Chapter 17
We sat in the living room with our next round of drinks, lounging on the couch and in a beat-up armchair and chatting with each other while other people milled around.
I nursed my drink, unlike either of my friends.
I hadn’t had the opportunity to build up as much of an alcohol tolerance as them.
The one time I had attempted to go shot for shot with them, the night had ended with me lying on the floor of the bathroom and vowing that I would never drink again.
The next morning hadn’t been much better.
Swearing off drinking entirely had been a step too far, but I definitely had learned my lesson.
It was more fun for all of us if I paced myself.
It seemed like no time at all had passed before Dom showed up and sat beside me on the couch. “I’m surprised you’re still here,” he said.
“Why?” I asked. I was halfway through my fourth drink, which I told myself would have to be my last. As it was, I was drinking more than I usually let myself have during the skating season.
“It’s past two AM,” he said. He sounded surprised I hadn’t realized how late it was.
“Wait, what?” I said, pulling out my phone.
“Yeah, you three have been talking forever, hogging up the couches.”
I felt my cheeks burn. “Sorry, I didn’t realize it had been so long.”
He had his body turned, so he was looking me straight on. His voice was gentle when he said, “I’m teasing you, Hazel.”
“Oh,” I replied, embarrassed. I should have known he was teasing, but there was a part of me that was so worried that I’d been so oblivious that I hadn’t noticed that we were being rude.
I tried to make light of it by saying, “Well, I hope you didn’t have people telling you to kick your partner out. ”
Dom laughed and I felt my entire body relax. “No worries. Even if they did, I’d just tell them to shut up. You could get away with a lot, you know.”
I turned so I could rest my head on the back of the couch. Now that I knew how late it was, I was suddenly feeling it. Or maybe that was just the alcohol. “How much?” I asked. “I need to know if I’m not taking advantage of you enough.”
“A lot,” Dom said with a smirk. “And it will be even more if you keep helping me win things with how awesome you are.”
I giggled. “So that’s it? All I have to do to have you defend me from complaints is get you a few gold medals?”
Dom shook his head, looking incredulous. “That’s it!? You say that like getting a few gold medals is easy.”
“Well, like you said, I’m awesome,” I joked. “And let’s get real. You’d defend me anyway.”
He suddenly sounded much more serious when he said, “Yeah, I would. Even if you fell on your ass six times in the next skate, I’d stick up for you.
” He rested his head on the back of the couch too, so we were looking directly at each other.
“How could I not?” His eyes were boring into mine, making my brain feel like mush.
I was still struggling to come up with a response when Alexis walked over.
“Hey,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the tension between Dom and I.
“We’re heading out now. I have to work in the morning, and I should probably already be asleep.
” She didn’t seem bothered by the fact that she wasn’t.
She merely said it like maybe she should plan on getting some sleep soon.
“Do you want to come back with us, or are you going to head to your own place in a bit?”
I turned back to Dom, who was staring at me. My chest tightened again. “I’ll head back to my place later,” I said, trying not to make it obvious that I was finding it hard to breathe evenly.
It must have worked, because she didn’t seem to realize anything was amiss. “Okay, cool.” She turned to Dom and said, “It was nice seeing you again. C’mon, Kendra.”
Kendra, clearly the drunker of the two, insisted on giving me a giant hug before following Alexis out the door. “Bye!” she shouted, seemingly to everyone, before leaving.
“She had fun,” Dom said, amused, as he turned back around.
“I think they both did, even if Alexis didn’t get the hookup she was hoping for.”
Dom raised his eyebrows. “Was that why she came here?”
“In part,” I admitted. “I think she got distracted by beer pong too early in the night to make much headway, though. And afterwards I don’t think she could focus, even if we had stopped being couch hogs. If I was thinking straight, I would have pointed her towards Mike.”
“Why?” Dom asked, leaning forward. “Was he interested?”
“Not in her. At least I don’t think so, but he was definitely interested in hooking up with somebody.”
There were several seconds of silence before Dom seemed to register what I’d said. “Wait, Mike was hitting on you?”
