Sage's Conquest Pt. 2

“Ice?” It had been six months since I’d seen him last…

At 6”5’ to my 5”10’, Ice’s powerful, towering body had captivated me the summer he moved to Lakewood. Back then, I was seventeen. The first sight of him had been at Justin Rollin’s pool party in March (on an unusual scorching day) looking like he had walked right off the pages of Cosmo. It wasn’t just that he looked gorgeous with his sienna toned, sculpted chest. Ice had a nonchalance about him around us females with our skimpily clad bikinis that automatically set him apart from the rest of his drooling peers. He dived into the deep end of the kidney-shaped in-ground swimming pool with ease and began swimming its width. Watching him was intoxicating. Thankfully, my ogling eyes stayed hidden by sunglasses. I tore my eyes away long enough to see Isabel staring longingly at Ice. Because we had seen Ice at the same time, this meant we had to revert to our courtesy rules of friendship and dating. Whoever could get his number first called dibs.

By the way he was refusing to look at any of the guests, I knew automatically that he was not the type of guy who appreciated advancements. He took his time. He set the rules. The others continued to watch him. I lifted myself from the pool, toweled myself dry and reapplied my sun block. Iz eyed me suspiciously. I shot her a mischievous grin and laid on a beach chair beside Quentin. Q and I chatted idly while I waited for the first to make her move. I wasn’t disappointed.

Rachelle walked over to where Ice sat on the pool’s edge secluded with her sun block. She attempted to reach her back with some of the lotion and turned presumably to ask Ice to put some on her back for her. The look on her face when he got up and walked inside abruptly was comical. I took this opportunity to corner Justin without being obvious. He was retrieving a beer from the cooler when I stood beside him.
“Who is he?”
“Who?”
“Come on.”
“Ice, my cousin. Just moved here from New Hampshire…” I waited for more information. It became apparent that Justin wouldn‘t spill unless I forced it, but I decided against it. Justin was cool people, but I didn’t want him running to Ice acting like I had gushed and gushed about his cousin.
“Oh. You have water in there?”

The rest of that day went on as predicted. Ice had opted to stay inside for the rest of the party. Everyone else drifted home or out to eat. Three weeks passed with Isabel and me vying for Ice’s attention. As much as I was passive in this quest, she was aggressive. She tried the damsel in distress act and ended up dislocating her shoulder. I hung out with Justin, but not more than usual, and offered to help Ice pick his course schedule for senior year seeing that I knew the teachers and their attitudes. She tried to play hard to get, causing him to ask me whom she had started dating. I didn’t comment. Apparently, my once-a-week visits weren’t enough, because after the third visit Ice implied that I should stop by the next day or a few days after that. A month since the pool party, he invited Iz and me to the movies to see Phat Girlz which had been released the week before. It turns out he was a Mo’Nique fan.

Neither of us had gotten his number yet. On Friday, the three of us went to Benny’s for lunch. Isabel has a salad. I ordered fries, and Ice ate a sub. At the theatre, Ice sat next to the wall and, because I had been right behind him, I sat beside him. Iz shot me a scathing glance. I shrugged my shoulders at her and silenced my cell phone. I smiled up at Ice as I did so. We all answered the trivia questions and watched previews, promising to see a few of them together when they came out. After, we all laughed of misunderstandings and sung “African Queen.” Our trio sat at one of the tables in the food court, me sitting across from Ice. We giggled and snickered, sharing family stories until I realized Ice hadn’t shared a single one. I brought this observation up, eying him with interest.

“I don’t have any fun family stories.” With that, the subject closed, and an unreasonable amount of tension entered the air at rapid speed. No one knew what to say or do after that. Ice secured his indecipherable face that wore down gradually, removing the shadows in his eyes, throughout the weeks I’d known him. His hands lay on the table folded into each other. I longed to reach out, show him some sort of comfort, but I figured that would be too personal. Overall, there wasn’t much Isabel or I knew about him other than the obvious. I looked up from his hands into his eyes to find him watching me. The fear of any negative reaction diminished. Hand held open for his, I smiled slightly while he cautiously placed his smooth, larger hands in dainty, smaller ones. I continued to watch him watching me as he slowly leaned over the small, circular table and placed his lips on mine. It was a soft kiss without tongue but full of prospects.

Not letting go of my hand, Ice rose from the table and began walking me out of the theatre. Isabel followed, feeling much like the unnecessary training wheels of a 18 year old’s bicycle. It would have been night had it been winter, but the sun shone brightly above in the hot, spring air. We walked to my house, which was closest to the theatre. Iz was spending the night, and Ice was a gentleman. We neared the doorstep, and I broke the silent tranquility that our walk had possessed.
“Do you want to come inside?”
“Nah, I can’t. I’m going back to New Hampshire tonight.” I missed a step. He steadied me as we reached the gate of my home. Isabel left us outside.
“For how long?”
“Senior year. I want to graduate at home.”
“I can understand that, but why is this the first anyone’s hearing of it?” I couldn’t stop sounding indignant.
“It was never a sure thing.”
“Okay,” I said, not wanting to push this any further. We had made no commitments, no promises, and no declarations of our emotions. It had just been a peck, as sweet as it had been, and it had been foolish to think of it as anything more. “Good luck.” I opened the short gate, shutting it behind me and proceeded to walk to my front door. I had the key in the lock by the time he spoke.
“Does that mean you don’t want to stay in touch?” I turned to see him with that blank expression.
“No. What’s your number?”
And he smiled. He smiled the brightest smile I saw that season.