I jumped out of the way just as Sean tried to veer on the sled. He ended up flipping onto his side and coming to an abrupt stop.
“Nice driving,” I teased him.
“Oh, yeah? You try,” he replied, brushing snow off his jeans. He jogged over to me and promptly tried to stuff a handful of snow down my back.
“Nooooo!” I cried as the snow moved from my jacket collar right under my sweater and onto my skin.
“Benson! What are you doing to that poor girl?” a voice called out.
Sean turned to a group of figures heading our way in the dark. “Hey! What’s up?”
“Hey, guys,” Conor said as the group trudged closer.
Four guys stopped in front of us and I exchanged an awkward smile with a couple of them.
“You going to introduce us or what?” one of them asked.
“This is Kirsten. She’s visiting for a month or so,” Sean explained.
“Hey,” the group said, almost in unison, like they’d done this before and had a routine.
“Hi,” I said with a little wave.
“How’s it going?” one of them asked.
“Cold,” I said. I smiled as I saw that one of the guys was pulling a long wooden toboggan.
At the top of the hill, we all piled onto the toboggan. At Sean’s urging, I got on after he did, and as we shifted to get comfortable, I put my arms around Sean’s waist and draped my legs over his. This was very comfortable, as far as I was concerned. A little on the outer-flirt-edge of things for me, but I could handle it.
“Room for one more,” one of the guys announced.
Then Conor got on behind me.
Suddenly I was in the middle of a Benson Boys sandwich.
This couldn’t be good, I thought. Then again, it wasn’t all bad. Conor kept a respectable distance, just looping his arms around my waist very loosely, and acting like he hated every minute of it. At least I knew him, so it wasn’t like having one of the other guys that close to me.
We got a big push from one of the guys, and six of us went hurtling down the hill. The guy in front steered us straight over the biggest bump—and we capsized, all of us flying off into the snow.
I came down with a thud, right on top of Sean. We were lying face to face.
I smiled at Sean, who was grinning at me. Then I leaned forward and brushed his lips with a kiss.
He didn’t move at first, not that he could. I pulled back for a second and looked at him. He looked a little surprised, like he wasn’t sure about all this. So I leaned down to kiss him again, and he was just starting to kiss me back—
And my cell phone rang.
Cursed!
Chapter 9
I glanced at the caller ID though and saw that it was Jones. What was she doing calling me now?
“Sorry, I kind of, kind of have to take this.” I smiled awkwardly at Sean, not that things could get more awkward when you were sitting on top of a boy and you’d just kissed him when you weren’t sure whether that was cool or not. Although he seemed pretty cool about it, since he’d been getting into it when the phone rang.
“Where are you?” she cried when I answered.
“I’m—out,” I said. Landing on boys and kissing them!
“Well, duh, we know you’re out, silly—Emma and I are at your house looking for you! Gretchen’s house, whatever.”
“You are?” I moved aside to let Sean get up and sort of sat in the snow. He stood up and started brushing snow off of himself, then he smiled at me and started to walk back up the hill. The rest of the guys were already halfway up.
“How can you not be home? Gretchen said something about sledding. Who goes sledding anymore, I said. Get your butt over here!” Jones demanded.
“Right now?” I asked.
“Hello, we just drove two and a half hours to see you!”
I laughed. “Okay, Jones. I’ll be right there.” Although your timing stinks, I thought as I flipped my phone closed.
“So. Jones. Is he your boyfriend at home?” Conor asked, trudging toward me in the snow.
“What?” I asked.
“Did he drive down to see you tonight?” Conor asked.
“What are you doing, eavesdropping?” I asked.
“I lost a glove in the snow. I came back to look around for it,” he said. “I heard you talking—sorry.”
“Well. Not that you need to know, but Jones isn’t a guy. She’s Bridget, my best friend from home. She was at the rink with me that first day we met.”
“We met at the lake? When?” he asked.
“You know when,” I said. “You’re just making me say it so that I get embarrassed all over again.”
He just kept looking at me.
“I knocked you down, playing Crack the Whip. You caught me? Then you gave me back my hat?”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” He grinned.
“See, you remembered all along. Anyway, Jones is a girl. Her name is Bridget, so we call her Jones. It’s a book. And a movie. Bridget Jones’s Diary?”
“Yes!” He pulled a dark-colored glove out of the snow. “Found it.”
I couldn’t stop glaring at him. “Look, you don’t really think I’d be out here with Sean like this if I was seeing someone back home, do you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. How should I know?”
“That is so insulting I can’t even tell you. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’ve never had a boyfriend, okay?” And this conversation is getting in the way of me having one now, or ever! I thought as I walked up the hill toward Sean.
“Well, how should I know?” Conor complained behind me. “I hear Jones, it sounds like a guy. Sue me.”
“Maybe I will,” I muttered as I walked toward Sean. Couldn’t Jones and Emma wait another half hour until I got home? And couldn’t they give me a little advance warning that they were coming? I get one fun sledding night, and they have to show up now?
Sean was pulling the toboggan back to the top of the hill, and I walked up beside him. He kicked a clod of snow at me, and I kicked some back.
“A friend from home just called and I have to get going—she’s at the house waiting for me,” I told him.
“Oh, really? That’s too bad,” Sean said. He didn’t suggest leaving with me, and I guess I couldn’t really blame him.
“You can stay,” I said as I glanced at the group of his friends watching us together. “It’s no problem.”
“You sure?” Sean asked.
I nodded. And suddenly I couldn’t wait to get out of there. The way those guys were all looking at me, like they were judging me. Had everyone seen me kiss Sean? And what did they think about it, if they had?
“Yeah—I’ll be fine. See you guys!” I gave a little wave and then wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck as I turned to walk home.
When I walked off, I heard screaming and I glanced over my shoulder to see them hurtling down the hill on the toboggan, laughing and shouting. I watched them take another huge bump and go flying into the air.
A few minutes later, I thought I sensed someone following me. It was making me really nervous. I looked back and saw a figure in the shadows. “What are you doing?”
“I just want to make sure you’re safe,” Conor replied, walking about ten paces behind me.
“Of course I’m safe,” I said. “I’d feel a lot safer if someone weren’t following me and scaring me to death.”
“Sorry. But you’re going the wrong way.”