Until Hell Freezes Over

“Hey, before we start. How bout we make this interesting?” I suggested as I selected a bright pink bowling ball to use and placed it on the rack.

“I thought you said this wasn’t a competition?” Jonathan stated, sarcastically as he raised an eyebrow in my direction. I just rolled my eyes at him before shrugging,

“Is it an issue, Mr. Toews?” He smirked before taking a dangerous step closer to me, so close that I could feel the heat radiating off of his built body.

“No, but the real question should be if it’s an issue for you, Miss. Maxwell?” He whispered, his warm breath dancing over my ear as he leaned into it. Why was he being such a flirt? I didn’t expect this kind of behavior out of him, if I was with Kaner, yeah totally, but not Tazer. It’s so out of character for him.

“No, it’s not an issue for me either, so what do you wanna bet?” I questioned, as I tugged on the collar of his blue plaid button-up shirt. I wanted to see what was going on in that complex brain of his. In response, I felt a ghost of hand slide up this small of my back. When I looked back up at Jon’s face, his bottom lip was quivering in consideration of the possibilities available to him. At this pace, it was going to take all day for him to decide what he wanted out of me so I choose to speed things up.

“How about if I win; you pay for dinner and if you win I’ll give you a kiss.” I purred, giving him one of the more seductive looks that I could muster while still trying to look completely serious. He stared down at me with a blank expression on his face, but slowly his lips curled up into a rather cocky grin as his hand gripped my hips, pulling me just that much closer to him,

“You’ve got yourself a deal, little lady.”

“Alright then, let’s get this party started! You’re goin’ down, bitch.” I announced, suddenly pushing him away and rushing over to gran my bowling ball. He was such a gentleman to put my name first. Of course, he entered my team nickname; ‘Maxi’, instead of my name. I lined myself up; cautiously I hadn’t been bowling since before I had graduated from Michigan back in April. Everything looked good as I released the ball but then it curved to the left as it sped down the lane and into the gutter it fell. I growled, at this failed attempt before stalking back to the rack to wait for the machine to cough up my ball so I could try again.

“Such big talk from such a small person looks like I’m going to get that kiss after all.” Jon hollered, laughing at my impatient display.

“Like I am going to let you win!” I shouted back at him over the music that was playing which sounded something like Bowling for Soup’s “1985”. Then the machine hacked up my ball and I picked it up, quickly before returning to the lane to try a get some points. This time I didn’t put as much thought into it and only adjusted how I held the ball as I wound up to release it. This time it was perfect, straight down the middle to curve off just enough to drive the 3 pin into the 5 causing that classic chain reaction that would’ve resulted in a strike if I would’ve done it the first time around.

I jumped up, excitedly as I saw the last pin fall in defeat and then turned around to Jon, exclaiming, “What now! What are you gonna do now?”

He just stared at me in disbelief before he, too, stood up and pointed at me,

“You hustled me, you bitch! You said you couldn’t bowl to save your life.” I just shrugged, in response.

“I can’t bowl. That was called ‘luck’, my dear Jonathan.” I stressed, as I patted him on the shoulder before I sat down and called, “Batter up!” He rolled his big brown eyes at me and picked up his fire engine red bowling ball. I watched at how smooth he was as he set himself up to only miss a spare, the way he kicked his left leg behind him as he let the power of his wind up give his ball speed it need to seemingly glide off of his fingertips. He then spun around and slides down onto his knees like he had scored a goal in a game. I just scoff and roll my eyes at him, yet again. Wow, I am doing that a lot today.

“Whatcha think about that, hot stuff?” He jeered, as he held his hand out for me to take. I took his hand, reluctantly and allowed him to pull me up to my feet. This was going to be harder than I thought it would be. I am actually going to have to try to beat him.

“Oh, Jon, it’s still you’re turn by the way.” I mentioned when I noticed he still had two pins standing.

“Huh? Oh yeah, totally forgot about that.” He mutter and stalked away to pick up his ball, to finish this round. His second showing wasn’t quiet as impressive, since he ended up missing both pins. Hmm, this might not be quite so hard after all.

