Chapter 24: Chapter 24

Mom slices me an evil eye, with just one glance signaling me to stop eating and go put on my skates, Scott follows. By the time we get onto the ice, the practice session is in full swing. I haven’t said a word to him since we left the table and I’m still not able to look into his eyes. I know my emotions are completely irrational. I slip my hand in his and I go through the motions of warming up with him but there is palpable tension between us and I’m sure the only people who know are: me, Scott, and probably Coach Tammy. We stroke around and stretch for a few minutes and then he stops me and glares into my eyes. I cast mine away from his penetrating gaze and he lifts my chin to face him again, “Coach Tammy wants me to lift you.”

My heart races, “But we didn’t practice!”

“You never return my calls,” he counters. “You’re going to have to trust me. You did it in the pool.”

“Once! I did it in the pool once!”

“Then pretend that’s where we are. Coach Tammy chose to bring everyone upstairs so they could see you in your glory. We can do this, but you have to trust me.”

He releases my chin and takes hold of my hand. He guides me. We build up speed skating backward, I placed my right foot into Scott’s hand and his other hand grabs my waist. He hoists me into the air above his head with my left leg extended in the spiral position and this huge rush of adrenaline encompassing me, I smiled with tears of happiness as I see my parent’s expressions on their faces while I’m soaring in the air, I can tell they are proud of me.

Scott lowers me to the ground and slows down enough so we can hug each other. Tears of happiness spring from my eyes. It is by far the best moment of my life because it is shared with everyone I love, in particular my father, who is without a shadow of doubt, my biggest fan.

It is our first competition of the season and after much duress, our parents finally agree to trust us to go alone to Port-Harcourt. Their only comfort is knowing Coach Tammy will be supervising starting late Saturday afternoon. Our parent’s schedules are all over the place and nothing works out for them. Anna and Lara are so jealous when they find out I’m spending two nights with Scott alone. I remind them that he’s a.k.a. Alpha Snooze in the love department and they have absolutely nothing to be jealous about.

We meet in his car after school. Anna and Lara are already standing there waiting for him. Anna holds her arms out to me, “We want to wish you good luck before you leave!” She wraps them around me and then Lara says, “Me too!” The three of us stand there hugging and then Scott interrupts, “We better get going Isabella, do you have everything?”

“Yup, we loaded it into the car this morning,” I say into Lara’s hair. We release each other blowing kisses into the air saying our goodbyes before Anna and Lara start walking towards Anna’s car. “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!” Anna calls out. “That leaves us pretty much open to anything,” Scott teases.

Anna pretends to be insulted before getting into her car. Scott hits his key fob and the doors unlock so we can get in, “Did your mom make the hotel reservations?” I ask.

“Yup, Ramada Inn, late check-in, we’re set. Do you want to stop and get food now or later?”

“I’m famished, now please!”

“Where?”

“You pick,” I say. I’m up for anything at this point as long as I get food.

I reach for the radio and turn on my favorite station. ‘Frozen’ is playing, “Maybe we should skate to Frozen for a show program when we win the Olympics! It might lead to an immediate contract with ‘the federation. The golden arch catches my attention and I start swatting his arm, “Pull over, pull over!”

“What?”

“McD’s! Mom never lets me eat there!”

“Drive-thru or eat in?”

“Drive-thru.”

He pulls into the line, “What do you want?”

“I’ll have one, no make that two Big Mac’s, a chocolate milkshake, and some large fries!”

He smirks, “Seriously, you want all that?”

“Seriously, all that!”

“In front of me?” “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It's sheer gluttony! Girls get salads with strips of cream over top.”

“I’m not ‘girls’ and this is McDonald's! I’ll pay for yours”

“No, I’ve got it.”

“Please let me, I haven’t given you gas money.” “I won’t argue with you, you might stop talking to me again!” “There’s good reason for that, as a matter of fact, you’re lucky I’m talking to you right now after what you did at the party.”

“I’m calling you out on double standards, didn’t you fuck Michael,” he defends himself.

“He was my boyfriend at the time, you didn’t even know her.”

“So why do you care?”

“Whatever, I don’t! You can get that bitch pregnant and you will be sacrificing our partnership. It goes both ways.” I said in self-defense.

The argument is deadlocked, no point in carrying it on.

The speaker interrupts us, ‘Can I take your order?’

Scott talks into it, “3 Big Macs, 2 Medium chocolate shakes, two large fries please.”

“Do you want to supersize it, sir?”

“Sure, except the Milkshakes,”

“Drive up!” The lady shows up in the window, “24.99 Please.” Scott hands her the twenty-five dollars I give him, and then he turns back to me. There is an uncomfortable silence in the car, “The girl in the car meant nothing to me,” he admits.

“That makes me feel so much better,” I say sarcastically. “You get mad at me for jeopardizing our partnership and you turn around and do the same thing,” I repeat.

“She can’t get me pregnant and we weren’t unprotected,” he grins. He looks so cute when he smiles like that. I focus on the food to distract me, “I don’t care what you do, okay?”

“You do care, or you wouldn’t have stopped talking to me for a month!”

“Whatever! I’m over it.”

His voice gets serious, “Are you?” he asks. I can feel his eyes looking at me. I can’t return his stare because we both knew, I’m not. We check in to our tenth-floor suite overlooking tranquil Lake Placid. Our room is quaint with two small maple chairs and a small table in-between overlooking the water. Our queen-sized beds had tacky baby blue comforters with floral vector patterns, and a 42-inch led. t.v. is mounted to the wall. The bathroom is small, a tub doubling as a shower, but we could have been staying in a cardboard box and would still be happy just because we are temporarily parentless!

