Knock You Off Your Feet

“That was really nice,” I said appreciatively as we left the restaurant, tugging the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over my hands. “Thanks.”

“No problem. I’m glad you had a good time.” His smile stretched across his thin face and I admired it for a moment. I looked away, though, before he could notice. “So, you finished your first training run on the snowboard cross track today.” It wasn’t a question. I looked over at him, head tilted sideways, as we walked.

“How’d you know?” I asked, honestly curious.

“Well, I kinda… I watched it. Part of it, at least,” he admitted, looking up at me from beneath a few tendrils of flaming red hair. “Anyways, how’d you do?”

“Fastest time posted.” A small surge of adrenaline rushed through me. I couldn’t tell whether it was from the fact I had blown the field away or whether it was because Shaun was there to see it. “Why did you decide to watch my run? I mean, I figured you would’ve wanted to watch Team USA or something.” I scuffed my black Vans along the pavement, kicking at pebbles.

“Your coolness at the party the other night… It fascinated me. Most people think since, you know, I’m a hotshot snowboarder, that I’m intimidating. But you just walked up, oozing self-confidence, and asked me if I remembered you. It was just… a really nice change of pace. Plus, I remembered the couple times back at that X Games, and you seemed like an interesting person there. I figured I’d make up for lost time now.” He smiled a toothy grin and looked at me. “You know?”

“Yeah, I know.” I returned his smile. “Halfpipe – you excited?”

“Hell yes. My run is gonna be so great.” He clenched his fists and leaned back as he said this, a sort of mild victory stance, and I raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Cocky much?”

He laughed. “If you aren’t confident, you’ll mess up. Believe me, I learned that the hard way. Start doubting your ability to land a trick, you’ll stop landing it.”

“Mm, makes sense,” I admitted. I stopped walking near a snow bank and turned to make a little snowball. I made sure Shaun couldn’t see it as I pressed chunks of snow together hastily. “But I still think that you can’t go into an event thinking that you’re going to be the best out there, or you’ll lay down a sloppy run and be beaten.”

He had stopped, too, and he looked back at me. My hands were behind my back, and I smiled innocently at him.

“That’s true. But I didn’t say I was going to be the best, did I? I said my run was going to be great.” He crossed his arms in triumph, thinking he had won the argument.

“Touché, Tomato, touché.”

And that’s when I let the snow fly.

It hit him square in the chest and he staggered backwards, startled. “Oh, you did not just do that,” he said incredulously.

I nodded with a smug smile on my face.

“It’s on, Squirrel.”

A terrific snow battle ensued, each of us putting up a great fight. My shots were accurate, while his were rapid, making me duck for cover. People walking by shot us dirty looks as I squealed, he shouted, and we both laughed.

Eventually, he gave up throwing snowballs and charged me. I tried to outrun him, but it was no use. He wrapped his skinny arms around me from behind and pinned mine to my sides. My heart was pounding – both from his proximity and the exertion – and I hoped he couldn’t feel it.

“I win?” he asked in my ear.

“Yes, yes, you win,” I panted, near breathless. I expected him to let go after that, but he didn’t, his bushy ginger locks mingling with my straight black ones.

“So, I won, what do I get?” he repeated my earlier words back to me in a hushed whisper.

“Whatever you want,” I answered, squirming a little bit. His hugging was making me warm, seeing as the Vancouver day wasn’t all that cold and we had just been running around.

“You promise to stop calling me ‘Tomato’ and any variation of that for the rest of eternity?”

“Yeah, fine, whatever.”

“Okay then.” His grip loosened and I was free. I put my hands on my knees and caught my breath, looking to see how far away we were from the rings. They were but a shape in the distance, and I groaned internally. It made what I was about to do so much harder.

“What’s next?” I asked innocently, once I was breathing normally.

“I brought some DVDs with me for the flight; we could watch a movie?”

“Sounds good to me…”

He smiled in my pause.

“… Flaming Spaz.”

And then I ran like hell to get to his door, laughing as he called after me the whole time.