Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

This close, I recognize him—the hockey hotshot Rhys from the other day. Dark brown hair, pretty brown eyes, and a sharp jawline like hard steel, with a dimple in his right cheek that makes me wonder if there’s a matching one on the left when he smiles.

While it isn’t a lie, it might as well be. Getting into my routine won’t help, nothing will. Except for a pair of gray eyes and flirty smile.

You felt something with Sadie.

“We have to stop meeting like this, hotshot.” Fuck. Even the rasp of her voice is enough to pull me back to this side of the living.

“Need me to give you mouth-to-mouth?” The flirty taunt is so sudden it works like a cold water shock to my nervous system. Everything settles, my focus turning away from my half-on skate and wholly onto her.

“A-are you flirting with me?” The words slip out fast, my voice nowhere near to sounding normal, still breathy and weak and I almost want to take it back because I’m a hollow shell of nothingness and she’s so goddamn full. “Me? Flirting with the hot hockey player who keeps showing up in my space?” She smirks down at me, pulling one of the headphones out of her ear, the cord dangling in her hand. “I’d be stupid not to.”

“Is this helping?” I ask, as Jose Gonzalez’s gentle strums echo in our ears. He nods, his eyes flickering in a little pattern across me—eyes, mouth, the grasp of my hand in his. Eyes. Mouth. Hands. “You’re helping,” he blurts, cheeks red whether from embarrassment or exertion. I nod. “Okay.” “Okay.”

“Do you want to skate with me?” This time it’s a cocky grin. “That’s a line. Now I know you’re flirting with me.” “Am not.” “Whatever you say, Sadie,” he snorts out. “I’m offering to…” What am I offering? His smiles and taunts are making me lightheaded. “To split the ice.” “Okay.” He nods, standing over me in his now-laced skates, turning from a ball of anxiety into a tower of a man. “And your music.” “What?” “I want your music.” He shrugs. “It feels good. Helps me focus, I guess.” Something about his words makes me want to hug him, a light burn behind my eyes. “Okay,” I agree.

“Can I get a coffee?” I smile, but heat crawls my spine. “All out.” “Out of coffee at seven-thirty in the morning?” “Unfortunately,” I say, stirring creamer into the cup in front of me. “Not even a little bit left for your favorite customer?” He smiles and it makes me pause, two matching dimple imprints to his otherwise chiseled cheeks, a little bit of light bleeding into his usually saddened brown eyes. I want to stand in that smile like a flower preening in the sun.

“Consider me a card-holding member of the concession stand loyalty club now.” “Well, in that case.” I grab a Styrofoam cup before sliding it towards him. “What do I owe you?” His eyes glimmer at me. “A break from your continuous presence at my place of work.” “That’s a high price.” “I’m expensive.”

Rhys shakes his head. “That’s shitty coffee.” “Very,” I agree. “I think I was just hustled.” I can’t help but smile. “Hustle my favorite customer? I would never.” His laugh bursts, beautiful and tinged with the boyish vulnerability of a kid talking to his school crush. It makes me want to bat my eyelashes and preen—which only makes me sick when I realize his presence is turning me to mush. “Favorite, huh?” I shrug, “You tip the best.”

Even looking back at her, gliding on the ice, I can’t get over the overwhelming urge to lock us both in this quiet open rink forever, never having to face anything outside of it.

Every part of my usual numbness starts to fade away at the promise of her.

She giggles into my hand, gray eyes crinkling with humor at the effect of her taunt. “Got it out of your system?” She nods, but I hold on a moment longer, desperate for the feeling of her pressed to me. I want to grab her, caress and touch every inch of her. I shouldn’t—she’s my friend, if even that. But I'm in her orbit now, and she's becoming my goddamn center of gravity. Whether she realizes it or not.

“I made you something,” she says, and there’s that divot between her eyebrows like she is frustrated or questioning everything at a near constant. Her hands hold nothing, but she sticks them out to me like I’m the one with a gift. “What?” “Your phone.”

“Sadie’s Songs for Reece’s Sad Demon Brain,” I read aloud, before adding, “You spelled Rhys wrong.” “Your parents spelled your name wrong on the birth certificate. Your way looks like Rise. So if anything, I fixed it.” She rolls her eyes, but her teeth clasp onto her lip a little self-consciously. “I made it last night. I… Well, graphic design isn’t my major.”

“So, who’s the girl?” I choke on the gulp of water in my mouth, coughing repeatedly as my mother—the traitor—laughs and waits on me to regain my composure. “What are you talking about?” “Clearly there’s a girl.”

“Sadie is just a friend.” “Sadie? Pretty name.” Pretty girl. I bite down on my tongue, smoothing a hand over my knee to try and slow the shaking.

“I don’t think she really likes me,” I snort, unable to stop talking about her now that I’ve started. “But she’s funny. And she has good music.” “Sounds like a cool girl.” “I like skating with her.” The words pour like vomit.

