by Cassie Mae
“That I can do? A grind.”
“Favorite drink.” A laugh pops from her lips when I give her a look and gesture to all the empty Dr. Pepper bottles. “I’m teasing, silly boyfriend.” Her eyes follow her fingers that are still playing with the print on my shirt. She takes her forefinger and presses the center of my chest, and I follow her prompting, slumping into the couch. She slides easily onto my lap, her knees pressing into the cushions on either side of my hips. My heart stutters, my breath somewhere above me where I left it when I was standing.
She blinks up to my eyes, the pad of her thumb stroking down my jaw, tickling my five o’clock shadow. “Why are you so hesitant?”
“Huh?” Yeah, she’s shut my brain off.
Her body shakes with silent amusement. “Every time we touch, I have to move first.” She emphasizes with another long stroke across my jaw, stopping at my chin and prodding my mouth open. “Or if you move first, it looks like you put a lot of thought behind it. Are you just not a touchy person? Because if that’s the case, I’ll try really hard to resist.”
The corner of my mouth twitches. “No, that’s not it.”
A frown replaces her playfulness, and she drops her hand. “Were you… abused?”
“No.” I wish she’d go back to those sweet caresses, but I’m too chicken to ask her to. My gaze drifts to her hands between us, and it takes everything in me to convince myself that taking her hand won’t be too fast. She is sitting on me, after all.
But she crosses her arms, lifting a brow, and waits for me to answer her initial question.
I scratch at the back of my head. “You know I told you I was notorious for moving too fast?”
“There is no evidence to support that, but go on.”
“I’m trying really hard not to move fast with you.”
“Because…?”
Because I’m in love with you. Because you’re more important to me than anyone. Because I don’t want to lose you, scare you, not be the exact person you need.
Her face falls, and she uncrosses her arms. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to.” I do. “I just don’t know how to begin.”
“Were you this way with your past girlfriends?”
A smile plays at my mouth. “That’s actually a good place to start. Thanks.”
“I got you, boyfriend.”
That will never get old, and I try to relax into the couch, into our conversation, into her. “So…” Here we go… “I fall in love. Fast.”
She waits a beat, and when I don’t fill the silence, she prods. “Okay…?”
My head falls between us, and I let out a giant sigh. I don’t talk about Lydia. Or Hannah or Brielle or Candace even. There are more, I’m afraid to admit. More girls I fell hard for, that I blurted out love too quickly. “When a girl isn’t ready to hear those three words,” I say to our laps, “well, it pretty much puts the kibosh on the whole thing.”
Her brows pull in. “I would think that falling in love is never a bad thing.”
“Well, when it’s after two minutes…”
“Two minutes!”
“I told you… fast.”
She holds back a laugh and nudges my chin so I’m looking at her. “So, have you fallen in love with every girl you’ve been with?”
I nod.
“Even some you haven’t?”
I nod again.
“Were you in love with Candace?”
“Oh boy,” I say, heat building in my cheeks. “I thought so, yeah. She hung the moon and stars and all that.”
She gives me a playful frown, jutting her bottom lip out. “Yikes.”
A grin pulls at my lip, my gaze drifting over her face. She’s still here, in my lap. Still running her hands through my hair, still looking directly into my eyes. I told her, in not so many words, that if I’m not already in love with her, I will be, and I will be soon. And she’s still here.
I let my eyes fall shut, and I press my forehead to hers, relishing in the sweet scent of ice blue Gatorade on her breath. “I… I don’t want to chase you away,” I whisper. “Not you. I can’t…”
My sentence falls off into oblivion, but her fingers trail down from the back of my head to my jaw. She scratches my scruff with her short nails, embracing me in my very quiet admission.
“How about I let you know?” she says after a minute.
I pick my head up, locking gazes with her. “What?”
“I’ll let you know when I’m ready to hear it.”
She offers up a soft smile, and I’ve never felt more understood in my life.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” she echoes.
