Kiss and Cry by Ramona Lipson Page A

letting myself in, “Good morning,” I greeted.
    “Good morning,” he greeted me. He had this raw sexual appeal to me that I tried to ignore, but every time I saw him, he just blew me away.
    He placed his arm on the back of my chair while he turned his body to reverse out of my driveway. I didn’t move.
    He shifted into drive and returned his arm to the back of my headrest like we were a couple or something, honestly the audacity of him!
    I froze on the spot making sure I didn’t lean back into his hand, waiting for him to move it. He didn't. This creepy electric feeling filled the car. His hand intentionally touched my hair. “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “Driving,” he answered a bit sarcastically.
    “You’re touching my hair.”
    “It soft,” he complimented.
    “We’re not on the ice, or in the public eye. You can’t just cop a feel,” I admonished.
    “Touching your hair isn’t ‘copping a feel’” he said sarcastically.“If I wanted to cop a feel I would do more than just grab a lock of your hair.”
    “What would you do?” I asked curiously.
    “Grab you and force you to kiss me, and I didn’t do that The coach told us to get familiar with each other.”
    “He didn’t mean that way,” I argued.
    An unsettling warm feeling started coursing through my body. Not only did he not release the lock of my hair he was holding between his fingers, he started playing with it, twisting it around his fingertips. I pulled away from him making the strand slip from his grasp and he rebelliously grabbed more. His affect on me wasn’t anything I could control, I was finding myself get all hot and bothered by him.
    I stared straight out the windshield ignoring him, but I wasn't really, because I loved the feel of having my hair played with and I didn’t know it until then. I closed my eyes for a second to savour it not knowing he was looking at me, but he was, and he could tell I loved it. We drove the rest of the way in silence. He never released my hair, it was like he was proving a point.
    Ryan parked the car and carried both our bags into the rink only stopping when we arrived at the senior ladies change room. He placed my bag over my shoulder, and then opened the door for me saying, “I’ll see you on the ice.” He turned without looking back.
    I was out on the ice first stroking around when I felt his presence beside me. He wrapped his arm around my waist, when we heard Coach Hicks call out, “That’s it you two, start warming up!”
    I could smell Ryan’s cologne mixing in with the scent of cold familiar ice rink, together they were intoxicating. I convinced myself it’s just the rink scent that I liked.
    When we finished warming up, Coach Hicks waved us back, “I want you guys to do side by side double axels, and I don’t want you any farther from each other than six feet.” It was the same jump I injured myself on, only with one less revolution in the air.
    I looked warily into Ryan’s eyes as we skated away from Coach Hicks. He mouthed to me, “We’ve got this,” as he took my hand and we picked up speed, he released me a second before we stepped into our side-by-side double axels, throwing my free leg up into the air and beginning rotations tightly, it felt right. We landed perfectly side by side. I released a deep sigh of relief as I grinned ear to ear with excitement. I did it!
    We skated back to Coach Hicks, Ryan pulling his hoodie off as we arrived, “Good job, but next time I want you guys closer to each other. Try it again.” We repeated the jump but this time Ryan was much more naked and we were a foot closer. “Much Better! I want you guys to practice that at this afternoons skating session, when I’m not here.”
    “Sure,” Ryan reassured.
    Coach Hicks took a drink of his coffee while we waited for him to tell us what he wanted us to do next. “Ryan, I want you to bring her into a right inside edge death spiral.”
    I had seen them done before in competitions so I