Kissing Prince Charming

Ice and a little bit of calculus ♥

“It smells like feet and boys lost dreams in here.”

I try to hide my smile as I stretch out on the bleachers, Ross’s voice filling the otherwise normal silence. He enters the gym, textbook in one hand and a stack of papers in the other.

His glasses are just as askew as the last time I saw him and his hair is even messier.

The slight frown his face makes it seem like he has never entered a gym before. As I take in his dark shirt and scuffed boots, I realize maybe he hasn’t.

Standing up, I quickly look down at my own text book laying on the abandoned bleacher, hoping he hasn’t caught me checking him out.

“I’m guessing you don’t like gyms?” I ask, moving my book bag to the floor. I asked coach if she could ask the janitors to leave the bottom row of bleachers open so that way I could study and practice my routine at the same time.

It took a lot of persuading and sure to be broken promises for coach to pull the task through for me. It just meant my routine for next week's football game needed to solid.

Perfection was expected.

“Nah,” He says, dumping his stuff next to mine. “I have nothing against them. Who am I to judge people fighting over balls?” I try again to hide my smile. Instead, I bend over and collect my hair into a tight ponytail.

“It’s nice to know you don’t hate everything. Here I thought you hated the word and everything in it.”

I push my bangs out of my face and straighten. I find him leaning back on his elbows while on the bleachers, a small smile on his face.

“I don’t know if I should be insulted,” He comments half-heartedly. “You are making me sound like the beginning of a bad sitcom. Soon I’ll be the evil guy in the corner, kicking puppies and cursing at old people.”

I shrug and take a step back so that I’m a good distance away from the bleachers.

“Okay then,” I say as I bend down and touch my toes with my right hand. “List things you actually like.” I repeat the maneuver with my left hand as I listen to Ross list the things he enjoys.

“Education, books, cigarettes, coffee, and..” His voice trails off and I look up to find him staring intently at the ceiling as if it held all his answers. “I liked a girl once. But that was awhile ago.”

He must sense me staring because he jerks his head up and meets my eyes.

“What about you cheergirl? What do you like?” I swallow and move on to my next exercise. “Well, I like cheerleading, shopping, tacos, Sudoku, and nail polish.”

I tentatively meet his gaze, thinking everything I listed is absolutely shallow. But when put in the situation to list the things you like, you realize just how unimportant and ordinary your world is.

Because the things you like?

Thousands of others like it too.

Something changes on his face and he goes back to leaning on his elbows. “I think,” He says, staring back up at  the ceiling. “We shouldn’t be ordinary and ask what the other one likes. There’s millions of things we can like or not like. But how about what we love? What he want? That, I think, is so much harder to list.”

I suddenly lose my balance and almost face-plant it on the floor. My heart starts to beat erratically, nervous that he is going to ask what I wanted. Because what I want is something I’m too afraid to say.