I almost blurt it out right then and there. In the span of one conversation, I’ve fallen deeper than I ever have, and I’m bursting to tell her. Instead, I take her by the nape of her neck and pull her toward me, pressing my lips to hers with such purpose that I’m pretty sure that even though the words weren’t said, she knows just how powerful my feelings are.
I’m gonna do it.
When she’s ready to hear it.
I’ll tell Brink I’m in love with her, and it’ll be what she wants, what I want, and I won’t have to worry about scaring her off.
I run my hand through her hair, her head perched on my bicep as some mindless TV plays in the background. My lips are swollen from kissing her, and I’m pretty sure she marked up my neck at some point. We eventually fell onto our sides, her body pressed against mine. She’s using my arm as a pillow, our legs intertwined. I’ve never felt so comfortable in an uncomfortable position in my life.
Her cute mouth is open a smidge, and her nose rumbles with each breath. My girl’s a snorer, which is part of the reason why I haven’t dozed off yet. The other is pure shock that she’s here with me in the first place. Not sure I’ll get over just how lucky I am this isn’t something I dreamed up.
I twirl a strand of her dark hair around my finger, letting it spiral back into place over and over like a slinky. It’s good to see her without that furrowed brow, the concern in her eyes that seems to be a permanent fixture to her personality. She carries so much responsibility for too many people outside of herself. Hopefully she was able to escape it for a little bit.
My gaze reluctantly goes from her soft skin to my crowded desk in the corner. Sleep isn’t going to find me soon, and there’s a creative itch niggling in the back of my mind. She had some killer moves today during her freestyling. She’ll say she was rusty, but even with the few slip-ups, which are inevitable for every boarder, I know she impressed those judges out there.
I give our intertwined bodies a once-over, debating on how to untangle myself without waking her up. It’s going to take some finesse I’m not sure I possess.
I inhale deep, sucking in my stomach and easing my leg out from under hers. Hawk watches from the back of the couch, stretching the moment he sees me moving. He’s most likely thinking I’m moving to the bed. He won’t sleep in there without me, as far as I know. He has free rein when I’m not here, but when I am, wherever I go, he follows.
I lift up on my knee, hovering over Mad as she sleeps on. Holding my breath, I push off and roll to the floor, the carpet muffling my landing. Brink is a rock.
A chuckle rumbles through my chest, and I get to my feet. I pad my way to my room, grabbing the comforter and pillow off my bed. I ease it under her head and tuck her in, brushing her hair from her face. There isn’t a stutter in her snores.
Good. She needs a deep sleep. I press a kiss to her forehead and go to power up my computer.
My headphones are already plugged in, so I settle them over my ears and dig out my camera and connecting cord. I do the same with my phone, since it’s been about a month since I’ve cleared it out and I know I’ve got footage from Mad’s runs at Troublemakers.
Her GoPro is also perched on my desk, and I go ahead and take that drive out and stick it in, too. Might as well get in the zone while the motivation is here.
As
all the files pull up and I set up my editing software, a warm excitement spreads from my chest to my brain to my fingers. When I was in high school, I taped everything. I edited and created, and I’d spend hours clipping and adding music in the perfect spots. There were plans for a channel I could upload to, and share my work, but I was never completely confident in it. It was all so random… nothing I could truly market for anything.
Then I met Mad, and everything she did was inspiring. Even her flubs were worth taping.
I reach down to the twelve-pack I keep under my desk and pop open a fresh Dr. Pepper. It takes me less than five minutes to get lost in the footage from just this past week. I start clipping and pasting different angles and runs together, including the first-person shots from Mad’s helmet. I have a good ten minutes fully edited before I stumble upon a take of myself in her GoPro.
“At least we won’t be doing this every time,” I say as the camera turns on. “Looks like once it’s on the helmet, it’s on for good.”
“Which is why it’s been a year and a half since I got it and it still looks brand new.” Her voice rings out, but I can’t see her at all. Only me and my goofy grin at being so close to her. There’s a redness to my cheeks and my ears, and I wonder if she notices all these things when I look at her.
