Cold as Ice

It was odd, knowing a whole different side of Cayden.

I almost couldn't look at him the same way. Rather than seeing the tall, intelligent, blonde-haired hockey player, I saw a cold, two-timing womanizer. There was a strange sharpness in his eyes that I'd never noticed before.

He was walking toward me, with a shady grin that once appeared to me as sexy; but in the past few days since we'd gotten to know each other better, and Johnny had shed some light on his other side, I didn't see the glamour in it anymore. "Hey, Aves." He said, and kissed my lips.

"Hi, Cayden." I said nervously. Bailey gave me a look from her place beside me, as she leaned against the wall by the front doors to the school.

"Can I walk you to first period?" He asked.

My stomach flipped a little, but I nodded. "Okay. Bye," I waved to Bailey as we turned and headed for the stairs.

"What's up? You look a bit pale." He chuckled. "Or at least more pale than usual."

I felt like I had to laugh, too. "No, no, I'm fine. I guess I just didn't sleep very well."

"Oh." He shrugged.

The walk to my English class was too long, and Cayden did most of the talking. He talked about how he scored most of the goals in his last game, and how he couldn't believe how bad the opposing team was. He made sports references I didn't understand, and also talked about how his ex-girlfriend was there.

A tiny bell rang in the back of my head. "Your ex? What's she like?"

"Claire's a bitch." He said. "She's smoking hot, but she's a bitch."

"What did she do?" I asked.

"It's too complicated to say on the way to class, but maybe I'll tell you later."

"All right." I said. We rounded a corner, and I slammed into somebody. I had absolutely no luck with corners.

Of course it was Johnny. I stopped and looked up at him as I rubbed my finger, which had bent painfully as I crashed into his chest. "That hurt."

Surprisingly, Johnny smiled at me. It was a slight grin that showed none of his teeth, but made two dimples show in his cheeks. I'd never noticed that Johnny had dimples. "Sorry, Kiddo."

"Watch where you're going, fuckhead." Cayden said angrily.

Johnny looked from me to Cayden, his smile and tone of voice poisoning. "Maybe you should keep better care of your girls, numb nuts."

"Fuck you." Cayden snarled.

"In your hottest, wettest dreams." said Johnny, calmly. He looked down at me, and took my hand, kissing my hurt knuckle tenderly. "If I were you, I'd stay away from corners."

With a wink, he dropped my hand and brushed Cayden's shoulder as he passed us. I stared at my finger, unblinking. That couldn't have been Johnny. Johnny was never nice to me. Johnny would never gently touch me. And Johnny would never ever kiss me.

I turned around and watched him walk down the hallway. There was a cocky flow in the way he walked, the way his hips moved, as if the world were at his feet. It really had been Johnny. What the hell had just happened?

Cayden's voice made me realize that we had started walking again. "I fucking hate that cocky bastard. Who the hell does he think he is?"

"I don't know." I said, not an answer to his question, but to mine. I didn't know what had just happened back there.

"Me either." He said, and angrily shook his head. "Well, here's your stop. See you later."

"Yeah, bye." I said.

The corner of his lip twitched as I gave him a half-hearted wave, and not a kiss, like he had probably expected. He disappeared down the hall just as the bell rang, and I sat down in class.

I found Bailey and Jen and lunch and dragged them down an empty hallway.

"What the hell, man!" Bailey rubbed her wrist.

Jen adjusted her glasses, blinking her big, soulful eyes at me. "Yeah, what's wrong?"

"You will not believe what Johnny did this morning." I told them.

Bailey's facial expression turned from annoyed to intrigued. "What?" She pressed. "What did he do?"

"He kissed me. Not on the lips! Not on the lips!" I hastily exclaimed, as her eyes popped open wide. She settled slightly. "But he kissed my finger." I said.

"Why?" asked Jen, as she ran her fingers through her thick, wavy hair.