Scott and I begin taking our costumes out from their zipped hanger bags and unpack our clothes into the dresser provided to us.

“Which bed do you want?” I ask.

“Whichever one you’re in,” he says.

“Oh my, that will be a conflict of interest, definitely not in our ‘equation,’” I tease.

I take a gloriously long shower using their little complimentary soaps before I return in my nightgown. He is on the bed closest to the door, so I walk past him to take the window bed. With my phone in hand, I’m determined to soothe my social media withdrawal from the long road trip. Scott rolls his eyes at the sight of me and disappears into the bathroom. I text mom first:

ISABELLA: Mom, We’re here. Tell dad I said hi. We R going 2 bed soon. Tired from the drive.

MOM: Glad U made it there safely. Text 2morrow.

I text Lara and Anna together:

ISABELLA: We made it!

LARA: That’s great!

ANNA: Cool! Good luck!

LARA: Ya, Good luck!

ISABELLA: Thanks! Going 2 bed now. I Will text U after the short program.

He comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped loosely around his waist. I pretend not to notice but my eyes are drawn to him and I catch him looking back at me through the mirror.

I cleared my throat, “You should text your mom and Jeremy telling them we got here okay.”

“You text them,” he orders, gently tossing his phone in my direction. I let his phone land on the ugly yet plush comforter before picking it up.

“Should I tell them it’s me?”

“Let them think it is me,” he advises. “It’s easier than explaining.”

It feels weird texting under Scott’s i.d. but they will be wondering if we arrived okay, and clearly, he can’t be bothered telling them. I start texting his mother first just as he drops his towel on the floor standing naked with his back turned to me. I can see everything in his reflection, “Shy?” I tease. I force my eyes down to continue texting, not wanting him to know he’s captured my full attention.

“Separate beds?” He asks.

“Separate,” I confirm stubbornly.

Hesitating he remains naked for one more way too brief fraction of a second before putting on a pair of boxers. I sort of have to remind myself to breathe, in-out. I type quickly not wanting to miss another second of looking at his body:

SCOTT: Hi mom, we R here safe. I will text U 2morrow after the short program.

DEBORAH (SCOTT’S MOM): Good luck!

SCOTT: Thanks, mom. Goodnight.

DEBORAH: Goodnight Dear. Then I text Jeremy:

SCOTT: We’re in Placid now.

JEREMY: Did you bang her yet?

SCOTT: No, should I?

JEREMY: Fuck ya, She’s hot!

All of a sudden, I don’t want to text him anymore. He’s on the bed next to me now, but it isn’t fun, texting pretending to be him is upsetting.

“Were you planning on ‘banging’ me Scott?” I ask offensively, tossing his phone onto the foot of my bed. He retrieves it and lays next to me bending the pillow so he’s sitting more upright before reading the text. He turns his phone off and places it on the night table beside him.

He looks at me vehemently and says, “I would never ‘bang’ you.

Jeremy is just being an ass. I can’t control what he writes.”

My eyes lock with Scott’s, “It’s obvious this isn’t the first time you’ve talked this way about me to him. What else have you said?”

“You don’t want to know,” he belittles it. His voice gets quieter and he sounds embarrassed. His secretiveness has me wanting to know more. “Tell me” I push. The longer he takes to answer the worse my imagination becomes. I respect him, but it isn’t mutual, or his friend wouldn’t have addressed him that way. I mean nothing to him like that girl in the car that he ‘banged’. When he doesn’t answer, I turned off the light and roll away from him, on my side. Tear rolls down my cheek, but he doesn’t get a chance to see it because I won’t let him see weakness when what I’m feeling is anger. The mattress moves and his pillow moves but I can’t see what he’s doing. Then he is pressed hard against me talking into my hair, “I told him I’m in love with you.” I close my eyes to absorb what he said and then I ask him to repeat it. He whispers in my ear, “I’m in love with you, Isabella” sending the most intense chill down my spine.

He pulls my left shoulder down, so I lay flat in the bed and then he rolls over the top of me. It is dark in the room so I can’t see him, but his face is really close to mine because I can feel his breath. The weight of his body pushes me deeper into the mattress and then he says for a third time, “I’m in love with you.” I wish I can look into his eyes, but his voice makes me feel what he is saying all over. It is something I’ve wanted to hear from him all along, and I was never aware of it. His mouth finds mine and his lips press softly and slowly against me.

His hands cradle my face and that’s when he finds my secret tear. I feel his hesitation, as he wipes my face and tells me not to cry. His kisses become more demanding, his tongue explores me at his pace. His stubble scratches my cheeks as we kiss, but I like it. I place my hands on his jawline feeling it tighten and move with every kiss as he consumes me. I pulled away from him for a second and say, “Scott, you better go to bed before this goes too far. This isn’t in our equation, I’m trying to make this easier on you.” I say completely shocked over my own willpower. He pulls away from me and sort of hovers over me in the dark,

“You’re kicking me out of bed?” he asks in disbelief.

“One of us has to be strong, we’re competing tomorrow.” (That really pissed him off.) I feel the comforter move and the bed lift and the washroom door slam closed. He comes back into the room after a few minutes and goes to his own bed to sleep. I feel warm inside and I keep hearing him over and over again in my head, ‘I’m in love with you.’ It’s the happiest I ever felt before going to sleep. He’s in love with me!