Sober

People will stare, make it worth their while. –Harry Winston

It was too early for anything: too early for school, too early for classes, and too early to deal with my imbecile classmates. As I pushed through the throngs of my classmates standing in the hall, and into my AP Chemistry class I caught eyes with a couple of the Rangers players that had come to the party I had thrown Saturday.

“Sick party, Al,” Ben laughed as he searched through the front pocket of his backpack for what looked to be a pen. My face tinged slightly red. I had already heard this all morning and it wasn’t even second period yet. Kitchener wasn’t a place where everything you did went unnoticed. Gossip spread faster than wildfire throughout the medium sized town, hence how my dad and Anna had found out even before he had gotten home that I had turned his humble abode into a roaring teenage party.

“Please don’t remind me.” I quickly insisted as I took a seat at the empty tabletop behind him. The past weekend hadn’t been exactly my shining moment. He grinned and ducked his head right in front of where I had set my backpack on the tabletop.

“Don’t remind you of the--” Before he could even finish his sentence, which I already knew what he was about to say, my jaw dropped. It was him. Walking in the classroom, in all of his godlikeness. Ben’s friendly grin turned more shit eating as blonde and beautiful and I made eye contact. Could this have gotten more awkward? “Guess I don’t have to remind you of it, he’s right here.” I guess it could. What was his name again? Patrick? Hayden? No, Gregory?

“Class, I’d like you to meet Gabriel Landeskog. Mr. Landeskog is an exchange student from Sweden who is graciously lending his talents to our local hockey team.” Bing. Gabriel, that was it. Mrs. Lamar continued on in a monotone voice to the class and I began to zone out, but not quick enough as the Kitchener Rangers were mentioned and a collective applause welcomed the room.

No. He couldn’t be the new kid that they had just drafted. Could he?

“Gabriel if you wouldn’t mind taking a seat next to Allison in the back. Allison?” My head shot up from the desk and nearly half of the class turned around and stared at me as my face turned redder and redder the closer he got to the table. Ben nudged my bag with his shoulder.

“Guess I really don’t have to remind you now.” He quipped as Gabriel took a seat next to me and I began coming up with a decisive plan to get out of this class.

“Allison, eh?” He whispered after class had begun and Mrs. Lamar had instructed us to take out our atomic mass packet that had been assigned for homework. I bit down on my lip and continued to turn a shade of deep purple. When I had gave him the wrong name I hadn’t anticipated sitting next to him the following Monday in class, and I sure as hell hadn’t anticipated him being the “holy one” that had just been drafted to the Rangers.

“It’s my middle name,” I began not swaying from the truth. “And sometimes I go by my middle name.” The second portion was a lie, but I couldn’t figure out what else I would say. Truth be told I didn’t even know why I had told him Reed instead of Allison in the first place. He smirked as Mrs. Lamar turned around from the smart board and stared directly at us.

“Is there a problem, Miss Christy?” She bellowed in a tone that meant business. I quickly shook my head and tried to not turn red as the rest of the class stared back at Gabriel and I. If I wanted to guess, probably more than half of the junior class knew what exactly had gone on behind closed doors. Small town.

“I didn’t have a copy of the packet and I was just asking Allison if I were able to copy down the questions,” Gabriel admitted as I tried to think of a good enough excuse to give the old biddy. Mrs. Lamar pursed her lips towards the class and continued back to her lesson.

“Thanks for that,” I finally gritted through my teeth. He shrugged his broad shoulders and pulled a pencil out from behind his ear. From corner of my eye I was able to look at his side profile with my peripheral vision. He looked just as good, if not better, than he had on Saturday night. This time my beer goggles hadn’t proven me wrong, thankfully.

“So, AP Chemistry?” He finally asked as we were working on our group packets, or more like I was doing the entire packet for the both of us, for the lab that was coming up the next day. I set my pen down on the table and raised my eyebrows towards him indicating he should proceed. “You’re smart.” I chuckled.