"Well, Cayden walked me to Advanced English period one, and as we turned a corner, I smashed into Johnny. But in stead of making some dumb remark, Johnny's face got all sweet and he kissed my finger better."

"Was he high? He must have been high." she said.

Bailey shook her head at Jen. "Surprisingly, Johnny doesn't do drugs." She looked at me, her eyes burning with curiosity. "What did Cayden do?"

"They started swearing at each other. Cayden got mad, but Johnny stayed calm. They really don't like each other, guys." I said, and immediately regretted it.

"Hold on," Bailey flung out her arms, "are we missing something here?"

I sighed, and launched into the explaination of how Johnny beat Cayden up at the after-party, and told Jen about Cayden's player past. Both of my friends' faces were frozen in a look of shock. Jen blinked twice, and Bailey raised one of her pierced eyebrows really high.

"So... no way," Bailey said.

"No way what?" I asked.

"You're not going to formal with him." said Jen.

"Why not?" I asked. "I'm going to at least give him a chance."

"No!" They exclaimed.

"Why?"

"Because!" Bailey stomped her foot. "I will not have my best friend go to formal with a slut!"

"Me either!" Jen said. "Why do you want to give him a chance if you've heard of all the stuff he's done?"

"Guys!" I threw my head back. "I'm just really confused right now, okay?"

"What's to be confused about?" asked Bailey. "He's a slut. You're too good for him. Problem solved."

"I need my mother." I murmured.

Both of them sighed in understanding and wrapped their arms around me. Bailey, who was way shorter than me, nuzzled her nose into my cheek. "I'm sorry."

Jen, slightly taller than Bailey, rested her head against mine. "Me too,"

"It's okay, guys." I sighed. "I guess she would be saying the same thing if she were alive. Except she'd probably have threatened to give him a vasectomy."

"I miss your Mom." Bailey murmured.

"I miss her too." Jen whispered.

"I miss her the most." My stomach growled loudly. "But I guess my stomach has it's mind on something else,"

Laughing, Bailey pulled out of the group hug and pulled her hair into a low ponytail. "I wouldn't mind getting some food before I start crying."

Jen smiled. "Sounds good to me. Let's go, ladies."

The cafeteria was packed, but the line was short. We had missed the rush. All three of us got pizza and headed for the stairs. When we reached them, poor Kyle was sitting there alone, staring at the clock on his cell. I laughed at him. "Did you miss us?"

"Where were you three?" He asked. "I was worried."

Bailey planted a quick kiss on his lips. "Avery had some issues we needed to discuss."

"When do you not have issues?" Kyle looked at me.

I shrugged. "When I'm sleeping?"

He chuckled. "And dreaming of Johnny Frost?"

Jen, Bailey and I shared a look.

"What?" asked Kyle. He shook the ashy blonde hair from his eyes. "Am I missing something?"

Bailey bit her lip. "It's a long story, babycakes."

"There's fourty minutes left of lunch. I've got time." He said.

I sighed. "Well ---"

Someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around to see Johnny, and the mouthful of pizza I'd just swallowed dropped into my stomach like a brick. His face was serious. "I need to talk to you," he licked his lower lip, "... alone."

I glanced at Bailey, and then Jen. They nodded for me to go. I turned back to Johnny. "Okay,"

He turned and I followed him out of the stairwell, and all the way outside. The wind and falling snow hit my bare arms like razor blades. The Harley Davidson tank top I was wearing exposed my arms, and bits of my sides where the fabric was artfully slit. We walked all the way to the parking lot, and he got in his car. I yanked the door open and fell inside, shivering wildly.

My teeth chattered. "W-what did-d-d you want-t to t-talk ab-bout?"

The car was nice and warm, having already been started. Johnny sped out of the parking lot, his car's engine roaring angrily. "Nicols," He said.

"How specific," I said, beginning to warm up. "What about him?"

"You're too close to him." He said. "It's bad."

"Johnny, what are you getting at?"

"Have you ever heard of Roofies?" He asked.

