The Boy Who Sneaks in My Bedroom Window (5 page)

I wasn’t paying attention to where we were going so I
was surprised when we pulled into the parking lot for the ice rink.
He grinned and got out; I followed him with a frown. “What are we
doing here?” I asked as he grabbed my hand and pulled me inside.
Maybe they had a good café inside or something, that was the only
reason I could think of for him to bring me here.

He ignored my
question. “Hi
, two please,” he said to
the lady behind the counter, handing over the money. I gasped; we
were actually going to skate? I’d been skating a few times in my
life but I was completely terrible at it.

“
You need
skate hire?” the lady asked with a friendly grin
whil
e her eyes roamed over Liam’s body
discreetly.

“
Yeah, an
eleven and a five please,” he replied, winking at me. I frowned as
he spoke, wondering how on earth he knew my shoe size.

She passed
him two sets of skates and he grinned again, grabbing my hand and
dragging me to the benches. I noticed that the lady didn’t stop
watching Liam as he walked away
, and she
actually licked her lips at his ass. I laughed and rolled my eyes
at her, which made her blush and look away.

“
What’s so
funny?” Liam asked, looking at me weirdly.

“
You’ve got
another fan,
” I stated, nodding my head
towards the woman. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” I
teased with a small smile.

“
Don’t worry,
I’m not interested in her
,” he replied,
looking at me as if trying to tell me something.

“
Worried?
Liam, I wasn’t worried,” I scoffed, as I rolled my eyes.

We
c
hanged into our skates and walked
towards the ice. There was no one else on there, probably because
it was only just after nine in the morning. “Why are we doing this?
You know I can’t skate.” I winced, looking at the ice, starting to
panic.

He laughed
and pulled me onto the ice. “I know, I remember. Don’t worry, I’ll
help you.” Liam and my brother played Ice hockey for the school;
Jake was the goal keeper and Liam the striker. They had both been
skating for years, but I had never been able to do it. I loved to
watch people skate and always wished I could learn, but I literally
couldn’t stand up. He grabbed both of my hands as I slipped and
slid all over the place. He was skating backwards, facing me.
“You’re bending your ankles in slightly, Angel. Try to keep them
straight, that’s why you have no control,” he said, looking at my
feet.

I stood
straighter and felt my feet slide out from under me;
instantly, he grabbed me around the waist and
leant backwards so that we both fell and I landed on top of him,
his body breaking my fall. He chuckled under me; I pushed myself up
to my knees so I was straddling him, then sat down next to him. I
couldn’t stand up so I waited for him to get up first.

“
OK, attempt
number two.” He smiled, pulling me to my feet easily. “Stand up
straight and keep your feet still, I’ll pull you around until you
can get your balance.” He kicked at my skates gently, nudging them
to get them closer together as he gripped my hands
tightly.

I managed to
sta
y on my feet for a while before losing
my balance. Again, he grabbed me around the waist and leant back so
that I fell on top of him. “Why do you keep doing that?” I asked,
pushing myself into a sitting position again. I could feel the ice
starting to wet the back of my jeans, making me shiver.

“
Doing what?”
he asked
, looking at me with a confused
expression.

“
Every time I
start to fall, you make yourself fall backwards so I land on top of
you. You’re going to hurt yourself,” I explained,
frowning.

He
shrugged
. “Rather me than you,” he
mumbled under his breath, pulling me to my feet again. I just
stared at him, shocked. Did he just say that? Maybe I heard him
wrong. “You’re getting better; you lasted at least a minute that
last time,” he teased with his trademark smirk.

OK, that’s
more like the Liam I know, I just heard him wrong that’s all. “Ha
ha. Well a minute is good for me. You know I can’t do this,” I
grumbled, instantly falling again. He managed to just hold me up
this time by grabbing my hips, pressing our bodies together and
lifting me up off the ice so I could get my footing back from
scratch. I felt my heart start to beat faster, but it wasn’t
because of the usual fear of someone touching me, it was something
else that I couldn’t understand. I blushed and looked away as he
set me back on my feet.

“Why are you blushing?” he asked, frowning at
me but looking amused at the same time.

“
I’m not.
It’s just cold, that’s all. My ass is frozen I think.” I turned my
hips to show him my wet jeans, rubbing my ass to try and get some
of the cold away. I heard him pull in a deep breath and let it out
as a sigh. I looked back up to see he was frowning with his eyes
closed; it looked like he was in pain or something. “You OK?” I
asked, still rubbing my behind. He nodded and shrugged out of his
shirt, standing there in his low slung jeans and tight t-shirt that
showed off his muscles underneath. He put his shirt around my waist
and tied it into a knot at the front. “What are you doing? You’ll
get cold,” I scolded, as I tried to untie the knot he’d
made.

“
Don’t worry,
I’ll be fine. Next time I’ll bring a spare sweater for your very
fine ass,
” he replied, grabbing my hands
and starting to pull me along again.

Next time?
What does he mean,
next
time
? Not that I’m not having a nice
time, but being here with Liam, it was strange, it felt weird.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true; it actually felt
good,
which
was what felt weird.

“
That’s it!
You’re getting it,” he cooed
- which of
course made me lose my balance again. I pushed myself up off of him
for the third time, laughing hysterically. OK, this really was fun,
and it didn’t hurt. Usually, when I had come skating with Jake and
he had tried to teach me, he just let me fall on my butt all the
time. Within about thirty minutes I was usually so bruised and sore
that I just gave up. “See, now you’re having fun.” Liam laughed,
brushing the ice crystals off of his back and grabbing me again. We
managed to skate all the way round three times before I fell. I
really was getting better.

After what
seemed like forever
, the rink was
starting to get busier and my stomach was growling. I was falling
less and less often, but I was still holding his hands in the death
grip. “What’s the time?” I asked casually as we stopped by the side
of the rink. First period must be nearly over now,
surely.

