Friend Locked (Salt Lake Pumas)

by Camellia Tate

  “And maybe something you know she can’t get in Indonesia?” Jessie suggested. “Surely she must complain sometimes about how she can’t get Reese’s Pieces, or whatever?”

  “You are very generously assuming that I listen to Paisley complaining,” I pointed out, a little teasingly. Truthfully, if Paisley had complained about something like that, I really didn’t remember it. She wasn’t, in general, much of a complainer. Now, Harley on the other hand…

  But he could definitely get Reese’s Pieces in New Mexico.

  “I mean, I’ll get her some Reese’s anyway,” I decided, adding that, too, to the list. “You’ll help me with the make-up stuff, yeah?” When Jessie nodded, I smiled. “Good, good. Maybe I’ll even get you a palette,” I added teasingly. I mean, I could, as soon as I figured out what counted as worth ‘playing with’. “What does it even take to design an eyeshadow palette? Can I make one?” Not that I planned to, but hey, I did have a whole bunch of followers on Instagram!

  Jessie’s eyes lit up, a smile breaking across her face like sunrise. “You could definitely make an eyeshadow palette! I’ll help.” Honestly, if it was going to make Jessie this excited, then maybe I’d really suggest it to someone on the Pumas press team.

  “I mean, you’d probably have to collaborate with someone who actually does make-up on their Insta.” That made sense. Some of my followers might be interested in make-up, but not enough to make it actually worth the cost of producing.

  Jessie was clearly getting into the idea. Her eyes had taken on that far-away look that she usually got when she was planning something dance-related. “You could either use Pumas colors as the basis or you could do a winter theme. You know, white for snow and silver for frost and pale blue for ice, that kind of thing. With lots of glitter.”

  It was still a little shocking to me that anyone could get this excited about eyeshadow and I wasn’t sure how to break it to Jessie that I couldn’t really come out with a make-up line. For one, I was a hockey player. And for another, I was a guy.

  “Sounds like you need to release a make-up palette,” I teased. “I have to admit, I don’t think the team is really going to get me suggesting I release make-up anything. I’ve never even worn make-up; that seems pretty crucial.”

  Jessie pouted, sticking her lower lip out and giving me puppy-dog eyes so sad they rivaled even Damson’s best efforts. “But I’m not connected to the Pumas,” she pointed out. “Or hockey. Dance doesn’t really have associated colors the same way.”

  She had a point there. While you could invent links between dance and certain colors, none of them sprung immediately to mind. “I guess neither of us can make an eyeshadow palette,” Jessie decided. “But maybe you can find a winter-themed one that already exists and buy it for me. You can stick your photo on the front of the box and everything.”

  The suggestion made a surprised laugh bubble up from deep in my chest. Jessie looked very pleased with having made me laugh, too, which in turn sent a flurry of butterflies through me. Ah, shit. That was definitely not the sort of thing her looking happy should do.

  Thankfully, I was pretty good at masking it.

  “Alright, alright. I’ll find you a Pumas’ color themed eyeshadow palette and I’ll name all the colors after the players,” I promised. It... probably wouldn’t be that hard? If anything, it might be kind of funny, especially once I told the guys about it. I bet they’d all have opinions on what color they got to be.

  Jessie’s eyes sparkled at me, making my mouth feel suddenly dry. Setting the laptop aside, I reached for my drink. If Jessie noticed that anything was off, she didn’t mention it.

  “Now I’m really going to have to up my online shopping game to buy you something that’ll match that,” she teased.

  It surprised me. Jessie had never failed to get me a gift I liked. She shrugged. “You’re not easy to buy for, Felix. You earn enough that you can buy whatever you want. And what makes you happiest is things for the dogs, but that always feels like gifts for them, rather than a gift for you.”

  “And dogs,” I teased. When Jessie frowned, I laughed. “What makes me happiest is things for the dogs and dogs. You can get me a dog,” I joked. From the way Jessie swatted me with a pillow, informing me that I probably had enough dogs made me think she wasn’t going to do that.