“You never were a fan of the fancy stuff,” I say with a nod. The camera jostles as I adjust it. “This ship’s garbage.”
“Don’t you speak ill of the Millennium Falcon.” Her fist comes into frame, tapping me in the stomach with her knuckles.
“All right, I think you’re all set.” I wave to the camera, and the whole thing shakes, like she’s laughing.
I pause it there, really take a look at myself. Did she know then? It seems so obvious from here… the way I look at her. How have I not scared her away? Just that look would’ve gotten me rejected in the past.
A buzz jolts me from my thoughts, and I blink down at my phone that lights up and vibrates across my desk. I snatch it up before the noise wakes Mad.
Hey, have you seen Maddie? She hasn’t come home.
Pete. I rub my eyes and slowly lower my headphones. Wow… it’s nearly four in the morning. I really lost track of time.
Yeah. We had some car trouble, and she crashed here. I hit send then quickly add, on the couch.
I don’t know if Pete knows about the relationship I have with his sister, and I’m not eager to be the messenger on that.
What sort of car trouble?
I swivel in my chair and glance at Brink’s non-moving frame on the couch. She didn’t want to call Pete earlier when the car wouldn’t start, but I don’t know if that’s because she didn’t want him to know about the car or if she just didn’t want to bother him.
Not sure. I settle on that answer and send it off.
Bubbles pop up immediately, and I rock back and forth in my seat, waiting for the next question he’s about to lay on me.
But it doesn’t come. After a while, the bubbles disappear, and I shrug and get back to editing. Hopefully the guy fell asleep now that he knows his sister’s safe.
A brush of fur runs across my nose, and I twitch, the urge to sneeze rousing me from a deep sleep.
I wave my hand around lazily, batting away a fuzzy tail. Hawk barely gives me a glance before settling down on my chest, tucking his little legs under his body and deflating with a purr.
As cute as it is to wake up to this furball, I was kinda hoping to wake up to a pair of green eyes and not a cat butt.
I swivel my head, brows pulling together at the softness. Was there a pillow here when we fell asleep?
Some tap tap tapping reaches my half asleep ears, and I reach up and stretch sky high. Hawk whips his head around, the evilest of looks in his eyes before he uses me as a launching pad, plopping onto the carpet. He stretches long before snootily making his way across the room. He stops at Tanner’s desk chair before jumping into his lap.
Tanner continues to tap on the computer, headphones covering his ears. Hawk settles in, and never thought it’d happen, but I’m jealous of a cat.
I point my toes, the muscles in my legs aching from probably a mix of boarding and sitting in a car all day yesterday. I wrinkle my nose as the dull pangs shoot up and down my calves. Oy, I’m going to need a major stretch before my run tonight.
Tanner stops typing and settles his right hand on his mouse and his left on his cat. A grin tugs the corner of my lip, and I turn to my side just to watch him for a bit. The early morning sun streaks through a couple of broken blinds—probably due to that cat—and lights up his right leg. He’s still in the clothes he wore yesterday, the ones we fell asleep in. Shorts and a black t-shirt. My eyes drift to his laundry basket. He’s gotta own other colors. I’ve only seen him in black—once in blue at Candace and Pete’s engagement party—but I’d love to see him in green. The way it’d make his eyes pop… Gah, I’d melt at the knees.
I test all my muscles before pushing the comforter—oh, that’s new too—off my lap and padding my way to Tanner. He’s gotta be deep in work mode. Not even a flinch at any of my movements.
Files and programs light up the screen, and he’s toggling back and forth from all of them at such speed I have no idea how he’s keeping up with it. Warmth tugs at my heart when I see a snippet of myself dropping into the half-pipe at Troublemakers. He watches it for about three seconds before he hits pause and drags another clip in and then adjusts volume levels. He tilts his head back and forth, watching the same clip over and over until he shakes his head and drags the clip he just pasted in to the trash bin.