He pulled
his
cellphone out of his pocket and
sucked in air through his pearly white teeth, making a hissing
sound. OK, that didn’t sound good, maybe we’d missed second period
too…..

“
Er Angel,
school’s gonna be over in an hour,” he said, wincing.

“
WHAT?” I
almost screamed, making him flinch and causing me to lose my
balance. He grabbed hold of me and slammed me into the plastic side
of the rink
to keep me up, his body
pressed into me, his face inches from mine. My heart started to
speed up again. He didn’t move. He just stood there looking at me,
staring into my eyes until I started to feel a little light-headed.
Suddenly, I realised it was because I wasn’t breathing, so I sucked
in a ragged breath, which seemed to snap him out of it.

He pulled
back but left his hands on my waist
,
holding me up. “We’d better get going. If your brother finds out
I’ve been with you all day he’ll cut my balls off,” he said with
mock horror, making me laugh.

Instead of
holding my hands to help me to the side, he just continued to hold
my waist, skating backwards
as he pulled
me along. I didn’t really know what to do with my hands so I put
them on his shoulders. As I started to fall again he bent down and
scooped me into his arms, gripping one of his forearms firmly under
my ass, and forced my thighs around his waist with the other hand
as if I weighed nothing at all. He turned on the spot and skated
forwards, fast. It was actually quite scary. I held my breath and
threw my arms around his neck, pressing myself to him as tight as I
could, probably choking the life out of him but he didn’t complain.
Instead of getting off of the exit like I was expecting, he skated
around the whole rink again, before finally walking off of the ice
and plopping me on the bench.

What the hell
was that about? “Why’d you do that?” I asked, feeling a little
uncomfortable that I just had my whole body completely wrapped
around him. I don’t know why I felt uncomfortable about it though,
he wrapped his body round mine every night.

“
Do what,
Angel?” he asked
, looking
confused.

I pointed to
the ice
. “Skate around again. Why didn’t
you just get off at the exit? You skated past it,” I explained,
frowning, but smiling at the same time, this boy really is
weird!

He looked
slightly uncomfortable but then re-arranged his expression into his
usual
‘make all the girls
melt’
smirk. “You slowed me down the
whole time; I just wanted one lap where I could skate forwards,
that’s all.” He shrugged.

Right, now I
feel a little guilty that I didn’t let him have any fun, he had to
baby me the whole time. “Liam, you go on and skate some. I’ll sit
here, it's fine. You should get to have some fun too,” I suggested,
giving him a half smile.

He
grinned
. “I had a lot of fun.” His
expression looked completely honest; he quickly stood up and went
to get our shoes.

On the way back to school he pulled into the
McDonalds drive thru. “Hi, can I help you?” the speaker asked.

“
Er yeah, can
I get a big mac meal with a coke, and a quarter pounder with cheese
meal with a strawberry milkshake. Do you still do those cheese melt
things?” Liam asked.

“Yeah we do,” the speaker crackled.

He
grinned
. “Great, a pack of those too then
please.” I just stared at him, a little dumbfounded; he had just
ordered my food and knew exactly what I would want. He turned back
to me and frowned. “What are you looking at me like that for? Did I
get it wrong?” he asked, looking slightly concerned and unrolling
his window again, ready to change the order.

I shook my head, looking at him in amazement.
“How did you know what I have?”

He just
laughed and looked at me like I’d said something stupid. “You
always have the same
, Angel. And you love
those disgusting cheese things too but they don’t do them all the
time so….” he trailed off shrugged and pulled the car up to the
next window.

OK, now he is
starting to freak me out. First he knew my shoe size, now he knows
what I order at McDonalds? I mean, I know I’ve probably been here
with him and Jake a thousand times, but even Jake doesn’t know what
I order and he’s my brother for goodness sake. Liam just laughed at
me again and pulled the car into a space so we could
eat.

He was
chatting openly about some concert that he wa
nted to go and see and some movie that he saw last week
about zombies that he said would have scared the life out of me. I
was surprised how easy it was to talk to him; I’d never spent much
time with him on my own before. He was usually always with Jake or
a load of the boys, or had some skank draped all over him, or we
were asleep. He was actually a really nice and funny guy. I
couldn’t help but wonder why he hides his awesome personality
behind the man-whore, male chauvinistic pig attitude; he should be
like this more often.

“
Can I ask
you something, Angel?” he asked, looking at me seriously. I nodded
and finished the rest of my milkshake. “Don’t you trust me? How
could you think I would hurt you earlier at school? I’ve had plenty
of opportunities to touch you or force you into something
over the last eight years, haven’t I? Why would
you think I would hurt you?” he asked, looking really
sad.

I dragged in
a deep breath. “You just took me by surprise that’s all; I do trust
you
, Liam, honestly. I know you wouldn’t
hurt me, it’s just hard for me, I don’t like people touching me.” I
frowned not really wanting to talk about it. No one ever pushed me
for details of what used to go on with my father. I had refused to
go to therapy after he left, my mom and Jake had tried to talk me
into it, but I just didn’t want anyone to know. I was ashamed of it
and what he used to make me do. No one ever forced me to talk about
it though, and I loved them even more for it.

Liam took my
hand. “I know you don’t, but I would never hurt you, I need you to
know that,” he said, rubbing circles in the back of my hand. He
still looked really hurt and upset, I wanted to make him feel
better but I didn’t know how.

The only
thing I could do was tell him t
he truth.
“Liam, when people touch me my heart beats too fast and I start to
feel sick and a little dizzy. It’s not something I have control
over. The only people that it doesn’t happen with are my mom, Jake
and you. I’m sorry if I upset you, but I can’t help it. I do trust
you, honestly.”