Page 53 of Head Over Skates

"Did you hear that?" she whispers.

Now that she mentions it, I can make out footsteps. Someone's home. A door opens and closes on the main floor.

"We need to get out of here, now!" Emily urges.

“How? We’re literally on the lowest level. I say we bunk up here until whoever it is goes to sleep. We’ll keep each other warm with our body heat.”

“Shush! He’ll hear us.”

“We can pretend we were making out again,” I suggest.

“Will you stop?”

There’s a hint of a smile on those pretty little lips. She can’t help herself. And I don’t want her to see me as anything but cool and confident. The opposite of how I feel right now. My heart pounds against my ribs as the footsteps grow louder, sending tremors to my nerve endings. My muscles tense, there’s a terrible tightness in my stomach, and I can hardly catch my breath. The only way to fight it, and to make Emily feel safe, is to flirt unabashedly.

“It’s so much more fun to get a rise out of you, though,” I say.

“Just shut off your flashlight,” she hisses, pocketing her own phone.

Whoever's coming, they'll be on us in seconds. I glance around, but there's nowhere to hide in this open basement. Under the desk maybe, but I don’t think we’d both fit. Well, after that display of contortionism through the doggy door, maybe we can have fun trying.

Thinking better of it, I tug Emily by the hand, pressing her against the side of the stairwell, and shielding her body with mine in the shadows. Not exactly how I imagined our bodies pressed together this weekend, but hey, I’ll take what I can get. Perhaps this at least will give us the element of surprise. What my plan is next, I have no clue.

“Here we are again, Catwoman,” I whisper into the shell of her ear. “Are we going to make a habit of this?”

She turns her head slightly toward me, eyes flashing in the dim light. Her breathing is shallow, too. But I suspect it’s for different reasons. And for some reason, that relieves some of this suffocating feeling I’m getting. Just the touch of her settles me. And her scent. Watermelon and cucumber. It drives me wild.

The footsteps reach the top of the stairs, then start to descend. I brace myself, ready to strike. A shoe appears, then a leg...

Rousseau pauses on the last step. If he looks around the banister, he’ll see us. I hold my breath, waiting for the confrontation.

But Emily is quick. Her little body zips across the room like she’s in that Crouching Tiger movie. Just as Rousseau takes the last step down, Emily makes the most graceful leap, spreads her legs into a glorious split, and kicks the daylights out of Rousseau. Right in the face. He drops prostrate like a sack of bricks.

My jaw hits the floor. “You just roundhouse kicked him in the face.”

“I panicked! I’m sorry.”

“Where did you learn those Kung Fu Panda moves?”

"Years of ballet and figure skating," she says with a shrug, like face-kicking is no big deal.

“Not gonna lie. That’s super hot.”

“Do you think he saw who I was?”

“No. But we should go before he comes to.”

We hear a low groan, and are about to skirt around the body, when I catch a glimpse of his face. It’s not Rousseau.

I gasp. “What is he doing here?”

For a moment, we just stand there in stunned silence.

"Did I just… knock out Coach Knight?" Emily squeaks.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Craaaap!”

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