Page 30 of Icing Hearts

“I’m serious,” she urges.

“I believe you.”

“Why weren’t you answering?”

“I was listening to you, Clara.”

This statement seems to remove her words altogether, which was certainly not my intent. I love listening to her talk. She’s brilliant. She teaches me things. She makes me laugh. Her viewpoints are practical and often profound, but I think most people miss out on that side of her because they don’t actually listen to her. They focus on the show she wants them to see, not who she is inside. Clara doesn’t make it easy for people to get to know her beyond the façade. I’ll admit, I still miss a lot. But when I do listen closely, I learn. And the more I learn, the more I love. Which is exactly the problem. If I didn’t love her so much, I could stop pining after the one girl I can’t be with.

“So, I’m perfect?”

She nods. “Perfectly horrible.”

Clara says the words with heavy lids. I lean toward her ever so slightly and she rests her head on my shoulder. I don’t stop her. I never do.

A cornerstone of Clara’s flirtations include physical touch. In the wild, she’s been frequently observed twirling her finger in my hair, pinching my cheek, fixing the tags on my shirts when they stick out—which happens at an unnaturally frequent rate. Oops.

So, I let her.

I say what I need to say to push her away. To keep her affections as a pasquinade instead of authentic. Because I think it’s what we both need. But the more time marches on, the more I know I’ll need to end the back and forth sooner rather than later.

With Clara’s head resting on my shoulder, I’m thrilled I wore such a thick sweatshirt for her to snuggle into. I freeze, too scared to move and scare her off. Watching her yell at me is good. But this is way better. Lavender wafts from her hair and it takes every ounce of self-control not to nuzzle my nose in her blonde crown. Yeah, this ambiguity needs to end.

Clara turns and wraps her hand around my bicep, snuggling in further. And I’ve officially died and gone to heaven. When I’m sure she isn’t going to wake up, I snap a few photos of us. In the last one, I hold up my middle finger and send it to Vince. I hear him cuss from the back of the bus, and I snicker lightly, not wanting to awake her.

The power of physical contact is not lost on me. Feeling threatened by Vince’s interest in Clara left me tightly wound. Now that the weight of her is on my shoulder, her hand on my arm, I feel relaxed and ready to play hockey.

Chapter 19

Victory

“So that’s how it’s gonna be?” Vince chirps.

He holds up the picture of Clara and me on his phone as we don our gear in the locker room. Vince stands next to me in all his pads. Coach Anderson finished his pre-game pep talk and most of my other teammates are trudging out to the rink. Vince and I clearly dawdled, both looking to have this confrontation. That’s one good thing about Vince, he doesn’t let things sit.

I let out a whistle of approval. “Wow. I look really good in that photo. You should set it as your lock screen.”

What can I even say? Yes, idiot, I’m in love with her, back the hell off. No, I know I pretend to only tolerate her. Yes, I said she was an annoying stalker among many other unsavory terms over the last few years. But…what is that you say? I don’t have a leg to stand on? If I feel this way, I should have made my move already? Hm, well then, you’d be right. I can acknowledge all of this in my head. Putting it into practice and acting accordingly, is nearly impossible.

“Look, I like her. She’s cool. She’s cute. She likes hockey.” He pulls his jersey over his shoulder pads.

Cute. Cool. How profound.

All at once I’m painfully aware of just how undeserving Vince is of Clara’s company. Perhaps even less so than I am.

“Okay.” I tug my hockey pants over my shin guards, tightening the strap and tucking it into the belt loop.

“Okay? So, you’re cool with it?”

“Cool with what exactly?”

“Me asking Clara to hang out.”

While the timing is…odd to say the least, I have a feeling Vince sensed that I was warming up to her publicly and has decided to make a moved now, before he lost his chance .

She’s had other boys before. Dated here and there, I guess. But nothing more than a few kisses in the hall or sitting together at lunch. As far as I, or anyone else knows, she hasn’t been in a committed relationship. To be entirely truthful, based on her behavior, I thought her to be disinterested in anything beyond playful flirtations with me.

To the best of my knowledge, that’s still the case. I guess I’ll know for certain when she either accepts Vince’s pursuit or flat out rejects him.

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