“And your self-confidence is infinite,” she quips.
“I can’t help it if I’m amazing.”
She laughs again, and this time it’s from her gut.
That’s the smile I wanted from her.
God, she’s gorgeous.
After the couples skate, we stay on the ice for practically every song until we take a break to warm ourselves up with two cups of hot chocolate and a plate of some pretty bad nachos.
“This is a weird combination,” she comments about the food.
“Kind of like us,” I say.
“I guess so.”
The tension between us thickens. It feels as if there are things that both of us are not saying, or at least that’s how I feel, so I just go for it.
“Listen, I’m just going to ask this because I’ve been dying to know. How did the evening end with Aaron? You talked about some misgivings you have about him, but you didn’t really tell me anything else.”
“He asked me out specifically to go Christmas shopping at the designer outlet mall.”
Aaron makes a lot of side money deejaying college parties. He could take her shopping and buy her something really nice, something I can’t afford right now. I know him. That was his plan for sure. His game has always been buying a girl an expensive gift and then the panties come off.
“Yeah?”
“But I didn’t go anywhere with him,” she quickly explains.
“Why?”
“Well, he just asked me for one.”
“Oh.”
So, there’s a possibility she still may go.
“And I’ve decided that I’m not going to go out with him.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“We talked quite a bit after his set, and while he seems like a really cool guy, I didn’t feel any genuine sparks between us. I guess I had built him up so much in my head that getting to know the real person was kind of letdown.”
Fuck, yeah!
“Aww, that’s too bad.” I pretend to be disappointed for her. “I know you wanted things to work out with him.”
“I think both you and I know that the only reason why he wanted to get to know me is because he thinks you like me. I’m not sure what’s going on between you two, but it’s clear that he feels like he’s in some sort of competition with you.”
“We’ve been pretty competitive since we were kids. I blame our dads for that. Our fathers are half brothers, which is why Aaron and I have different last names, but they are very close and also competitive.”
“Do you guys like each other?”
“That’s a complicated question. Aaron always wanted to play football, but I was always the bigger kid and the better player. It was never in the cards for him and he’s never going to forgive me for it. I’m sorry to have put you in the middle of our dysfunction, but I knew if he thought I had some interest in you, that he’d pull out all the stops to get to you first.”
