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“How is that fair?” she continued.
“Do you have to talk about it so loudly?” I hissed.
“Talk about what?” she replied with a wide grin and projected her voice even farther down the hallway. “Your steamy ice kiss with Reed freaking Darling?"
“Stop!” I gasped, slapping her on the arm.
“What’s the problem? I’m surprised you’re not shouting it from the rooftops yourself.”
I shook my head at her. “Well, that would be a bit odd seeing as everyone is supposed to think we’re in a relationship already. Plus, I’m more worried about people thinking I got chased by the cops. It was just some Saints players pulling a prank.”
“True,” she replied. “I’m impressed they had the balls to do it. Although I guess it’s not that unusual.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every season before the Saints and the Devils play each other, they try to psych the other team out and get in their heads,” Mia explained. “Last year, some of our players snuck into Ransom High and covered the grounds in Saints posters and glued angel feathers all over their devil mascot.”
“Angel feathers?”
“Well, it was supposed to look like an angel,” she clarified. “I’m assuming the feathers came from some unfortunate local chickens.”
“Wow.” I shook my head. “They take this hockey rival thing really seriously, don’t they?”
“It is serious!” Mia gasped. “The Devils got payback by padlocking every entrance to our ice rink so the team couldn’t practice the day before the game.”
“Okay, okay. So, when are they playing each other?”
“Uh, the game’s this weekend. You didn’t know?”
I shook my head. This was the first I’d heard about it. Given how hockey crazy everyone at school was, I must have been the only person completely oblivious to the fact the game was coming up. The strangest thing was that Reed hadn’t mentioned it once.
“So, tell me about the kiss again,” Mia said. “How steamy are we talking? I need details.”
“Oh my gosh, stop saying steamy. I’m not giving you details.”
“Come on. I haven’t kissed anyone in forever.”
“Nope.”
“At least tell me how Reed reacted when you guys kissed. I was the one who told you to do it, after all.”
Mia did make a valid argument. She’d convinced me that kissing Reed would help me find out whether he had feelings for me or not. In the end, he made it pretty clear even before we kissed. But I guessed I owed Mia some form of answer. “He reacted like it meant something to him,” I said. “Like it was real.”
“Why can’t I have something real?” She sighed dreamily in response. “Hell, I’d take something fake at this point.”
As we passed Mia’s locker, she decided she needed to stop and grab some lip balm. “So does all this mean you guys are done playing pretend?” she asked as she rummaged through her bag.
“Maybe.” My brow furrowed. “I’m not sure. We didn’t exactly get a chance to talk about it.”
“But you’ll talk about it when you meet up tonight, right? And make it official?”
“Uh, I don’t know, Mia.” I was surprised by how uncertain her question made me feel. I’d thought a lot about the kiss since Sunday morning, but until now, I had avoided thinking about what it meant going forward. Was our fake relationship now over? Was that what Reed wanted? Was I really about to start dating another hockey player? These were all questions I didn’t need to answer when I was living happily in a perfect post-kiss bubble.
“Right, I get it,” she replied with a mischievous grin. “There won’t be much talking when you see him tonight.”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” I said. “But you’re probably right. I do need to talk to him.”
Mia seemed to sense the change in my mood because she reached out and rubbed my arm. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You know he cares about you.”
