Today was the day Sasha was waiting for, a night out. Malcolm and Adrian couldn't hold it together as near as I could tell. They were all jumpy tonight as we changed in the locker rooms, clearly unable to get over the fact that Sasha was willing to go out tonight with us.

I just kept reminding myself that she wasn't interested in them, only in friendship. Practice had just wrapped up for the evening and I was packing my bag when Alex came over to me.

"Thanks for the other day." He says putting his hand on my shoulder. "She's doing better than I thought she would be. Thanks for helping her."

"It's no trouble." I say putting my hand out and he takes it for a brief shake.

"You three knuckleheads are taking her out tonight are you?" He asks and I nod. "Watch out for her alright?"

"Absolutely." I tell him knowing I wouldn't be letting Sasha out of my sight.

"She really likes you." He says quickly and then slaps my back walking away. "Don't fuck it up!" He calls walking out of the locker room.

I laugh and shake my head continuing to pack up my things. Adrian and Malcolm follow me closely as I step out of the locker room and I see heads turn watching me leave. I knew why, Alex and Nik didn't tend to have any friendly conversations with the underclassmen on the team.

Just when I'm about to message Sasha that I'm on my way back I stop seeing a familiar head of blonde hair chatting with a few other people in the lobby. Jeez, you free her from her figure skating nightmare for five days and suddenly she's the most social person ever.

"Sash!" I call out and she whips her head around seeing the blonde locks fly through the air. She smiles guilty and then hurries over to give me a hug.

"Hey." She says.

"I told you to wait at the house I was about to come get you." I tell her and she rolls her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't wait. Besides this saves us both a trip." She points out and I can't be mad.

"Who were you talking with?" I ask.

"That's Maddie, Connor and Brooke." She says gesturing to a guy standing with two other girls, now whispering and shoving each other. "Apparently here to scope out the 'hot and sweaty hockey boys after practice'." She says making me laugh. "I of course told them I was too, and here you are."

"Connor wants to scope us out?" I tease and she nods. Suddenly I realize what she's talking about and I laugh.

"You guys should come say hi, I bet they'd faint." She says raising her eyebrows to Malcolm and Adrian. Then she'd suddenly leading us across the lobby making me laugh harder. Sasha the wingman.

"Hey guys." She says and the two girls freeze. "So this is Malcolm, Adrian and Nate." Then the two of us watch as all of them stumble all over themselves while trying to talk to each other. The two girls are shy and Malcolm and Adrian can't seem to form a cohesive sentence. Connor, the other boy, seems to be getting just as much enjoyment as us, if not more.

"Jesus just talk to them." Connor huffs pushing them forwards. He was most likely just as interested but knew he didn't have much of a shot hitting on any of us.

"Hi." One of them says and they nod.

"Hey." Adrian says beating Malcolm to the punch.

"Are you guys sophomores?" I ask the two girls trying to help this process along.

"Yeah." One of them giggles.

"Great, so are we." I say raising my eyebrows at the boys trying to get them to make an effort. After a few more awkward stares even I'm starting to get annoyed. "Sorry laddies but we need to head out for the evening. How about you exchange numbers?" I suggest and they all swap phones.

"Cool, um....see you around?" Malcolm asks and they nod.

"Oh my god." Sasha mumbles and I laugh. I can't believe she thought she was weird, none of the people here can even talk to each other. "Why don't you guys join us for lunch tomorrow?" She asks and they all look like a deer caught in the headlights. "Yes?" She asks and they nod. "Perfect, see you tomorrow then."

Sasha quickly waves goodbye to the girls and leads us outside and away from a very awkward interaction.

"So where are we going?" Malcolm asks and I smile looking at Sasha.

"Mini golf." I tell them and I see her face light up. She told me not to long ago that she really wanted to go, she said she hadn't been in ages. Neither Adrian or Malcolm seem to have much of an issue with it, I'm sure they'd do anything if it meant spending time with Sasha.

So we pile into my car and I pull out of the lot. I was surprised to see her in the rink period, that rink had to give her some serious P.T.S.D after everything she'd been through.

"Do you want to play a song?" I ask and she furrows her eyebrows.

"You always do it though." She protests. "Are you sure?"

"I sure am, my phone's close to dying." I say passing the AUX over. She laughs a bit and shrugs plugging it in and looking through her music. She was mildly relieved on Monday, after Alex left he'd given her phone back to her. She seemed happy about that, now she didn't feel so hidden and isolated, she could text and message with everyone and she had things like her pictures and music back.

