Illicit Love

Chapter 6

Gabriella felt confident as she walked into the arena on Saturday morning. Her overly intensive training over the past two weeks, plus the months of previous training, made her over prepared for today's skate. She knew that she could easily medal, calming most of her nerves; yet, that didn't make up for the fact that no one was here to cheer her on. Chris, her best friend Gracie Gold, and Carl had sent her supportive texts, but that's not the same as having someone to hug after an exciting moment.

The first two texts she was expecting, but Carl's came extremely out of the blue. She had assumed their previous chats about her skating had just been Carl being a polite guy, trying to show an interest in her life, but now she realized that she could count on him as a reliable friend, and that warmed the small girl's heart. She loved knowing that, in the past couple of months, she had two more friends in the Big Apple, which now gave her a grand total of three: Abby, John, and Carl. To Gabriella, she and Carl were just friends with a mutually beneficial aspect to their relationship.

There was a light knock on the door, pulling Gabriella out of her thoughts. "Gabriella, you're due on the ice for pre-skate in an hour. I suggest that you move onto dry land practice," her coach, Erik, advised. Gabriella nodded her head, telling him she would be there in five minutes.

She quickly finished her stretching routine before moving to another room; one lined with floor to ceiling mirrors. She ran through her routine numerous times before going back to stretching, and eventually, out onto the ice.

As she stepped onto the ice for warmups, she couldn't help but feel the adrenaline pulsing through her veins. She lived for this feeling, this excitement. She couldn't help but imagine that this was exactly how Chris felt before every game. It was an exhilarating feeling.

She ran through a few sequences a couple of times before she had to leave the ice. She wasn't allowed to watch any other performances until she had taken the ice herself. It was a mental trick, done in order not to psych herself out.

In the back rooms of the arena, Gabriella kept to herself, silently stretching in order to keep herself loose. She wanted to put her headphones on to drown out the whispers all around her, about her, but she couldn't let any other beats besides the one for her routine into her head. There were snickers, and gasps, and chuckles all aimed at her. This had been a constant since World's last year. She had started to become accustomed to it, but it still bothered her.

Coach Erik, thankfully, came to her rescue by telling her that she was on the ice next. Gabriella couldn't stop the smile from playing at her lips, the excitement of performing for a crowd getting her pumped for the next two minutes and thirty seconds. She quickly took off her warmups before heading out towards the rink, just in time to see the previous competitor to take her bows. She handed her skate guards to her coach before taking a deep breath, trying to calm some of her excitement.

"Go get 'em, kid," was all Erik told her as she took the ice to perform her heart out for the short dance.

***

Both of Gabriella's performances were nearly flawless. She had a couple mistakes here and there, but she had gotten new high scores for each of her performance. As she watched the last couple of skaters close out the competition, Gabriella felt certain that she had locked up the competition. And after Polina Edmunds, young rising star, had gotten one whole point lower than her in the free skate, her thoughts were confirmed. Gabriella had won.

Although the victory was expected, Gabriella still felt like she was on cloud nine as a gold medal was placed around her neck. The win itself was sweet, but the chance of redemption at Nationals received by winning was infinitely times better.

As she walked back to her changing room, she stared in amazement at the small trinket in her hands. It was something so silly to some people, but to her, it symbolized all the hard work she has ever put into her career. Every medal she ever won was.

Gabriella forced her eyes away from the medal upon seeing a familiar pair of shoes out of the corner of her eye. When she looked up, she stopped dead in her tracks. "Carl, she whispered, not believing he could be here. She figured she was so happy that she was hallucinating. That was the most logical answer, seeing as he was supposed to be at Pippin right about now.

Carl was staring at the red orchids in his hands. He was clueless when he was at the floral shop. The only types of flowers he knew were roses, but he didn't want to get anything that screamed 'I love you'. The florist suggested the orchids. He hoped Gabriella liked them.

When he heard his name whispered, his head whipped up and a nervous smile covered his face. "Congrats, Gab. You were absolutely amazing," Carl praised, closing the distance between them by embracing her in a bone crushing hug. Carl knew absolutely nothing about skating, but he figured she must have been good if she came in first place.

A very confused Gabriella stood stiffly in his arms. Sensing that something was off, Carl asked, "What's wrong, Gab? You don't seem very happy to see me."

"What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be with the guys in New York?" she interrogated.

Carl took a step back from her, and ran a hand through his long hair. When he had rehearsed his speech in his head, this wasn't how he imagined she would react. This was only making him more nervous than he already was.

After a long, drawn out pause, Carl was finally able to collect his thoughts. "I wanted to come support you," he admittedly sheepishly, handing her over the bouquet of orchids.

