Page 12 of Choosing Her

crossy

“How do you feel about freshmen?” Mako asked as we stood in line for coffee.

“No,” I said flatly.

“But—“

“No,” I repeated, more forcefully. “There is no way in hell that my true love is a freshman. Try again.”

Even going out with Hanna, who was a sophomore, was a stretch for me.

I told Mako when we started this stupid challenge that we were keeping it to the juniors and seniors only.

He hadn't listened, and I had ended up listening to a girl tearfully get back together with her boyfriend on the phone, so I wasn't really feeling like that was the best plan.

Mako sighed deeply but kept scrolling through his phone.

I was pretty sure he was going through the responses of the ad he and Tino had left up, even though I’d expressly told them to take it down, and I was trying to pretend it wasn’t real.

I kept my eyes on the giant board displaying all the drinks Heart’s Coffee had to offer.

This was the only coffee shop on campus and although there was free coffee available in the cafeteria, it was so gross and watered down that somebody would have to pay me to drink it.

Instead, I’d been cutting my morning workouts short so I would have time to get a drink from here every morning.

“What about a hazelnut shot?” I mused out loud. “Worth it?”

“You don’t like hazelnut,” Mako said without looking up from his phone.

“Not for me,” I said. Had he been listening to anything I said all morning? “It’s for Saylor.”

“How do you feel about redheads?” Mako asked, tilting his screen toward me so he could show me a photo of another girl.

I still felt the less I knew about the picking process of the dates, the better, but I was a little curious where he’d gotten all these photos.

Did they send them in when they answered the ad?

“Too young,” I said. It was obvious from the photo that she was a freshman, or maybe a sophomore at the most. “Anyway, hazelnut shot—yay or nay?”

Mako continued flipping through photos, seeming completely unconcerned with the fact that we were almost at the front of the line and I had no idea what I should be ordering when we got there. I was this close to confiscating the phone from him until we were through the line.

“Does Saylor even like iced coffee?” He asked finally. It was like his brain was delaying everything I was saying to him, so he couldn’t answer until over a minute passed each time.

“Of course she does,” I said. But right after I said it, I realized that I couldn’t think of how I knew that.

It was like I had this storage space filled with Saylor facts in the back of my mind, like the fact that she loved the color blue and hated swimming in oceans, even though I couldn’t remember her telling me.

Did I learn it over the summer? Or was it on New Year’s Eve that she told me, back when she was happy for me to know everything about her?

“Next!” The barista called. Somehow, I’d completely missed that the two cheerleaders in front of us had already ordered and we were now at the front of the line.

“Could I get a large latte, please?” I asked.

And then, with no time left to debate about whether Saylor liked hazelnut or if it would cause her to spit the drink out in my face—if she was even willing to take a sip in the first place—I stepped up, and ordered the largest size of iced coffee available with one shot of hazelnut.

I’d watch her reaction today and if she didn’t like it, I could get her something else tomorrow.

“Anything else?” The barista asked after putting in both drinks.

I was about to say no, when Mako made a noise in the back of his throat. I rolled my eyes but said, “Yeah, a second latte, actually.”

“Thank you,” he said afterward, acting like he hadn’t expected me to do it.

“I don't see why I have to buy you a coffee,” I said as I put my wallet in my backpack. “You're the one sending me on terrible dates. If anything, you should be paying for me.”

“I’m not sending you on terrible dates,” Mako said. “I’m helping my best friend and teammate break his curse. Where’s the gratitude, huh?”

I snorted at the idea of being grateful for what he was doing for me.

He could claim all he wanted that he was doing this to break the curse, but I knew it was really just an experiment meant to entertain him.

I’d heard the way they were all laughing at me on that date with Hanna—that wasn’t the sound of my concerned friends, it was the sound of guys who knew they’d gotten away with a great prank.

“How about this girl?” Mako asked, shoving his phone into my face again.

I was getting a little tired of this barrage of photos he was pushing at me, but it was better than Tino’s initial idea of getting a bunch of girls to line up and kiss me, like a kissing booth.

I’d veto’ed that one as quickly as Bear had veto’ed Tino’s other suggestion that maybe I needed to kiss Poppy.

His reasoning there had been that she’d managed to melt Bear’s cold heart, which seemed just as impossible as breaking the Saylor curse.

I had to remind him that aside from being Bear’s girlfriend, Poppy was also Saylor’s best friend and bringing her into the mix in any way would just make an already messy situation even worse.

The photo Mako was showing me now was of a blonde girl with her hair pulled up in a high ponytail.

She had a bright smile and looked happy, although I couldn’t say that she was exactly my type.

But then again, did it really matter what my type was?

I hated to say it because it felt like admitting defeat, but I didn’t think going on a massive number of dates like this was a way to fall in love with anybody.

“Fine,” I said. I couldn’t keep veto’ing everyone he put in front of me or he would stop asking my opinions altogether, and I’d end up in another situation like the other night. “But how old is she?”

“Senior,” he said. “Her name’s Emily—you’ve probably had her in a few classes before, you just don’t remember.”

I looked at the photo again but I couldn’t say she looked familiar at all. It was pretty much inevitable to end up in at least one class with everyone in your grade, so he was probably right.

“Anyway, she just got dumped by her boyfriend,” Mako continued. “Looking to have some fun. Perfect for you, right?”