  After a very small couch cushion pillow fight, we returned to gift picking, since there was still my brother and dad to get some ideas for. It was... companionable. I’d never picked presents for my family with someone, even not with Jessie. It felt easy, though.

  Maybe a bit more easy than it had any right to be, but I focused on the nice feelings instead of the ones that made me question just why the smell of Jessie’s shampoo seemed to linger in the air long after she’d gone to bed.

  Chapter Ten

  Jessie

  My first appointment with the physiotherapist was overwhelming. The doctor couldn’t have been nicer, explaining all the different kinds of exercise we’d do together: exercises to help my receptors remember how to balance, exercises to get my cardio endurance back to what it had been before my injury. My lower lip quivered but a deep breath helped me to hold back a sudden rush of tears.

  There was no use still wishing this hadn’t happened. It had and the best thing I could do was accept it and move forward. The more I threw myself into physio, the quicker I’d be able to regain my ability to dance.

  At least, that was the hope. The possibility that I’d never be able to dance as well as I once had was too scary to think about.

  Brimming with determination, I swung myself through Felix’s house after my appointment. The dogs greeted me, winding themselves through the gaps between my legs and my crutches until I’d petted every single one of them hello.

  “Where’s Felix?”

  Of course, the dogs couldn’t actually answer me. Felix must be in the house somewhere, unless he’d just gone out for a moment. But it didn’t really matter, because the exercises that my doctor had written out for me were ones that I could do alone.

  Luckily for me, Felix’s home gym was on the first floor. And the exercises were easy enough that I didn’t need to change. I’d had to rip up a lot of yoga pants to accommodate the cast, so there was plenty of room for me to move.

  Humming to myself, I pushed the door of the gym wide open. And then stopped.

  My breath caught in my throat. I could feel my heart start to beat in triple time.

  Felix stood with his back to me, his shirt off and his running pants dipping low along the curve of his ass. His muscles moved as he lowered one of the big weights, shifting and jostling. My fingers itched to run along them, to feel whether those lines etched between his obliques were really as sharp as they looked.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Felix shirtless. But he didn’t usually look so powerful. And he wasn’t even conscious of it! The fact that he could look so good when he wasn’t even trying made me feel almost dizzy.

  How good would Felix look if he did try? If he tried for me?

  But that was a dangerous thought. Shaking my head, I picked my jaw up off the floor and tried to think of something natural to say.

  “You look -” It was a terrible start! How Felix looked was none of my business. That was a fact that I needed to keep in mind.

  I cleared my throat, ready to try again. “You look like you’re working hard.”

  He turned around, startled by my presence. At least I had waited for him to put the weights down first! Also, the time had given me a small chance to prepare myself for having Felix’s abs exposed to me. Fresh from training, every single muscle in his body seemed to stand out so much more.

  “Oh, hey,” Felix greeted me like he wasn’t standing there shirtless and dripping in sweat. He reached for a water bottle and I had to actually look away so I wouldn’t lick my lips at the idea of tracing that bit of his neck that moved when he swallowed. “How was the physio? You’ve come to train?”

  Right! I’d
come to the gym for something other than to gawp at Felix’s hotness. The sound of my rapid blinking seemed to echo in my ears for a moment. “Yeah.”

  Felix looked at me, clearly expecting a fuller answer. Forcing my gaze away from his chest, I focused on the concerned-looking frown line between his brows.

  “It was… a lot,” I muttered. Maybe I could pretend it was the appointment that had stopped all my words up in my throat. “I guess I’d been trying not to think about how much I’m losing. Hearing someone tell me how to get it all back made it hit home.”

  The frown didn’t improve with my answer, which probably wasn’t that surprising. It wasn’t a great answer and I knew how Felix worried. Thankfully, he seemed to worry enough to need to put a shirt on. It was almost impossible not to give a little sigh of relief when he pulled the t-shirt over his head.