It feels good to talk about her, at least a little, but it's another reminder that no matter how often I think of her—of the way her gray eyes settle on me, her music in my headphones after another nightmare, the fantasy of her hips in my hands haunting my empty head—Sadie is not really anything to me. I doubt she’d even call us friends. Meanwhile, I find myself desperate, if only to be near her.

I don’t even bother to try to wipe off the cheesy smile that hangs off my face almost constantly around her. She turns every hesitancy into excitement, every anxiety back into near bliss in the way it used to be for me on this ice. I wonder if I could convince her to She’s the Man herself onto the hockey team so I never have to be on the ice without her.

“Start with what you can hear.” “My music.” She pauses and closes her eyes tightly. “Your breathing. The air conditioning.” “Something you can see.” Her eyes blink open again, tinged red but only with a few tears escaping. “You.” I can’t help the smile that slips.

“Good girl.” I squeeze her hands in mine. “Okay, Gray?” The question makes her smile as she calms further and she nods, tears only slightly leaking down her cheeks. I hate the sight of it, unable to stop myself from bunching my sleeve and wiping beneath her eyes. “Gray?” “It’s your eyes.” I smile.

We’re in my car, parked by a lake near town that Sadie had—reluctantly—suggested. It’s gorgeous, and busy, and even with the golden morning light shining like a halo over the painting-esque view, I’m distracted. By her. She’s so beautiful; dark lips and thick lashes over her darting, intense eyes. That little patch of freckles that I want to touch almost constantly. Silk brown hair that I imagine feels just like that if I ran my fingers through it.

“Maybe you need to get laid too.” My face burns, turning red and my hand fumbles to turn my side of the A/C colder, before scratching at the back of my neck. “I— What—” “I wasn’t offering, hotshot.” She smiles but turns away just as quickly. “Trust me. That’s just… Not a good idea.” “Right.” I try to laugh with her. But, I can’t help the singe of embarrassment staining my cheeks. Of course not. Look at her and look at you. Pathetic. “For the record,” I say, looking out along the lake across all the life around us. “I am offering.” She’s silent. But she’s smiling and shaking her head, avoiding every ounce of the eye contact I’m directing towards her. But I can’t bring myself to regret it.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he mutters, his plump mouth arching into what I assume to be some sort of smile, even if it’s barely there in exhaustion. My stomach hurts. Finding him like this again… a week before he’s going to play— My heart feels like it’s lodged in my throat. “Rhys,” I barely get out, my hand reaching for his face. It’s only as he circles my wrist that I realize I’m shaking. “Worried about me, Gray?” “Terrified,” I admit. “I thought it was better.”

“Today is just a bad day.” “I should’ve brought you pancakes,” I say, not realizing how insane that sounds on its own. He laughs, breathless but happy. “Please explain that one.” “Liam thinks when I make pancakes, it’ll be a good day.” He smiles at me, doe eyes glittering, dimples deep. “I’ll try that one next time. I bet you make the best pancakes, though.” “I’ll make you some, sometime,”

He might as well have a sign plastered across his forehead saying “kiss me.” And I should be wearing one that says, “this is a horrible idea.”

But the way Rhys is looking at me isn’t just lust—it’s that desperation I know so well, in the darker parts of my mind that close me off from everything. The need to feel something, just to ground myself.

“Is this what you want?” he breathes out, voice raspy as he gazes half-lidded eyes up to me. I reach out for him, but he catches my wrist and holds it. “Tell me.” My voice is gone, my mouth so dry it feels like I’ve gone months without a drop of water. I can only nod.

A breathtaking smile I’ve never seen before breaks through his lips, two dimples showing across his cheeks as he laughs and closes his eyes before pressing his mouth into the skin of my wrist and muttering against my pulse, “Good. Me too.” I can’t decide what I want to do with him first.

It’s intoxicating, the feeling of being on top of him and in total control. We’re only kissing, but it feels like more than any of my late-night hookups before. Minutes, hours, days—there’s no real concept of time while I’m here, across his thighs. The only thing keeping me sane is the space I keep between us, my knees planted on either side of him, hovering from the prominent distraction below me. I won’t even allow myself to look.

“I know you said we’re not friends.” I’m being ridiculous, but I can’t stop myself from spitting, “Well-established point there.” A strange laugh etches from him, and it almost sounds like it's causing him pain. “Right, well, you’re the one who stuck your tongue down my throat, kitten, so your brand of not-friendship is one I can handle, I think.”

“I’ll pick another nickname for you, then.” “No nicknames,” I barter. Nicknames seem too familiar. He snorts. “Says the girl who keeps mocking me as the hockey hotshot. Trying to give me a complex?” “Hard to give you something you already have.” In truth, I don’t know him. In fact, everything I’ve seen from him this far should only prove that he isn’t the hockey hotshot I’m so fond of calling him. In the month I’ve skated with him, he’s either been heartbreakingly sweet or devastatingly panicked and sad.

But, I did feel something with her, something real and warm that chased every scrap of darkened shadows away from me while I focused on her. Just her.

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” “Yes,” Koteskiy says, at the same time I blurt, “No.” Rhys’ gaze turns darker, a feat I didn’t think possible, before I shrug Sean off and slink away from them both.