I shook my head. "What the hell are they?"

"It's a drug, Kid. A Date Rape drug. Rohypnol."

"What does that have to do with anything?" I asked.

"You don't think a whole lot, do you?" He looked at me. "Let me put two and two together for you. I was right - Cayden only wanted to go to formal with you for one reason."

"And..." my eyes widened. "Johnny, what are you saying?"

"Oh my God!" He yelled, burying a hand in his hair. "Cayden was planning on raping you!"

"What?"

"I told you! I told you he was a bad guy! He almost did it to my sister. I saw him slip it into her drink. I don't know what any of us would do if that ever happened to you - that's why I told you." He glanced at me quickly. "You don't believe me."

I shook my head. "Johnny, a high school senior is not going to try and Date Rape somebody. It just doesn't happen."

"Yes it does." Johnny said. "It happened to Alexa! Listen to me, Avery. I wanted to tell you as soon as you told me that Cayden asked you to formal. But I knew that you wouldn't believe me - I knew you'd think I was lying to you. But I swear I'm telling the truth this time. I don't joke about what happened to my sister, because it's not funny."

My heart pounded in my chest. I was lucky to have Johnny, as odd as it was for me to say. Nobody else knew what had happened that night but him, and me. I had to believe him. If Johnny Frost loved anyone in the whole world, it was his sister. And if he said that it had happened, it had. I looked at him, and he flickered his gaze between the road and me. His eyebrows were pulled together in a pleading expression. "Okay." I said. "I believe you."

He looked relieved. "Thank you."

We were both silent. Though there were a thousand questions milling in my head, and I could tell Johnny still had something to say, we were silent. My heart thudded, and my skin crawled. I'd let Cayden kiss me. I had let him kiss me, and hold my hand. "Johnny, formal is tomorrow night." I said. "If it wasn't for you, I could have been..."

"I know. I know what could have happened, and that's why I told you. But nobody else can know, okay? If people find out what he did, and what I did, we could both get arrested or something."

"But in a way, you only beat him up to protect your sister." I said.

He laughed. "Well, I wish the Law would understand it that way. But really, they can't prove he did it - Alexa didn't drink her drink, she threw it at Cayden when they started fighting. So if there was no proof, it would just be assault."

"That's not fair." I said.

"I know." Johnny sighed. "Look, Kid, I know we don't really get along. But I need you to promise me that you'll kick Cayden's ass to the curb."

"I don't need to promise you that. I'm going to do it." I stared out the window at the blurry, grey sky, with anger and confusion and fright whirling around in my head. "I can't believe I almost wanted to give him a chance."

"I can't believe you didn't reject him in the first place."

I looked at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He chuckled. "He's one ugly motherfucker."

"No... he's not."

"Yeah, he is." Johnny said. "And he has a lisp."

"He doesn't."

"Yes he does. He has a Mad Hatter lisp. He can't pronounce his S sounds correctly. That's another reason why I hate him."

I snickered. "Now that I think about it, he actually does have a lisp."

"Thee?" He pulled into the school parking lot and shut the car off. He recreated Cayden's voice perfectly. "I told you. He'th bad newth."

Laughing, I moved to open the car door, but stopped, frowning at the cold I was about to step out into. "I hate snow."

The world suddenly went black. "Wear that, Princess." Johnny said.

I pulled whatever it was he'd thrown at me off of my head and looked at it. It was a black leather jacket with a studded collar. The jacket Ash and I had bought him for his birthday. "Johnny, I don't want this."

"Oh, and you'd rather freeze to death? Please don't get my hopes up." He smiled.

Rolling my eyes, I slipped the jacket on and got out of the car. It was big on me, and still held Johnny's body heat and deep, spicy cinnamon scent. The wind and snow posed no threat.

I elbowed Johnny in the ribs as he held the big glass door open for me. "See you in study block, devil spawn." He whispered in my ear as I passed under his arm.

I smiled to myself and went to find my friends.