Operation Beautiful

“Good morning!” I call cheerily through the phone.

“Um...hi,” comes Emma’s groggy voice. “It’s...” I can hear her rub her face with a hand. “It’s early.”

“Correction!” I say. “It’s 10:30.”

“Like I said,” she yawns. “It’s early.”

“Yes, well, I thought I’d take you ice skating today.”

“Okay...why?”

“Because,” I say, feeling a bit of courage go through me. “Because I feel like it. I’ll pick you up at noon and we’ll have lunch over there, okay?”

It’s weird, but now that I’ve given myself permission to like Emmaleigh, I feel a lot more confident around her. I’m no longer stuck between the part of me that likes her and the part that reminds me of Haley and how liking a girl who likes someone else is a lost cause. I don’t care if I get hurt this time. I’m going to give it my best shot.

***

“Okay, where do you want to eat?” I ask Emma, opening the door as she gets into the cab.

“I don’t really care,” she says sullenly.

“Well, that sucks, because I don’t care either.” It’s an attempt to get her to talk to me.

“Oh.”

A failed attempt.

“Come on, Em. Talk to me.”

“It’s Emmaleigh,” she mutters under her breath, but I ignore it.

“Oh, you left your planner at our place. You want me to bring it over later?”

“No, it’s fine. Jess can bring it to me on Monday.”

“Okay. Tell me when you know what you want to eat, okay?” I sit back and try to relax. If she doesn’t want to break the ice, then it looks like I can’t do anything about it.

There’s a long silence. Finally, Emmaleigh scoots a little closer to me. “Um...can we get burgers, please?”

“Sure,” I say with a smile, telling the taxi driver where to go.

We reach the burger place and get inside.

“Can I have a salad instead of fries with the burger?” Emmaleigh asks the server.

“Ah. Me, too, please!” I say quickly. Emmaleigh looks at me.

"You don’t have to do that,” she whispers.

“I want to,” I say. “Why? I can’t like salad?” She just shrugs as the server walks away.

“Okay, so why ice skating?” she asks, once our burgers arrive.

“Well, I used to play hockey a lot in Belgium and so I thought it would be fun to go out on the ice again.”

Emmaleigh takes a bite out of her burger and looks at me. A sheepish blush sweeps over her cheeks. “I’ve, uh, I’ve never ice skated before.”

“That’s fine,” I say with a smile, my eyes not moving from her face. “I’ll teach you, it’s really easy.”

***
“I thought you said it would be easy!” Emmaleigh complains, her hand tightly grasping my arm. I can’t stop my laughter.

“Em, we’re not even on the ice yet!”

“Yes, well, it’s already hard,” she says.

“Okay, okay,” I say. “Here, hold onto me like this.” I put her hands on my waist. “You just hold on tightly and I’ll do the skating, okay? You’ll get the hang of it.” Lame excuse to touch her number 1.

“Why don’t I just grab one of those walker-things other people are using?”

“Because you’ll look like a granny,” I joke. “And this way you’ll look cool.” Lame excuse to touch her number 2.

“I think I’ll just--oh my god!” Her protests get cut off as I make it onto the ice. Like I said, I’ve played hockey, I know what I’m doing. “Corey!” she calls, tightening her hands’ grip on my waist.

“Yes?” I call back, enjoying this.

“Corey, stop! You’re going to fast!”

“Stop?” I ask, screeching to halt and enjoying the sensation of her arms sliding around my waist and tightening their grip.

“Corey!” Her voice is muffled against my back. She doesn’t know how to move backwards.

“What?” I ask innocently, trapping her hands beneath mine so she can’t move. I’m crazy, absolutely crazy. But there isn’t much I can do about it.

“Cmmffmsd,” she says.

“I’m sorry, Em, but something got lost in the translation.” I joke. Her skates finally lose their grip on the ice, shooting out from between my legs. I grip her arms tighter. This is going to be interesting. “Em, try straightening your legs out.” She manages to push herself up again, but I don’t let go over her arms.

“Corey,” she says pointedly.

“What?” I ask. “I’m taking you ice skating. Be a good girl and don’t complain randomly.” Where I’m getting this courage from, I’m not entirely sure. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her distant mood ruin my day.

She sighs and gives in, her arms still wrapped tightly around my waist. Unfortunately, she’s going to have to move them if we’re going to start skating again.

“All right, move back and just use your hands. We’re going to start skating again.”

It’s a long session, and I swear I use every opportunity to get close to her. I hold her hand, help her up when she falls, insist that we play all the random games the DJ announces together: I even use the cold as an excuse to hold her close. Every time she gets annoyed or tries to push me away, I remind her that I am the one paying for this outing and she should stop “complaining randomly.” Besides, I tell her, friends do this kind of stuff all the time. She’s too polite to tell me off.

“Hungry?” I ask when we’re finished.

“Yeah. Hey, I’m going to go check my BS, okay? Exercise always makes me go low.” She disappears for a minute, coming back to tell me, “Yeah, I’m pretty low. Let’s get something to eat.”

I want to ask how low, but I don’t want her to get mad at me right now. We head to the food stand where she surveys her choices for a minute.

“What would you like?” I ask. She has this look on her face. A really adorable look that says “I know what I want, but you’ve already paid for lunch and skating.”

“Come on,” I say, slipping my arms around her waist and pulling her close. “What would you like?”

“How about I buy you something?” she asks, ignoring my arms. I think that’s a good sign. “You’ve already paid for a lot today, and this isn’t even a date.”

“Okay,” I say, resting my chin on her shoulder. “How about we split a sundae or something?”

“It’s kind of cold already,” she chokes out after a moment.

“Mmm. Hot chocolate, then?” I’m revelling in the fact that she hasn’t moved away. In her beautiful lemon-scented hair and the warmth radiating from her body. I wish...I wish I could capture this moment forever.

“Okay.” She orders and tries to move, but I don’t let her. “Corey? Could you move?” I let go of her involuntarily, my mind taken up by an idea.

“Let’s go find somewhere to sit,” she says. But just at that moment the server comes back to the counter with our drinks.

“No,” I say, taking my hot chocolate from her. “I have a better idea.”

We start walking down the street, Emmaleigh questioning me all the way.

"You'll find out when we get there," I say, letting my fingers fold into hers slowly. "What?" I protest as she tries to pull away. "Friends can hold hands. It's very common in Spain." I decide not to mention that it's only between friends of the same sex.

"Friends can hold hands?" Emma asks dubiously.

"Of course!"

We finally reach the mall and I pull her inside. “What are we doing here?” she asks.

“Well, you remember how you said you always wanted to try a photo booth but you never got the chance?” She nods dubiously and I lead her to the photo booth by the entrance. “I really enjoyed today,” I begin awkwardly. “So, I thought...you know...” She doesn’t say anything, so I pull her inside the booth and sit down.

“Okay, so...you pick a background,” I tell her. This time, Emmaleigh loosens up a bit sooner. Probably because I started tickling her.

“Stop!” She pleads within, like, two seconds.

“Or else what?” I ask.

That sets off a variety of wacky poses. Emmaleigh pretending to choke me, me tickling the crap out her and finally, me with Emmaleigh on my lap, a look of pure shock on her face as I kiss her on the cheek.

“What was that for?” she asks in shock, looking down at the strip in her hand. She’s still sitting on my lap.

“Uh...sorry,” I mumble, pulling her in for a hug and resting my chin on her shoulder.

“I thought we were friends,” she says quietly.

“I’m sorry, I was, uh, I was...”

“You were acting as though you liked me,” she says finally. There’s a pregnant pause as my heart races before of my mouth.

“What if I said I do?”