“Well, okay then.” She slapped her book shut and neatly placed her papers in her folders before sliding them all into her backpack. “Why not?”
Exactly. Why not? And then I said a silent prayer to the reefer gods – wordlessly pleading for my glazed-over posse to have passed out by now. I sighed at my utter douchiness.
Forgive me, Sam, for I have sinned.
* * *
My hands gripped her hips as I held her in place. Like a baby giraffe learning to walk, Sam’s legs splayed at unnatural angles, making it impossible for her to stand up straight. I laughed with abandon. Damn, she made me happy. It was like we were mismatched socks in this weird static cling world.
I shook her playfully, but what I really wanted to do was sink my lips into the crook of her neck and watch her fall apart under my touch. “What’s with the loosey-goosey shit?” I teased, like a booger-laced nine-year-old crushing on the cute girl at the next table over. “Stand up straight, Nostradamus. You’re embarrassing me.”
“Keith, I think you might mean Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Did I? My eyes rolled up, thinking. Was there a difference? Since meeting Sam, it seemed like I was wasting an awful lot of time looking shit up.
“Anyway, I’m doing the best I can here, given the fact that you chose to bring one of my greatest fears to life on my birthday.”
“It’s ice-skating.” I shook my head. “How terrifying can that be?”
“Plenty of people are afraid of ice skating. Just because you’re not afraid of anything doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t.”
“I’m afraid of things.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Sinkholes.”
“Sinkholes?” Sam’s voice rose to comical levels. “Let me get this straight. You’re okay with shark attacks, being trampled by the bulls, and spontaneous combustion, but sinkholes in California – where it never rains –that’swhat you’re afraid of?”
“Is that weird?” I squinted, playing it for laughs. “I feel like you think that’s weird.”
She laughed, which caused her to bobble and, that in turn, resulted in Sam digging her icy hands into mine with bone-breaking force.
“Well, since the chances of me falling on my butt are higher than the chances of you getting swallowed up whole by the earth, I think it’s fair to tell you that if you let go of me, I’ll personally see to it that you fail every single class for the rest of the semester.”
“Oh, no, Sam,” I gasped in mock horror. “Not academic ruin, please! Anything but that!”
“You laugh now, but…” Sam stumbled on the ice, screaming as she pushed back and burrowed her shapely ass into me. As cute as her terror was, the contact produced a chain reaction in my jeans. Shit, she was going to be so pissed if she felt my overeager woody building a bridge between us.
In an effort to keep the evidence from poking her in the butt, I moved her to my side, wrapping my arm around her dwindling waistline. The swift movement startled her, and she dug her nails even deeper into my flesh.
“I don’t like this position,” she protested.
“No?” I dropped my head into her neck. “What position do you like?”
“Are you flirt…” Sam swept her eyes over me, landing on my very noticeable hard on.
For safety reasons I widened the gap between us, but in my haste, my skate collided with Sam’s. She stumbled forward, and as I tried to right her, I lost my balance as well, and the two of us tumbled to the ice. I landed missionary style on top of her, my steel beam now at a 90-degree angle and poking into her pubic bone. Sam’s shock was so complete that I willed a sinkhole to open up and save me from her wrath. But instead of anger, her eyes crinkled in the corners and the purest, most untainted happiness burst forth. Her laughter was so infectious that it spread to other skaters, who smiled as they whizzed by.
We stayed like that, in each other’s arms, until the slush bled through her jeans and forced us off the ice. I grabbed her around the waist once more, ready to begin skating with her in my protective embrace, but she grabbed my hands, and as our eyes met, I saw a change in hers. The fear that lived in them was wavering.
“I can do this on my own,” she said, a new determination steeling her resolve. And just like that, Sam took her first tentative glides forward.
* * *
After skating around and around for a good hour, we finally called it a day, collapsed onto the benches, and removed our skates.
“That was…” Sam’s smile lit up her face. “The best birthday ever.”