I'm almost caught off guard when I hear a Lil Peep song starting to play from the speakers of my car. She moves her head along with it, enjoying the music. No offence to Sasha but I genuinely figured her music might be a little pop-y or classical. And as the ride continues her music continues to surprise me. Rap and some indie that bordered on being more on the rap side.

"Jeez Sash, you're playing all the good stuff tonight." Adrian remarks and she smiles.

"I love this sort of stuff, it's good to do work to and focus with." She tells him.

Soon enough we're at mini golf and we're climbing out of the car and heading inside. The attendant slips a glowing bracelet over our wrists. This spot was particularly popular because the golf was played under black lights. Sasha smiles at me showing her glowing teeth and the white long sleeve she wears is almost electric.

"Ready?" I ask and she nods, blonde ponytail bobbing up and down.

"I'm excited, I haven't done this in ages." She tells me.

So we go to the first hole looking at the almost outer-space design of it. Sasha's turn doesn't go quite the way she plans as it hits the edge of an obstacle.

"Shoot." She laughs. "I guess I'm pretty rusty."

None of us seemed to be particularly good at this, most of the holes we played took over five hits. Good thing we decided to play for fun. But it's still enjoyable, we tease each other relentlessly about our lack of skill. By the time the eighteenth hole comes we all smile.

"Well I think we can conclude we're all losers." Adrian says sinking his shot and we all nod.

"Some of us more than others." Sasha says as she misses again.

Eventually we're all out the other side finished the game and returning our putters and balls. Sasha smiles making me feel particularly happy. This wasn't a date, not by any stretch, the two other people with us would make that impossible. But there was this nice energy between the two of us tonight, it made me want a date like this with her one day.

Now I was just focusing on getting Malcolm and Adrian home as fast as possible so I could have the rest of the night with Sasha alone.

They of course made that very difficult as they were both in an animated conversation with Sasha. She made great conversation, clearly interested in their answers. But eventually I dropped them back at their houses and I could take Sasha home.

"Ugh, okay I've been wanting to talk about this since the rink. Why could neither of them talk to Maddie and Brooke? Why couldn't Maddie and Brooke talk to them? It was agonizing." I laugh a bit at that and turn into my subdivision.

"I know, none of them could even speak to each other. Thank god we stepped in." I say and she laughs with a small nod.

Then we pull up outside my house and I'm glad to be here at the end of my long day. I'm even happier to be here with her. We get inside and see most of the lights off except one lamp for when we came in. Mom was already asleep.

"I'm going to run and take a shower, alright?" I ask and she nods.

"Sure, I'll just get ready for bed." She says with a shrug and gives me a hug. "Thanks for bringing me out tonight, it meant a lot to me."

"Anytime. It was fun." I tell her and she nods giving me a kiss on the cheek and then heading upstairs. I follow soon after and then hop into the bathroom taking a better shower than the one I took at the rink. It was also just a nice way to calm down and relax, I look over and see Sasha's hair care sitting on one of the shelves now. It made me smile, it made me think of when her hair was fanned out while she slept, the lavender scent that came from it.

I step out of the shower before I start thinking about the fact that she's in here showering every morning. I wrap a towel around my waist and then groan realizing I didn't bring clean clothes with me after tossing my others in the hamper.

I reluctantly open the door knowing Sasha's right across the hall, usually her door is closed anyway while she gets ready for bed. I'm completely surprised to see it's wide open, I'm even more surprised at what I can see inside.

She's got on a pair of tiny spandex shorts and a tank top, she's got one leg up on the dresser, foot pointed and leans over to stretch. Her leg is straight and she then leans over sideways so her ribs run along her leg. The tank top is starting to move up again and I can feel my mouth getting dry. She then stops and stands up before sitting and doing the splits, she winces a bit closing her eyes and I start to picture too many things.

She continues to show off her flexibility throwing her body into odd positions and I can't pull my eyes away. Those shorts are evil. I feel myself holding my breath and I can suddenly feel blood rushing to one place. No, not now! I've managed to avoid having this happen so far but now it's just too much.

"Nathan?" I hear her say and I see her eyes find mine.

"Hey-um, what's up?" I ask moving my hips behind the wall and holding the towel tighter, praying this will stop soon.

