Crossfire

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

"You... what?" Cole's mouth was kinda hanging open as she laid it all on the line "You're not.... what? ..... And.... and I.. what?"

No way, there was no way this was happening. This had to be dream..... right? And she wasn't joking, even without the words being spoken, the look on her face was sincere. Slowly it all came together for him, and he shook his head a little as he came to the realization.

"But, we were drunk, and your ex... and the... Oh my god. I've been a huge idiot this whole time, haven't I? And the last couple weeks, all that weirdness between us... you were frustrated at me right? Alex do you want to -!"

She completely cut him off by kissing him, softly latching her lips on to his. It wasn't a drunken make-out, or something she rushed into to prove a point. It was passionate, it was real.

Cole felt an immense wave of relief fall over him as he leaned in to the kiss, he wrapped his arms around her in a tender embrace. He was overwhelmingly happy in that moment to finally realize that the girl he'd liked since the moment they met, this amazing, wonderful woman that he had up on a pedestal of being unattainable for reasons outside of his control, his best friend, Alex Hawke, felt the same way about him.

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

"She didn't want to be here, kept askin' if we could head out..... and when I said I wanted to stay and support you, she starting saying bad things about you. Horrible lies and... just shit that I didn't want to hear. I told her to stop.... she wouldn't, so then I asked her to leave."

He took a breath and carried on.
"To tell you the truth, I'm not all that into her, I've just been going along with all of this because her friends are dating guys from the team. Yeah, I mean, she's hot, but she's mean, like I really don't like how she rags on you for being into girls, and on top of that, I'm not attracted to her at all... not in any way that matters at least."

"There is someone I'm interested in though" he continued, though he wasn't sure why. Part of him was willing himself to shut up but he carried on "I've been sitting on it a while, even though I'm really into her, because I have no chance, she's just not interested in me, in any way whatsoever.... so when I realized that I settled for Chelsea."

He laid his hand on hers, not holding it, just.. touching. In some way it was his subtle signal of what he was really saying. Then he yawned.

"Ooh, I'm a bit tired, I didn't sleep very well. Hell, I don't know why I'm saying any of this, you only asked me about Chelsea, but I kind of ramble and I tend to misunderstand stuff when I'm tired, kinda like.. when we met. I was still really jet-lagged that day, I must've asked you to repeat yourself, or rephrase a question at least a dozen times, you remember?"

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

“Hey, I don’t mind at all!” He proved it by hugging her “I loved it, you did great!”

While he still had her in the embrace, he started.
“You probably noticed by now that she’s gone. We got into a fight, she left.... I don’t know what to do about all that, but I know right now that the only thing I wanna do is hang out, if that’s alright? Burgers on me?”

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

Cole jumped up and cheered when Alex landed the KO strike, Chelsea was knocked off him by the sudden movement and she got up to halfheartedly cheer herself. Cole mouthed "Great job!" at her and gave a thumbs up before she headed off to get cleaned up for part 2.

"Ok, that was fun, can we go now?" Chelsea said, clearly growing impatient.

"No" Cole said "she'll be out again shortly, I'm not leaving until this is over. I told you, we coulda just met up later."

"But I wanted to spend allllll day with you Coley Bear" Chelsea said "And this is so boringgg. We could be at the mall picking out cute outfits for each other, or back in my room relaxing you know? If we're going to date, we need to do more things that both of us are interested in, right? Not wasting a Saturday sitting in a smelly gym watching this lame stuff, while that nasty little whore Alex is-"

"Stop right now. Don't you dare say another word about her."

"Coley, don't get mad, I'm just telling it like it is"

"No, you have to stop. If you don't like this, or my friendship with Alex, then you can leave" he finally said, quietly so as to not make a scene while a match was on "She was one of the first people I met when I moved here, and she's been nothing but kind and understanding. She cares about me, and I care about her, it's not a sexual thing, clearly. We just hang out and have fun, I enjoy being around her, and I know she's a genuinely good person. So stop spreading lies about her, because she's not capable of whatever bullshit you're sprouting. And if you can't understand that, then maybe we shouldn't be dating."

"Ok, fine, I'm sorry, I'll try to be more supportive" she said as she cuddled into him again.

"No, Chelsea, get off me" he said, shaking her loose "Please, just go. I'm not comfortable with you being here right now. We'll talk later."

"Cole, please"
"No, Chelsea please. You've been all over me for days now, I just need some space right now... I'll text you, alright?"

She got up with a 'hrumph!' and stormed off, making some noise, but generally being civil. Finally he was able to loosen up his shoulders, sit forward a bit and intently watch the ongoing match in peace while he waited for Alex to come back out.

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

As hard as Cole tried the next morning to get Chelsea to stay home, she was waiting outside the arena with a coffee for them both. Immediately she started complaining about the early hour and how lame everything was, as she not-so-subtly dropped hints that she'd rather be curled up in bed.

"... and it's like, why are you even friends with her? From what I hear, she did my.. friend, Britney really dirty" At some point, she had started ragging on Alex really hard, and Cole was getting up to his last nerve. He'd been keeping his cool for a while now, trying to keep the status quo. He knew he was more or less expected to date Chelsea because all of her friends were involved with the team, but she was quickly crossing lines that he couldn't abide, if she didn't stop soon, he was going to rock the boat.

"Can you stop, please? I'm here to support Alex, and whatever stories you have about her can wait. Lay off her a bit please? We're friends, and nothing is going to change that."
"But Coley listennn"
"No, I'm trying to watch my best friend, ok? Please stop"
Chelsea pouted "I'm sowwyyyy, I'll be good" she kissed him on the cheek and laid her head on his shoulder, rubbing his bicep with one hand as she wrapped the other arm around him in a one-armed hug.