Was that jealousy in his voice? If it was Brandon, it would have pissed me off, but with Dom it seemed more protective rather than possessive. “Yeah. He seemed very interested in how flexible I am and was making all these double entendres about you picking me up.”
Dom opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. Finally, he said, “Son of a bitch. Do you want me to tell him to back off?”
“What? No,” I said, surprised. “He was very respectful when I said no. Well, first he made a comment that he didn’t actually say anything about dating when I said I wasn’t in a place to date.
But once I made it clear that I wasn’t into being a hook up either, he left it alone.
Didn’t bug me the rest of the night or anything. ”
He stretched his arm across the back of the couch, so his hand was close to my head. “You sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure,” I affirmed.
He seemed almost disappointed by my reply. I didn’t think much of it until he added, “I don’t like when people talk about you like that.”
“What?” I said, confused. I wasn’t sure I was following. “Like I’m an attractive woman they wouldn’t mind hooking up with?”
“No, like you’re appealing just because you can put your feet up over your head.” His fingers danced along my scalp, sending a shiver up my spine.
I couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Really? I’m sure that is part of the reason people are into me. People appreciate flexibility, you know.”
My tone was teasing, but he didn’t seem happy about it. “Well, sure, but that’s not what I meant. There’s more to you than the whole flexible, super fit, butt looks good in tight pants thing that they all jump to once they learn you’re a top skater.”
My eyebrows shot up. “My butt looks good in tight pants?”
Suddenly, Dom’s cheeks were as red as our team jackets. “Your… I…” he stammered, looking like a deer in headlights. Finally, he settled for saying, “What?” Clearly, he was trying to stall to give himself time to figure out what he was going to say.
“You were listing shallow reasons somebody might like me and you said that my butt looks good in tight pants.” I was not going to let him out of this, not when he had revealed to me that he knew about my crush on him.
“Apparently you don’t like when people focus on those aspects of why I’m such a good catch.
” It felt good to be the one doing the teasing this time.
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Finally, he said, “Yeah, fine. I said it. But in my defence, it just slipped out. I think you’d agree that I’ve never let the fact that you have a nice ass make things weird between us.
And I’d really, really appreciate it if you would just forget I said it so it doesn’t make things awkward. ”
He seemed so concerned that I couldn’t help but try to reassure him.
“It won’t be weird,” I said. I moved a little closer so I could reach out to grab the hand he’d had in his lap.
Normally, it would be strange to grab at somebody you weren’t dating, but we had spent years holding each other’s hands.
I gave it a reassuring squeeze, using the same pressure I would on the ice.
“You didn’t make things weird when you knew I had a crush on you back in the day. ”
“Honestly, I was worried that if I made it weird or complained, they were going to make me go back to singles,” Dom admitted. “It seemed safer to pretend that I didn’t know you had the hots for me instead of asking for another partner.”
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t have the hots for you. I was twelve. I just thought that you were a cute older boy who I got to spend all this time hanging out with.”
“Sounds like the same thing to me,” Dom joked. He hadn’t let go of my hand yet.
“That was a long time ago. You think I have a nice butt now. So if you want to tease me about back then, I would think again, mister.”
He pressed his lips together. I found myself staring at them, examining the cupid’s bow.
When he returned to normal, I forced myself to look away from his lips.
It was harder than I expected. I tried looking in his eyes with the long lashes I was so jealous of, but the look he was giving me made me avert my eyes elsewhere.
Instead, I focused on his cheeks, covered in stubble thanks to the late hour.
Usually, he kept himself clean-shaven to maintain the appearance that was expected of a figure skater.
“How long ago?” Dom finally asked.
I snapped out of my thoughts of reaching out to feel his stubble. “What?” I couldn’t remember what I had just said. It had been wiped from my brain completely when I'd been distracted by his lips.
He was leaning forward ever so slightly, one arm on the back of the couch reaching toward me. He had his sleeves pushed up, revealing the muscled forearms that held me so often. “How long ago has it been since you got over your crush?”