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“You played great tonight,” she says with a half shrug. She’s trying to
sound detached, but I hear the tremor in her voice.
“Thanks,” I manage to say.
“Did it feel the way you hoped it would?”
What a question. I fantasized about winning the Christmas Classic a
million times, but I never envisioned kissing Irene afterward. And I
certainly never imagined I would feel anything kissing her.
“Yeah,” I say breathlessly. “It was great.”
There’s a loaded silence between us. I can’t stand it anymore. “So … see
you later,” I say, sliding out of the car. “Thanks for the—the cheering and
everything.”
“Goodnight,” she says, trying to find my eyes. “And, you know, good
game.”
It’s after midnight, but my family is still awake. They want to hear more
about the game, to tell me every worry and triumph they felt while I was
playing, and for a few minutes it successfully distracts me. I bask in the
warm routine of the five of us flopped on the couch together, Thora with her
sass and Daphne with her giggling and my parents with their cheesy jokes.
But then my mom tells me how pretty Irene looked at the game, and my
stomach loop-de-loops in the most surprising way.
“Yeah, she looked nice,” I say vaguely. I try not to feel the echo of her
kiss, but my lips are tingling so much I swear they’re probably swelling in
place.
“You look tired, Scots,” Dad says. “Why don’t you get up to bed and
rest those sore muscles?”
I don’t fight him on it. Upstairs, in the cool dark of my bedroom, I slip
beneath my quilt and scroll through my phone to get my mind off things.
The problem is, the exact opposite happens. One of the Cleveland triplets
has posted a video of Irene kissing me.
And we look … good. We look real. We look like we fit together.
I feel breathless all over again.