Kiss My Ice

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21.

Much to my appreciation, the next week had flown by.

Since the bonfire, since Aiden and I kissed, life at the rink was strained. Very strained. I remained committed to my skating, attended every practice with coach Tiffany, but I took extreme measures to avoid the hockey team at all costs. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

By some stroke of luck, I had also managed to convince Mark and Lance to let me skip out of my punishment with Aiden. It took some heavy persuading, but luckily, they both agreed with minimal pushing as to why I was insistent on a break. Lance didn't say anything, but I got the impression he was aware that something had happened between the two of us.

With all of my effort to avoid the hockey team, I had gone from practically living at the rink, to hardly being there at all. It felt cowardly, but I was in no way ready to face Aiden. Or anyone on the hockey team.

Yes, I was a chicken.

At 9:00 AM on a Thursday in the middle of summer, I was home from the rink for the day after Mark had informed me that Tiffany was unable to come in. Although I wasn't going to the rink today, that didn't mean I wasn't going to work out. Dressed in a pair of grey running shorts, a black sports bra, and black sneakers, I was ready for a nice long run.

"Hey there kiddo."

I jumped at the sound of my dad's voice as I reached the bottom of the stairs. My gaze followed the direction of his voice, finding him sitting on the couch with an easy smile on his face.

"Come here a second, would you?"

I pulled the earbuds from my ears and offered him a smile as I made my way over. "What's up?"

A devious grin briefly swept his features as he watched me. I raised my eyebrows, suddenly feeling very skeptical. It was not a good sign to see him grin. Ever. "What?"

"I'd like to talk to you about Aiden Gray."

My eyes went wide. I didn't even try to mask my surprise that Dad would bring up Aiden. There was chance that he knew about he kiss... was there? I swallowed hard. "What about him?"

Either he didn't notice my concerned expression, or he didn't care. "How are things between the two of you?" He lifted his blue ball cap from his head, raked a hand through his hair, and replaced the hat.

Heat unwillingly flooded my face. "What?"

Dad clapped his hands together, eyebrows raised. "Why didn't you tell me that the two of you weren't getting along at the rink? I thought you told me everything, kiddo."

I sucked in a large breath. I was not expecting him to bring that up. It was a giant relief that he was about to ask me a million different questions regarding the kiss. It sucked to have to explain the punishment, but it was better than explaining a kiss.

"It's not that big of a deal," I lied.

"You two have to teach one other about your sports. How is that going?" He asked, "Are you picking up on hockey?"

"That?" It was a simple question with a simple answer. I still sucked at hockey. But that wasn't the simple one-worded answer I gave him. "Fine."

Dad's eyebrows raised. He clearly was not at all convinced that I was telling the truth. Still, he decided to accept the answer and change the subject. "I was talking with Mr. Gray today."

I froze. That couldn't be good.

With the poor relationship between Aiden and Lance, I was confident that Aiden wouldn't have discussed his personal life with his dad. I.e., he wouldn't have told him that we kissed. But Lance would know that I had ditched out on all of my practices with Aiden this week. A huge red flag.
"Why have you missed all your practices with him this week?"