  “Is there something I can do to help? Train with you? Or well, probably just keep you company. I assume they gave you some exercises or something? Do you need equipment I don’t have? I can order it!”

  It was difficult not to smile at Felix’s eagerness to help.

  “You can keep me company,” I agreed. “It shouldn’t take too long. It’s just leg raises. Three sets of ten.” Which was a lot less than Felix was used to doing in the gym, I felt sure.

  He helped me onto the bench, one leg propped up in front of me while the other was bent at the knee. As I lifted the heavy plaster cast, I gave a small grunt of exertion. It was a lot heavier than my leg usually felt when I lifted it!

  “Don’t the Pumas have a gym?” I asked. Though I’d known Felix had one at home, it had never occurred to me to wonder why.

  Moving across to get some weights so he could carry on with his workout but still facing me, Felix nodded. “Sure they do,” he confirmed. For a moment he didn’t say anything else, before he gave me a grin. It felt almost encouraging, making me push through another lift.

  “I’ve always liked the idea of a home gym and this house was big enough to put one in. Means I don’t have to rush over to the rink if I want to work out a bit. Like... if you had the space, would you not want a dance studio at home?”

  “Obviously,” I agreed, bringing my leg slowly back down onto the bench. At first, the comparison didn’t feel quite right. Having a dance studio meant I could dance at home more easily and more comfortably, whereas having a home gym didn’t mean Felix could skate here.

  But then I thought about how skating was Felix’s version of performing for an audience. In that light, maybe having a home gym was like having a dance studio.

  “I suppose you can’t have your own personal ice-skating rink,” I teased.

  “Exactly.” Felix nodded like that had been the point he was making all along. It made me smile a little, like I’d gotten it right even when I hadn’t known there was something to get. “I’m not rich enough for that yet,” he joked.

  He did a set with the weights, before setting them down. “You need to do more of your exercises,” he instructed me. There was a sigh that escaped me at the sudden realization that this was almost definitely going to be something that Felix made me practice every day. He was no Edwina, but Felix definitely had his moments.

  Dutifully, I lifted my leg again, bringing it back down just as the doctor had shown me. While it was more effort than it would have been without the cast, it didn’t feel exactly like a proper workout.

  Even so, I kept going, until I’d finished my first set of ten. It was good for me, and I was determined to stick to it. I wanted my recovery once I got the cast off to be as quick as possible.

  “Thanks,” I said, genuinely appreciating the fact that Felix would hold me to my commitment. “Just two more sets to go.”

  It didn’t take long, and I was able to keep my eyes off of Felix, even if my mind lingered on the image of him as I’d walked through the door.

  AUGUST 20TH, 2008

  My sneakers squeaked against the floor as I bounced on the balls of my feet, staring up at the clock. “Come on. They said they’d post the list straight after school!”

  Waiting to find out if I’d made it onto the Junior Varsity cheerleading squad made me more nervous than anything ever had in my life! Glancing at Felix, I tried to absorb some of the complete calm he seemed able to radiate.

  He wasn’t nervous. And even though I knew he’d be fine with it, I didn’t want to disappoint him. It had been Felix’s suggestion that I become a cheerleader. That I try to become one, anyway.

  He wanted me at his games, and I wanted to be there, too. Of course, even if I didn’t get picked, I could still cheer for him. But it wasn’t quite the same.

  “I think I did okay,” I said, for probably the thirtieth time. “My routine didn’t go wrong or anything.”

  “And God knows you practiced it to death beforehand,” he teased. It wasn’t untrue. I’d made Felix watch me practice for hours. He was good at giving feedback, his eye often caught details I couldn’t imagine some of my girlfriends would catch. Like ‘put your feet slightly more to the right’, ‘stretch your arms straighter’. Felix never held back, but his criticism was always constructive.

  Still, it was hard not to worry about failing this. I’d never truly wanted something like this before and while, yes, I had signed up because Felix had suggested it... somehow this very much felt for me.