“Yeah, I’m not just a whore.” I quipped with a sharp tongue. Ben, who was sitting in front of us and working on the packet with Charlie, another Ranger player, whipped his head around at my sharp tone. Gabriel appeared stunned at my outburst.

“I didn’t mean it--” I waved him off, but he was persistent and insisted on finishing what he had started. “I didn’t mean it like you were just a whore,” His voice was now lowered as he was just wanting me, and not the entire class, to hear it. “I was just saying it was a hard class, that’s all.” I nodded in feigned assurance but continued on working on the packet. “You know the guys wouldn’t give me your number.” He pointed out, even though I hadn’t asked him. Shrugging, I glanced over at him.

“I told you we weren’t going to work out.” I simply spoke not breaking the train of thought that I had adopted on finishing the packet. Apparently though, he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” I shook my head. Not like it was any of his business anyways. “So tell me then why it isn’t going to work out?” I had to admit that at least he was pushy about it. I hesitated, though and couldn’t find the right words to say it. It was simple, actually, the reason why it would never work out; but how exactly do you tell a guy, especially him, why exactly it would never work out between them.

“It’s complicated.” I attempted to boil it down too, but it really wasn’t at all. It was… “Way too complicated.” Cool. Smooth. Good job, Al. That made real sense right there.

“Way too complicated?” He mused as he locked eye contact. For a minute, I thought I had stopped breathing. Blue eyes. Wow, gorgeous blue eyes. Nodding slowly, I tried to not blush, but like my lies that seemed to fail too.

“I’m busy with school and my job, and you’re a hockey player so I’m sure you’re going to be getting busy soon and whatever you do.” I was trying my best to not care or act like I care. But I did. Deep down, I did. But I couldn’t allow myself too. It was complicated. Way too complicated for both him and I.

“How did you know I was a hockey player?” I stumbled through what I could say and fumbled and flubbed as my brain began to feel like it was melting.

“Mrs. Lamar said that you were playing with Kitchener this year.” I finally responded with all the composure that I could. Actually even without that being told, I’m sure 90% of my classmates knew that because they watched the OHL draft. When in Kitchener, you watched hockey. Canada’s sport, they called it. He nodded and seemed to fall for what I was saying, even though I really didn’t believe it myself.

“Besides, it was just sex anyways.” I reasoned the situation even more without having to let on to my true reasons. The expression on his face showed me that he didn’t believe the same way.

“It wasn’t.” He mumbled quietly.

“It was. Great sex, fantastic mind-blowing sex, but it was just sex. I’m not a relationship type girl.” The last part was the only true part of the sentence. As much as I wanted to say that it was ‘just sex’ it actually wasn’t. I felt something, or at least told myself that I did. He didn’t respond and for some reason I took this as not being exactly even keel. “Relationships are complicated and messy, and I’m just not a relationship kind of person.” I quickly spoke as the end of class bell began to signal. Instead of having the pages done for the lab that we had tomorrow I had spent a good portion of the class arguing with him over why we weren’t going to make a good match for each other. Most kids would have given up on the first utter of no, but not him. As I packed up my books and paperwork into my backpack I caught eyes with him again.

“If you want to work on the packet afterschool today I think it would really help us for our lab tomorrow.” I explained as he placed his textbook into his black backpack. He nodded.

“Sure, do you want to meet in the library afterschool?” I shook my head quickly.

“I got busted for having the party and now I’m basically grounded till the end of time. Would you be able to swing by my place around four?” I questioned as we began our way out of the classroom. I knew that my Anna would still be at work and dad wouldn’t get home until way late, plus the boys didn’t have practice until nearly eight tonight. He nodded again in agreement, but seemed wary. “I swear I wont put my magical sex powers on you this time,” I raised my hands and crossed them as a promise. He grinned and shook his head.

“That sounds great. I’ll see you about four, okay?” He confirmed as we began to break off to go to our next class. I nodded and gave him a grin. It sounded like a plan.