"Nothing." She giggles, standing up off the floor and pulling the legs of the shorts down, which only makes the entire situation worse. "I haven't been to ballet in days and my body's killing me, I needed to stretch it out."

"Oh, sure. I get it." I assure her taking deep breaths trying to focus my mind.

"What's going on?" She asks leaning on her doorframe. "Why are you standing like that?"

"I-um, I was....seeing if I forgot anything in the washroom." I say lamely flicking the lights on and off. She furrows her eyebrows and leans in slightly. She's standing too close, I don't have any clothes on and the ones she's wearing are enough to send my mind crazy.

"Right.....well you probably need to get changed." She sighs. "I'll leave you to it." She says and then turns back to her room. I watch her hips swing, staring shamelessly at her butt.

As soon as she's out of sight I slip back into my bedroom and take a deep breath. I pull off my towel and try to get everything under control while I look for something to sleep in. But it doesn't seem to matter what I do, I can't seem to calm down.

I know she's expecting me to come over soon but I can't walk into her room like this. She'd probably lose it, the last thing I want to do is take a step back with Sasha.

How fast could I settle this myself? Do I have time to jerk-off? But then I'd seriously risk her knocking at the door or even walking in, and that isn't an option.

"Nathan?" I hear with a knock at the door and I already know the voice is Sasha's.

"Um-yeah?" I call back nervously trying to picture anything that would help me relax while I pull out a pair of boxers. Kittens, car crashes, cold water. None of it was working.

"Are you alright? You've just been in here for a while and I thought you might have gone to sleep." She says from the other side of the door. "C-can I come in?" She asks and I realize how confusing it is that we're having an entire conversation through the door.

"I-uh...yeah." I say and turn against my dresser away from her. My hands land on a pair of gym shorts and I do my best to pull them on.

"Are you sure you're alright? You're acting really odd." She says and I sigh.

"No I'm fine, just trying to tie up these gym shorts." I say pretending to fiddle with the drawstring.

"Did I do something?" She asks quietly and I look over my shoulder shaking my head.

"No of course not."

"Then why are you looking at the wall?" She asks with a pleading look. "If you need to be alone for a while-"

"No, please don't go." I mumble then close my eyes tipping my head up. "I'll tell you, just please don't freak out." I say quietly she nods and I slowly turn towards her, knowing she can see the stir in my shorts. She takes a sharp breath in and looks away with flushed cheeks.

"Oh." She says quietly. "You hid from me because of that?" She asks and I nod with a sigh.

"I didn't want you to see it, or think I was some perve getting all worked up but.....Jesus." I say clearing my throat. "I'm really sorry, I watched you....you know stretching."

"Well then it's my bad, really." She says shaking her head with a small smile.

"But this is supposed to be your space and you should be free to do what you'd like without worrying about me." I say. "This is so weird."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to be alone for a while?" She asks and I sigh shaking my head.

"I don't want you to leave." I admit. "I just know this is.....probably a little much." She nods and lifts her eyes back to mine for the first time since this horrible conversation started.

"Come here?" She asks.

"Are you sure?" I ask and she nods quietly. I take a deep breath and sit down next to her and she smiles.

"Does it make it worse if I touch you?" She asks and I nod.

"Yeah." I admit running my hands over my face.

"Ooh I have an idea." She says turning to me with a laugh and I wonder what I'm in for. "So this one time at practice a few years ago I was really tired and I wasn't paying attention. Well I wasn't looking at where I was going or my spacing around me and I suddenly ran into the boards at full force. I broke my nose and half of my face was swollen up like I got stung by fifteen bees. There was literally blood everywhere, on the ice, the boards, my clothes and face....I thought I broke way more than my nose. It was absolutely disgusting and I ended up having a concussion, which is why I missed a week of school two years ago."

"Really?" I ask and she nods with a laugh.

"Yeah, it was the most pain I'd ever felt in my entire life. Now blood just makes me feel sick, it makes me think about how I almost blacked out. It was all over my hands and body, we went to the emergency room and they thought I'd been stabbed."

"Oh my god." I say shaking my head. "Ew."

"Precisely." She says with a laugh. "Did it work?" She asks and I suddenly realize my shorts don't feel tight anymore. Now I understand why she told me all of that, to turn me off.

"Sure did." I tell her pulling her back into bed with me and she laughs. She settles in next to me wrapping her arms around my chest.

"I'll try and stretch with the door closed next time." She teases giving me a kiss and I just laugh shaking my head.