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean by looking to have some fun?”

Mako rolled his eyes and pulled his phone back to begin typing something.

I was a little worried he was texting her for me as we spoke.

Mako and Tino were acting like managers for me, responding to the girls and arranging dates for me.

All I had to do was show up. They said it was because they cared about me playing well in hockey, but I had a feeling it was just because they knew I wouldn’t do it myself and that would take away all of their fun.

“I told you,” Mako said, “part of breaking this curse is kissing them. Can’t you loosen up a little?”

“I guess,” I muttered. H’es been going on and on about this whole true love’s kiss thing and I was beginning to worry that he genuinely thought it was true.

At first, I thought he was just joking about it, but he’d become more adamant the longer the dates continued on.

“But she knows I’m not looking for anything more? ”

He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Unless it turns into more, right?”

“No,” I said immediately. “That’s not an option.”

I could deal with one meaningless date and a goodnight kiss. I could not deal with those dates turning into actual flings or relationships. I was not on the market for that and I wouldn’t let him bully me into doing it.

“But what if that’s what it takes to break the curse, Crossy?” Mako asked earnestly. “Are you really so hung up on one girl that you won’t do what it takes to get your hockey career back on track?”

“I’m not hung up on her,” I said. And I wasn’t. I knew what happened between Saylor and I was in the past. I’d embraced my mom’s sentiments about how the magic would never come back now and how the real version of Saylor wouldn’t live up to who I imagined her being.

But that didn’t mean I was going around looking for another relationship, either.

My time with Naomi was fun, but it had also been incredibly distracting, and I needed to focus on school right now.

We were only a month into the semester and I was already behind.

I needed to get my head on straight and soon, or I would be barred from playing in any more hockey games until I raised my grades—not that I was much use on the ice right now anyway.

“Repeat after me, Mako,” I said. Then, enunciating the words carefully and slowly, I said, “Not looking for anything.”

Mako rolled his eyes. “Relax. She's not either. Like I said, she just broke up with her boyfriend. Can I tell her you’re free Saturday?”

“Fine,” I sighed. I didn't want to be doing this, but he was right. I couldn't just sit around and wait for this stupid curse to get better on its own.

“For Crossy!” The barista called, sliding the three drinks across the counter. I took mine and Saylor’s, leaving Mako to grab his own. He eyed mine as he did.

“I can’t believe you’re going to just walk up and give that to her,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I shook the iced coffee a little, enjoying the way the ice rattled. “I think it will be a good way to break the tension, don't you?”

“If you say so, man.”

“She likes iced coffee,” I reminded him.

“Yeah but she doesn’t like you.”

I took a long sip of my coffee, hoping he couldn’t see on my face how much those words hit a nerve.

I knew he wasn’t wrong—from all the moments Saylor and I had seen each other in the last couple of months, she’d made it very clear that she didn’t like me.

That was what the iced coffee was for, wasn’t it?

I was essentially trying to bribe her into not hating me anymore.

But it hurt to know that it hadn’t always been like that.

There had been a time when she did like me, when her face lit up as she spoke to me, when I thought there might actually be a future there.

It made me wonder when it was that she started to properly hate me.

When I showed up at her door, there to see Naomi instead of her?

Or was it earlier—like when she realized that I was never going to call her?

I hated to think of that time, when she probably wondered if I’d forgotten about her or moved on, having no idea that I was searching high and low to find her again.

“Well, I’m hoping this will help that,” I said. Of course, I didn’t expect one iced coffee to undo the months of damage, but I hoped it could be a start.

Mako and I split up as we reached the second floor, with him turning right into his history class and me continuing straight to get to English.

With only a minute until the final bell, the hallway was almost empty, with just a couple other stragglers running to their rooms. When I turned into English, the room was loud and crowded.

I had to weave through groups of students crowding around desks and catching up on whatever gossip they’d missed since class yesterday.

My desk with Saylor was in the back corner of the room, as far away as possible from the door, and I was a little worried that something was going to go wrong in the final stretch of the walk and cause me to drop the iced coffee on the floor.

Saylor had the desk closest to the window, with the sunlight streaming in directly on her.

She seemed to be basking in this light, enjoying the way it glowed over her dark silky hair and made her rings glint.

She was resting a book on the surface of the desk and looked like she was reading it, but I noticed the way her eyes darted up as I placed the iced coffee in front of her.

She dropped her gaze again without looking at me.

I chose not to take offence to that as I sat down.

This plan was all about baby steps. She hadn’t completely ignored me and my peace offering, which was enough for today.

If she actually took the drink without accusing me of trying to poison her, I’d consider it a win for the week.

“Alright, class, let’s all calm down!” Mrs. Braun called from the front of the class, clapping her hands as we all began to settle in.

I bent down to grab my notebook and the novel we were currently reading in class from my backpack.

When I sat back up, the iced coffee wasn't sitting in its same place anymore. I didn’t want to completely spook Saylor by making a big deal of it, so I kept my gaze forward as Mrs. Braun told us what would be happening today.

After a couple of minutes, I dared to look over and saw the cup in Saylor’s far hand.

And though I never actually saw her take a sip for the whole class, I did notice the amount of iced coffee in the cup go down significantly.

I grinned to myself and opened a new note in my phone to keep track. Hazelnut shot - yes.

Score - one point for Crossy.