Pressing my lips together to keep from grinning so wide that I hurt myself, I slide my arms across his shoulders and hug him tightly from behind. He jolts at the sudden contact, and I soothe him with a light kiss to his neck.
“Morning, boyfriend.” Oh, what calling him that does to me. Like I somehow have some claim on him, which is completely barbaric, but I don’t care. He’s mine, and I love that he’s mine.
He slides one side of his headphones off his ear and offers me a tired smile. Red rims his eyes, dark circles forming underneath. “Hey. How’d you sleep?”
Concern pulls at my brow, and I ignore his question. “Have you been up all night?”
“Maybe…” A shy smirk pulls at his lips. He gestures at his screen. “But I’m about done with it.”
“You didn’t have to stay up all night to do that.”
He lifts a shoulder and leans forward, letting my arms slide from around him. He unplugs his headphones and settles them around his neck. He toggles the mouse to the volume adjustment. “You wanna see it so far?”
“Hell yes.” I step to his side, one hand on the back of his chair and the other on my hip. “Can I sit there, Hawk?”
Tanner silently chuckles, and that laughter quickly turns into a yawn. “Come on, buddy,” he says, gently nudging the guy off his lap. The cat gives me that death glare again, and I stick my tongue out at it. I know he’s known Tanner longer, and he’s a freaking cat, but I will fight for Tanner’s attention.
Feeling silly and victorious, I plop onto Tanner’s lap with a little too much gusto. He lets out an oof! and the hydraulics on the chair wheeze with the added weight.
I hold my breath and scan Tanner for injury. “Whoops.”
He lets out a tired, breathy laugh and adjusts me, sliding me closer to his chest. I cross my legs at the ankle and put my arm around his shoulder. For a guy who was up all night, he still smells fantastic.
“It’s not one hundred percent done,” he warns, and I shush him with a finger to his soft lips—lips I haven’t kissed yet this morning, but that will be rectified.
His eyes meet mine, amusement playing at the edges even though he is so exhausted. Poor guy needs to sleep.
He pulls the video up to full screen and presses play. There’s a tiny intro of me doing a grind and landing in front of the camera. “I’m Maddie “Mad” Owens from Indiana, and I’m here to shred it in this year’s Ul
timate Boarding Competition.”
I cringe at how awkward I sound. I glance at Tanner to see if he thinks we should just cut that out and have text or something that introduces me, but he’s grinning, so maybe it’s not as bad as I think.
He used a cool ripped effect to transition to the next clip, and the music starts, the beats fitting so perfectly it’s almost as if I was actually skating to it when filming. He married clips together from my GoPro, his phone, his fancy camera, and the entire thing looks so professional I feel like I already have a sponsor, and this is the ad for their products that run before YouTube videos or on a scroll through TikTok.
I blink, my eyes pricking with the overwhelming emotion from it. He stayed up all night, yes, but it’s not just that. There is footage from months ago… even years. He shoots me with such passion it’s hard to differentiate whether he’s in love with filming or me or both. And my gut dips, my heart pumps an extra beat as I tip over the edge and fall just a little harder for this guy.
“It’s not done,” he says again, his voice wobbly, his breath warm on my cheek. I turn to him, and the nerves run through his eyes before he juts his gaze to the screen. “I’ve got to add a few more transitions, and I’m not happy about the shot here with my phone. Maybe if I make it grainy, like it’s on purpose that it’s supposed to look like tha—”
I press my lips against his hard, with purpose, with gratitude, using everything I have in me to show him just how much I appreciate what he’s done for me. His sentence is lost against my mouth, and my fingers slide through his feathery hair, tugging on the ends.
I’ve always felt that my passion for skating has been a lonely battle. I have support, yes, but I don’t have anyone who understands what skating does for me. He captured it all with his lens, and not just the camera lens, but the lens he sees me through with his own eyes. Tanner has always known, understood, and I don’t know how to tell him what that means. I can’t put it into words, so maybe I can put it in my actions.
We break apart slowly, my lips tumbling over his as I catch my breath. I keep my forehead planted against his, needing it to keep me upright.