Gabriella hesitantly took the flowers from his hands, her face turning slightly paler than normal. Carl's surprising actions were making her nervous.

Growing up with Chris meant that Gabriella basically grew up with an entire hockey team. This allowed Gabriella to understand guys before she even realized that she liked them. Therefore, Gabriella knew the Bro Code well. Bros before hoes. No guy would just ditch his teammates for a girl that they were friends with. No, guys only do things like this for girls they have serious feelings about. And neither of them were supposed to have feelings for each other; it would ruin their whole dynamic.

The whole point of their relationship was to have fun, without the time and effort that an actual legitimate relationship required. Gabriella did not have time to have a boyfriend. Between school and skating, she barely had enough time to breath. She couldn't allow Carl's feelings to develop further, and, as much as she didn't it want to, that meant no more sex with him.

Of course, she could just be jumping to all the wrong conclusions.

"Carl, you shouldn't have," she finally replied with a straight, annoyed face. She purposely crossed her arms, trying to appear stand-offish.

Carl could only stand there, one eyebrow raised in perplexity. Weren't girls supposed to like things like this? He knew he wasn't the most romantic guy, but he was pretty sure he had seen something like this in a movie once before. According to his calculations, Gabriella should be in his arms right now, not questioning his motives.

After an awkward moment of silent staring, Gabriella finally squeezed past him, into her changing room. Like the lost puppy he was, Carl followed her.

"What do you mean 'I shouldn't have'?" Carl finally questioned.

Carl hated how he couldn't read her emotions clearly. Yet, that was a major part of the reason he had fallen for her in the first place. Gabriella's complexity made her unique, and a hell of a lot different than most girls he had met since coming to New York. She was an enigma. She was constantly revealing something new about herself, causing Carl to always have to stay on his toes around her, for, he never wanted to miss another interesting tidbit about her. Her stubbornness right now was just a subtle reminder of why he liked Gabriella, why he was here. And that sure as hell calmed him down.

Gabriella stood with her back to him, furiously rubbing her face trying to get all of the makeup off of it. "You should be in New York, not here with me. I'm sure John is very upset that you aren't there," she replied bluntly.

Gabriella was silently praying that Carl would leave. She didn't know if she would be able to stand against him and his advances. If he flashed her just the right smile, and gave just the right hair flip, she would go weak in the knees and agree to do anything he asked. And that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Finally feeling true to his normal self, Carl decided to take action. Seeing her slightly bent over the vanity towards the mirror, Carl pressed his body up against hers, placing an arm on either side of her frame to pin her there. His breath was hot on Gabriella's neck, sending goosebumps down her spine. Gabriella tried not to let his touch get to her, but she was failing miserably.

"Gab," he whispered in a hushed voice. "I flew all the way out here just to watch you and be here for you when you won. And now you're just shutting me out. Sounds to me like you don't want to get laid tonight." As he said this, he slowly ran his hands up and down her hips.

Gabriella had already been on a high from her win, but the things Carl was doing and saying to her now were making her lose her senses.

"What do you want, Carl?" she muttered. She put her head down, closing her eyes so as to not see their reflection in the mirror.

"Isn't it obvious what it want?" Carl had used the question as a ploy, knowing she would assume he meant sex. It gave him a slight upper hand in this scenario to catch her off guard. And knowing that there was a slight possibility of rejection in his future, well, he needed all the help he could get.

Carl grabbed her hips, spinning her so she was forced to face him. The unwarranted action caused Gabriella's eyes to shoot open, causing her to get lost in Carl's deep blue eyes for a moment.

"Yes," she sighed, causing Carl to smirk. "And the answer is no."

Carl's heart dropped at the response. She had never said no to him before. In fact, there were plenty of times where she had come to him. Something had obviously changed, and the thought that maybe Gabriella had found someone, someone who was truly worthy of her, nauseated him.

"What...?" was all he was able to breathe out as he took a step away from her.

Gabriella took the opportunity to scurry across the room. She knew if was a useless maneuver, but she needed to get away from his intoxicating aroma for a moment in order to straighten out her thoughts. She hated knowing that just being near him could cause her to lose her head.

Standing about ten feet away from the blonde, Gabriella balled her hands into tiny fists, clenching her jaw as she figured out how she wanted to let him down.

"I think we should just be friends," she finally stated. She waited for a response from Carl, but all she got was a look of confusion. "Let's be realistic here. You and I both know it wouldn't work. Not with both of our busy schedules. And especially not with Chris. And quite frankly, I don't feel the same way."

