
“No, I’m good,” I lied, trying to control my chattering teeth.
Stepping over the snowbank in his beat-up outdoor skates, he trudged up to the bonfire. I watched him unzip a bulging backpack and retrieve a couple things, including a hockey hoodie stamped with his last name and number on the back.
“Ah, I don’t think a hoodie is gonna fit over my jacket,” I said hesitantly.
He chuckled. “Nah, hoodie is for me.” He unzipped his large puffer jacket, which also had “McQuaid #26” stitched over the chest pocket. What he did next really shocked me: He shrugged it off and held it out to me.