Whatever Sean is going to say is cut off sharply, as Rhys grabs a hold of his shoulder and stops him as he attempts to crowd me again. “Having trouble hearing?” he says, shoving Sean back hard enough that he trips, despite the fact that Rhys has barely moved. “She’s told you to get off of her repeatedly.” His voice is calm even as the storms gather in his eyes.

I want to kiss him, like some school girl who’s had her virtue protected, like he’s some knight in shining armor.

“Sadie, I—” “Yes or no, hotshot.” It’s more of a statement than a question, but my entire brain feels like it’s hanging by a thread, barely sane through the overwhelming thoughts that could’ve been drowned out by someone else’s touch by now.

“I’m only doing this if we talk after.” “What if I don’t want to?” “Sadie.” He tries again, grasping my hair in his hand and holding me still while angling his mouth to my ear. “I don’t do this… party bathroom hookups? That’s not…” The rejection stings, and I jerk out of his hold, ignoring the slight pain of my scalp as I wrench my head from his grasp. “But locker rooms are perfectly fine? As long as it’s to soothe your shit, not mine, yeah?” It doesn’t register what I’ve said, what I’ve revealed, until I’m reaching for the doorknob, desperate to escape.

For once, I’m not thinking. Not as I blindly followed her upstairs. Not as I let her lead me into an empty bathroom. Not now, as I grab at her shoulder to stop her from leaving and spin her, easily pinning her small body against the door. “This is what you want?” I ask, making sure that this time, she can feel me entirely. Every bit of my body is pressed completely to hers, connecting like a perfect puzzle piece.

Sadie’s like a goddamned drug, the effect just as immediate, my mind relaxing and something good chasing the dark out of my veins until I feel like Old Rhys again; even my headache dulls to an ignorable level. I gulp her presence down like air after breaking the surface from drowning. I soak it all up, knowing from my experiences with her before, the switch will flip. This won’t be enough for her, and I understand it. There’s barely enough of me left to make a complete human. Why would I be able to hold her together when she’s becoming the one keeping me intact?

“He’s not really a Taylor Swift guy; unless they’re playing it in the arena, I doubt he knows it. And even then” —he shakes his head— “Rhys is too focused to hear anything besides ‘Get. Puck. In. Net.’” Sadie rolls her eyes at the robotic impression, sharing a look with me like she understands how deep that implication goes for us. If you play it, I’ll listen.

From my angle on the ground and her two steps up, she’s slightly taller than me so I have to look up at her. I’ve been looking up at her from every panic induced dream I’ve had since that day on the ice, like she’s meant to be there. A fucking guardian angel, I guess. Which is something I’ll never say out loud because I’d never let myself live that down. Especially considering how much I crave that from her. Like she would want to save me. Pathetic.

“You could repay me by getting coffee. With me, I mean.” My laugh is just as self-deprecating, and I want to tell her that I used to be good at this, that I was charming and not whatever this shaking pitiful thing is that’s replaced that part of me. Sadie doesn’t laugh, but she does start shaking her head. “I’m not really the go and get coffee girl… honestly, not really the get anything together kind of girl. And definitely not the girl to date someone like you.” I smile, completely forced and fake, somehow accepting the absolute kick to the gut her response is.

“Not the ‘get coffee together’ kind of girl, huh?” Rhys teases, no hint of his hesitation or unease from last night present in his expression now. “Just the ‘serve it with a smile’ kind,” I quip. He smiles further, more genuine as it pulls at his mouth, the indent of one dimple showing. “For some reason, I doubt the ‘smile’ part. I don’t remember that from the last time you served me coffee.”

Rhys leans in over the counter and I mimic his movement, watching a light flush paint his cheeks. “I, uh… I had my first practice back this morning.” “Yeah?” I have the urge to grab his hand and hold it. “And? All good?” The idea of him panicked and alone makes my stomach hurt. I can’t explain it, but there is an intense protectiveness I feel over his pain.

“I’ll see you around, I’m sure.” “I hope so. She deserves something good.” It warms something in me that this enigmatic girl, Sadie’s best—and I honestly think only—friend approves of me. Even if Sadie herself doesn’t.

“Koteskiy.” The coach nods, scratching at his beard. “And?” “Sadie,” I offer. I take a sip of my water and nearly spew it back out when his coach asks, “Girlfriend?” Rhys blushes and I find myself suddenly aching to say yes and tackle him to kiss his heated skin. My fingers twitch because just the thought is so intensely overwhelming—to see Victoria’s face of shock, Coach Kelley’s fuming at my disgusting, unprofessional behavior. To feel him again… suddenly my cheeks are the ones heating.

“I know you like to have control,” I whisper, pressing my lips against the skin of her cheek. “But I’m not some boy you’re using to try and feel nothing—you’re going to feel everything with me.” My teeth clamp down on her earlobe, just a nip before I cut off her moan with another hard press of my mouth to hers. She follows my lead easily, battling me for dominance even still.