Alex was taking some hits, but she wasn't out yet.

"Come on Al" he cheered under his breath "You got this"

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

Cole's mind was boggled as the scene played out in front of him. Chelsea and her group of friends had been hanging around their practices all week, a few of them were dating guys on the team, so it was understandable. They caught him completely off-guard yesterday when Tyler and John had held him back after practice and introduced him to Chelsea. They talked for a minute, she had gave him her number and asked to hang out. He just kind of went along with it since his brain was otherwise occupied worrying about Alex. She texted him all night, even after he was supposed to be sleeping. She was hot sure, and the attention was nice, but he didn't really feel anything for her. No chemistry. No attraction. Nothing.

She told him that she'd be finding him after the game, and clearly from her recounting of events, she'd barely watched any of it. All of these thinly-veiled comments towards Alex and the aggressive nature she had taken towards him, as if they had agreed to date when no such conversation had occurred. It all happened so fast and Alex stormed off so quickly that he didn't even have time to interject or question anything. What was going on?

"Forget her" Chelsea said "C'mon, I'll buy you lunch."

Later that night, once he had finally gotten Chelsea to let him go back to his room and sleep (though not before inviting herself to Alex's tournament tomorrow) he finally texted her.

Hey, sorry about today. I don't know what happened back there, but I could tell something was bugging you. And we didn't get a chance to talk either. You're probably asleep right now, but I'll see you at the tournament tomorrow, for sure..... Chelsea might be there, but I keep telling her not to come, I'm sorry if that's a problem for you, talk later.

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

Cole walked out from the locker room, showered and dressed in a Raiders tracksuit, complete with hat, his hands were in his pocket as he spotted Alex and headed over.

"Hey" he said, a little apprehensively "What's up, you wanted to talk about something?"

"Yeah, hey" she replied "I just wanted to clear the air, and say I'm sor-"

"Thereeeeeeeee you areeeeeee" a shrill voice rang out. It belonged to a blonde girl, slightly taller than Alex, who bounded down the hallway and clamped her arms around Cole in a tight bear hug.
"Great game! Especially your hole in one, you really whacked that ball into the basket, and you looked so fuckin' cute in your uniform!"

"Aww thanks" Cole said, cringing a little at how much she got wrong in so few words "I didn't score though, that was Adam"
"Oh" she said "But it looked like your number?"
"I'm 50, he's 55, easy mistake to make though. Oh by the way" he turned back to Alex "Al, this is Chelsea. Chelsea, Alex, she's my best friend around here. So, Alex, you wanted to talk about something?"

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

The words stung, not gonna lie, but Cole just wanted peace between them, so he agreed, and settled in to do some studying.

Coach ordered a light practice on Thursday. They had another game that Friday, and he wanted them fresh for it. During practice, Cole noticed that a gaggle of pretty cute girls had found their way into the stands, and they were staring intently at them all as they chatted amongst themselves. He felt like one of them was watching him in particular.....

The Raiders won the game by a score of 3-1. Cole didn't score any of them, but he had assisted on one with a nice cross-zone pass on the power-play. In the locker room afterwards his phone buzzed with a text from Alex, asking him if they could talk and that she was waiting outside for him. He quickly replied back 'sure' and hurried to get cleaned up.

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

"No, I uh, just....." he sighed and changed tact. She was clearly frustrated at something. Cole sympathized with her and tried to relay that the best way he could.

"Look, it, uh, it's been a weird couple days. I understand that, I'm right there with you, it's been a while since I had some luck with the girls too. It was nice, it was fun, but I just need to ask you... Are we good?"

On Thin Ice (Crossfire & 1Hawkeyes)

Cole didn't remember a thing from the party when he woke up the next morning. His head hurt, and he felt sick. Definitely hungover. The team's group text chain was blowing up. Greg and the alternate captains needed as many of them as possible to get over and help them clean up after the party. Cole didn't want to go, but he eventually dragged himself out of bed and went to do his part. He met up with Sam there and relayed this weird dream to him- that Alex had kissed him.

"Did you hit your head?" Sam asked, genuinely concerned "That happened man."
"Stop messing with me and shut up Sam"
"No Cole, seriously. You two were going at it hard, y'all were dancing, getting close, then the next thing I know you were sucking face. I left for a bit, came back, got another drink and you were still there, it had to be at least two songs later."
"Fuck off" he said again, not totally serious, but sounding a little annoyed as he rubbed his temples, trying to get the headache to subside.
"No, really look" he pulled up his phone and played back a Snapchat story. It was a wide, panning view of the party last night, the clearly drunk videographer was cheering and whooping in the background at the Arkells song. Sam pointed his finger at the screen
"See, look"

Plain as day, you could see them, lips locked and holding each other. Sam closed the video as Cole sat there, stunned in disbelief. He pulled up another video, a different song was playing, but there they were, much more energetic than in the first video. Another video was basically dedicated to them, again a different song, and again, their hands were all over each other as the view slowly zoomed in on them with the horrifying, albeit hilarious, caption of Goddd get a room already!

"Holy shit" Cole finally said "but..... she's into girls"
"I dunno what to tell you buddy" Sam said noncommitally "clearly she was into guys last night."

He spent most of the next couple days in a haze. He was vaguely remembering the kiss, but it still felt dreamlike, almost like it was just something he had dreamed or imagined. He went to class and practice, then finally arrived at a meeting point for a study session with Alex. She was explaing some stuff, but he couldn't focus at all. His eyes kept being drawn to her. Her body, her eyes, her lips. They had kissed... and from the sound of things, she had initiated it. What did it mean? What could it mean?

He snapped back to attention as she suddenly blared out "What?!"

"Huh, what? What's up?"