We pretty evenly matched in our bowling skills or I should say lack there of. It was pretty embarrassing when a group of teenagers showed up half way through our first round and made us look like total fools. I mean, we looked pathetic compared to them. Well, at least we discovered that bowling isn’t our thing. He ended up winning two out of the 3 around that we played so you know what that means. I had to give him a kiss. I told him that I would give him one if he walked me up to mine and Claire’s apartment. He replied with what kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t? This made me laugh, now he was acting much more like the Tazer that I was used to.

The ride back we talked about music we liked since, during our little bowling challenge we would exclaim, ‘I love this song!’ when ever something we liked came on. It turns out that we had a lot of the same artists and songs. As soon as we arrived back at my apartment complex, I got this sinking feeling in my stomach, not because I was dreading having to give Jonathan a kiss, but because I didn’t this to end. I had so much fun this evening and felt better than I had in weeks. I was so gonna go to morning skate, I found myself missing the guys and a need to get back to the game.

Soon enough we were on my floor and walking down the hall way to my door. Jonathan began to look nervous, it was cute that he would be this worried about it.

“You don’t have to kiss me if you don’t want to.” Jonathan mumbled as we stopped just outside my door.

“Jon, I wouldn’t have agreed to the bet if I wasn’t comfortable with it.” I informed him, as I put my hands on his shoulders and stood on my toes before leaning in and pressing my lips againist his, softly. He quickly responded by placing his hands on my hips, pulling me closer and moving his lips with mine. It definitely more than what I was planning to do, but god it felt so good, so right. I found myself not wanting to stop. Eventually, we had to pull apart for air, but we still held each other. Jon rested his forehead againist mine before breathlessly whispering,

“Thanks for inviting me along.” I grinned back at him and pressed another kiss at the corner of his mouth,

“There’s no one else I’d rather spend time with. I really had a great time just hanging out with tonight.” It was his turn to smile,

“Yeah, I needed to unwind a little myself. I’m just glad that you’re coming around.” Then he leaned down again and kissed me again. This time I felt my knees go weak and I had to cling on to him so that I wouldn’t melt into a puddle on the floor. Damn, this boy sure knew how to kiss, even though he doesn’t seem like it. This time I pulled away, first,

“Hot damn, you need to stop otherwise I going to start ripping your clothes off.” He chuckled and pressed his lips againist my cheek.

“Yeah, seeing that it’s late and we have morning skate tomorrow it wouldn’t be a good idea to do that now, would it?” I shook my head and pulled my lanyard out of my pocket so I could unlock my door,

“Goodnight, Jon.” I smiled and tentatively gave him a hug before turning to go inside and call it a night, but Jonathan didn’t see that fitting. Instead, he pulled me back around to face him just so he could give me another quick peck.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.” He grinned, goofily at me before saying, “Goodnight, Dillan. See ya tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow.” I confirmed and I walked inside, “Goodnight.” Jon just nodded and waved as he began to walk away. After I closed the door, I leaned back againist it. Wow, was the only thing that had come to mind. I never thought I would be kissing my captain. It seemed so weird to think of him as my superior, but he was which made it feel wrong. Yet, it still felt so right. Like we should be together.

“So that’s where you were.” Claire stated from the lazy boy, reading her romance novel.

“It’s not what you think; we went bowling and made a bet. If he won, I had to give him a kiss. You know I don’t make bets unless I am comfortable with them. Besides it’s not like there was anything else to it. We just kissed.” I defended, as I flopped down onto the couch, adjacent to her.

“Now that’s a load of BS, you don’t ever go around kissing guys, all willy nilly. Even if it was a bet! You have been harboring feeling for him for a while now. I can tell by the way that you look at him. He looks at you the same way, ya know?” She pointed out to me. I sighed, throwing an arm over my eyes to shield them from the light,

“I just don’t know… What would everyone think if Jon and I actually got together?” I wondered.

“I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what someone else thought because I know you would be happy.” Claire suggested, “He was testing the water tonight. I predict he will make a move very soon if not you know that it was just a bet.”

I nodded, taking in her words of wisdom. It wasn’t like he was trying to get in my pats or anything. He was always sweet and gentlemanly. So if he really did want to have a shot at me then I’m sure he would asked because he wouldn’t give up until he got what he wanted. That was just how Jonathan was. Dear God, I have a lot of thinking to do, tonight.