"But, how did you...?" Carl was so confused that he couldn't form cohesive sentences.

"How did I know?" she laughed. Watching her get amusement out of Carl's confusion broke the poor guy's heart. "You don't exactly fly all the way to Michigan just to see your friends with benefits the day before they come home. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to call some people."

Carl was so flabbergasted that he couldn't even respond. He had never seen her act so rudely before. She was always so sweet and sincere. Was she really that turned off by a relationship? Or did she maybe have a bad experience with romance before that she was afraid of emotion and commitment? Endless possibilities ran through Carl's mind as he aimlessly roamed that back halls of the rink.

As soon as she knew that Carl was well out of earshot, Gabriella whipped out her phone and started dialing Abby's number. Normally she would call Chris first, but not at a time like this. This was an emergency.

"Did you win? Did you win? Did you win?" Abby asked after one ring. She sounded like a toddler on Christmas Day. Abby was more nervous than Gabriella for this competition. She wouldn't be surprised if Abby had spent all day clutching her phone, waiting for Gabriella to call her.

"Yes, but there is something more urgent that needs to be addressed right now," Gabriella responded calmly. She knew Abby would know exactly how to handle the Carl situation.

"Oh my god! You're not pregnant are you?" Abby asked with utter seriousness.

"God no! What would make you think that?" Gabriella scoffed.

"Well, you are fucking that guy like every night," Abby explained. Gabriella remained silent, not appreciating how Abby explained the situation. It made her feel like a whore. "If that's not it, then what is?"

"It's Carl. He came all the way here just to 'support me'. That's not normal, Abbs. I don't know what to do."

"Aw! That's adorable! I'm so happy for you two!"

"Abby!" Gabriella scolded. "I can't date him and you know it! Chris would have both of our heads!"

"As if you ever cared about Chris before," Abby chuckled. "If you cared about what he thought then you never even would have gotten yourself into this mess. So tell me, what's the real issue?"

Gabriella let out a frustrated. Abby was right. "I don't have time for a relationship, you know this. I'm always busy with school and skating. And then he's gone half the time with hockey. We'd never see each other. And besides that, I can't even see us being a couple." Gabriella ran an aggravated hand through her hair, her predicament truly bothering her.

"So he asked you out, and you just said no?" Abby asked for clarification.

"Basically. Just tell me how I get myself out of this mess already," Gabriella begged.

"Hold on, I'm googling this guy." Gabriella rolled her eyes at her friend, but grew more and more impatient as time went on. "Gab, he's fucking hot. You can't just say no to that."

"Why not?" Gabriella whined.

"You say these things about a relationship between you two not working out, but you don't even know if what you say is true. You have to give him a shot. Just give him one chance, one date. And if you don't think it will work out, then break things off. But how bad could it be? You already know the sex is good." Gabriella knew Abby was wagging her eyebrows behind the phone.

"Why should I waste time that I don't even have?" Gabriella sighed.

"Just give him one date Gab. That's it. Go out with him, see what it's like, and then make a decision. For Christ's sake, he flew all the way to fucking Michigan to stand in place of Chris for you. You owe him," Abby countered.

Gabriella found herself smiling at the way Abby phrased it. Knowing she had someone in the stands for her after all did warm her heart. She owed him a thank you for that. And, ultimately, Gabriella knew that Abby always got her way. "Fine," she finally huffed. "He gets one opportunity. But I'm not making any promises."

Abby cheered on the other end of the phone before the two quickly bid each other goodbye. She knew she would regret giving into Abby's wishes, but she didn't feel like arguing right now.

But Kreiders never break promises, especially those that are made to close friends. So as she quickly changed into her warmups before going to seek out Carl, she cursed her roommate.

It took Gabriella a grand total of three minutes to find the Swede sitting on the floor, dejectedly talking on the phone in his native tongue. Honestly, he looked heartbroken, and Gabriella hated knowing that she was the cause of his pain.

Carl hung up the phone shortly after spotting Gabriella staring at him a little ways down the hall. "Did you come all the way up here just so you could reject me again?" Carl spat.

Gabriella closed her eyes for a moment, waiting for the pain from the blow to leave. She would have countered, but she knew she deserved the harsh words. "You get one date," she stated curtly before turning around to retreat back to her dressing room.

It took Carl a moment to understand what she said. She was so concise and straightforward that it had caught him completely off-guard. But when he finally decided her words, Carl became ecstatic. Knowing that he had a chance to show Gabriella how well he could treat her made Carl's month. He was so elated that he couldn't help himself from pulling a Herb Brooks alone in the hall.