  “Stay strong, Edwards,” Felix teased, nodding at the girl bringing over the list.

  My heart leaped up into my throat as I reached for Felix’s hand for support. Even though I must have been hurting him with how hard I gripped his fingers, he didn’t complain.

  I forced myself to hang back, not wanting to jump on the poor girl assigned to post the sheet of paper with my future on it. Waiting until she was half-way down the corridor was torture, but it felt like the polite thing to do.

  When I spotted my name under the JV team, I squealed. “Oh my god, Felix! I made it! I’m a cheerleader!”

  I threw myself at Felix and he easily hugged me back. He was so strong that me just jumping at him was something I didn’t even think twice about. Felix always caught me.

  “Congratulations!” he laughed and I could tell he was pleased for me. I was pleased for me, too! I’d worked so hard to get on the team! It suddenly made me really appreciate just how much Felix must love his team. Being a part of something bigger for the first time ever was exciting!

  Setting me back down, Felix gave me a grin. “How do you want to celebrate? I’m thinking milkshakes?”

  Honestly, part of me wanted to celebrate by immediately returning to my yard to rehearse. But that wasn’t very sociable, and I did want to thank Felix for making the suggestion. Besides, I didn’t have anything new to rehearse yet!

  “Yes, milkshakes,” I agreed. Luckily, there was a diner not too far from school, and our parents weren’t picking us up for another half an hour.

  As we walked, my shoulder bumped against Felix’s, sending a thrill through me. Now that he was on the hockey team and I was a cheerleader, maybe Felix would start to see me as a girl as well as his best friend. I could hope, anyway!

  “High school is going to be amazing,” I said, grinning.

  That made him laugh again and my smile widened. “It’s nice,” Felix commented but I wasn’t too sure what it was he was referring to specifically. Giving a soft ‘hmm?’, I encouraged him to elaborate. “Seeing you so excited,” he explained. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this into something.”

  And that was an interesting point. Ever since Felix and I had become friends, I had always been on the lookout for something that I liked the way Felix liked hockey. Ironically, the only thing so far that I had liked how he had liked hockey was Felix. But having a person as a hobby wasn’t very practical.

  Cheerleading, however, had been fun in a way I hadn’t anticipated!

  I’d known that I liked dancing, sure, but cheerleading was something more than that. Even watching the JV team, there was something thrilling about how
some people moved exactly in time with one another, while others were doing something different that complemented that.

  It was like complicated clockwork, but all done by real people! I admired the hours of rehearsal and the team-work that I knew it must take.

  “I don’t know if I can put it into words,” I admitted. “This is the first thing where I can see what it takes to get good at something and I think I actually can.” With hockey, I knew what it took to become good, but I’d always known that whizzing around on the ice that fast and that aggressively was beyond me.

  With gardening, I didn’t understand what being good at it looked like. With cheerleading, I could imagine how it would feel to excel and I could picture the steps it would take to get there.

  And from how Felix smiled at me, it seemed that he understood what I meant. Felix was always good like that. This was why he was my best friend. Even when I didn’t think my explanations made sense, Felix still got it. Got me.

  “It’s going to be fun!” he announced. “And we can now have a reason to exercise together! You can finally teach me stretches,” he teased. I’ve been on a mission to get Felix to do yoga with me, but he always found an excuse not to. Even now, before I could start suggesting a time we could do it, he pulled the door open to the diner.

  “My treat!” he insisted. “I want to buy you a celebratory milkshake.” And sure, I was more than happy to let him. It was a great day for celebratory milkshakes!

  PRESENT DAY

  Adapting my life to living at Felix’s had been easier than I’d expected in some ways, but harder in others. His house was a lot more suited to navigating on crutches than mine was, and he was always so willing to help me that I only rarely worried that my being there was a burden.

  There was enough space for me to retreat into if I didn’t want to talk, but Felix and I still had to tip-toe around each other when it came to privacy. Just because his family always asked after me when she called, didn’t mean I was supposed to be a third wheel in their conversations.