"I am a twenty-one year old guy,” Shawn says, huffing into the scarf that's covering his mouth, “and I’m about to out-sled this entire hill of fourth graders.”
His gaze shifts to the side as Lauren approaches him. “Not without me, you’re not.”
If Shawn was going to feel self-conscious about spending his morning sledding with eight-year-olds, the look of intense focus on his friend’s face would have quieted him instantly.
“Come on,” she says, “it goes faster with two.”
* * * * * *
It does go faster.
Lauren isn’t allowed to steer because the last time she did, she knocked over a small child and then rammed the sled into a tree. Instead, she sits behind Shawn, tucking her hands into his pockets and stretching out her legs. Then, after a quick check over his shoulder, Shawn pushes them off over the top of the hill and they fly.
It’s then when Lauren realizes that this isn’t normal.
Among other things, of course, like Shawn following her to New York or the fact that her name in his phone is ‘Babe’. But yet, it’s this moment, clinging to Shawn as they race down a slope with the shouts of children all around them and the wind whipping into her so hard her eyes water, that she realizes something is off.
More accurately, she realizes that what they have is, essentially, a romantic relationship. Well, without the romance, that is. And it’s not even that part that throws her for a loop; it’s the fact that the lack of romance bothers her.
All of a sudden, Shawn sticks a leg out like he’s trying to steer them. Somehow it backfires and before Lauren can even try to stop them, they’ve flipped over and she’s on her back in five inches of snow with Shawn lying half on top of her, too breathless even to laugh. She blinks the snow out of her eyes and reaches up to brush some off of Shawn's hat.
* * * * * *
The first time he met Lauren when they were seventeen years old, Shawn was immediately attracted to her.
It wasn't a surprise. Lauren is and always has been quintessentially his type: ladylike, sweet, freckly, smart, and quick as hell with her humor. But when they had just met and he was still kind of hoping he could coerce Lauren into a make-out session or something, it would never have occurred to him that they’d be friends five years later.
Because at that time, Lauren had been with another guy, so Shawn’s advances had failed miserably. By the time Lauren and her then-boyfriend broke up, two painfully long years later, they were already best friends and Shawn had already long dismissed the idea of them ever being anything else. He doesn’t really do relationships anyway, and Lauren’s too good of a friend to him for him to fuck it up for something as stupid as sex. That’s if Lauren would even be interested, which Shawn doubts.
But it’s things like this that remind him of his attraction to Lauren: the snow and the red tint of her cheeks and the way her laugh dies a little when she reaches out to brush away the snow like she’s losing concentration on anything else but making sure every flake is taken care of.
“Next time, either stick both feet out or don’t bother,” she says and Shawn laughs, vowing to himself that he’s going to flip them as many times as he can before Lauren gives up on the sled.
* * * * * *
It doesn’t take too long before Lauren realizes that Shawn is flipping them on purpose. By then, she’s frostbitten and they’ve scared off most of the kids that had been sharing their hill. Apparently something about two grown adults consistently tumbling into the snow onto and around each other freaked them out, not that she can blame them. With her little epiphany, it’s gotten harder and harder to act like everything is normal.
Mostly she’s trying to figure out how long it’s been going on and how long she’s been quietly pretending she doesn’t want more. But she sucks it up and follows Shawn to his house, knowing the promise of coffee is a second to the promise of a few more hours in Shawn’s company.
* * * * * *
Lauren is doing that thing she does when she tries to leave but also tries to show that she wants to be asked to say; that thing that Shawn thinks is ridiculous considering how long they’ve been friends, but still thinks is kind of funny. He likes playing this game. He likes playing at convincing Lauren to stay with him. Whether it’s some weird friendly seduction or not, he tends not to over think it.
“I have to get going if I’m going to drive back without dying on the ice,” Lauren says, tugging on her coat. Shawn grabs it and pulls Lauren back towards him, singing at the top of his lungs, “but baby, it’s cold outside.”
Lauren laughs but her next excuse is a little weaker. “Shawn, it’s getting late. You can’t hold me hostage.”
“Try me.”
“Is that a challenge?”
* * * * * *
Shawn’s smirking at her again and she swears that happens more than it needs to. Lauren carefully pries Shawn’s hands from her coat and concedes with a sigh. “Fine, I’ll stay. But only because I don’t want to drive this late.”
That’s another twelve hours in limbo, uncertain of her feelings. But she can manage it. She’s sure of it.
Well, she’s sure of it until she’s in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of Shawn’s sweatpants and they’re curled up watching Elf. The couch is long enough that Lauren can lay out on her side and rest her head in Shawn's lap, which she does, wriggling until she’s comfortable.
It’s not the situation that’s shocking: it’s the normalcy of it. It’s the completely obvious fact that the only difference between them and a couple is that Shawn is not about to lean down and kiss her.
But it occurs to her. And that’s never happened before.
* * * * * *
Lauren falls asleep ensconced in the warmth of an electric blanket and his hand in her hair. When he wakes up, they’re both still on the couch. The house is freezing and Shawn doesn’t think twice before he prods Lauren awake.
They don’t even have to speak. They’ve done this plenty of times, though it’s been a while since they both passed out on the couch together. A day of sledding is apparently more exhausting than he’d imagined it would be.
Lauren follows behind him on bare feet and they go to their designated sides of the bed: Lauren to the right, Shawn to the left. Shawn digs into his sock drawer and tosses the first folded pair to Lauren, who has perpetually cold hands and feet, and they collapse into silence and sleep and warmth again like they never woke up in the first place.
* * * * * *
Lauren doesn’t dream. She wakes up pressed against Shawn’s back with the blanket halfway off the bed and knows instinctively that the only reason they’re so close together is because that would have been the only way, unconsciously, for her to get any warmth. It’s happened before, plenty of times.
It's not out of character for her to leave. But before she does, she makes herself some coffee and steals a travel mug. She also makes the quickest omelet of her life because Shawn is incapable and hides it in the microwave before she scribbles down a note:
"Had to get home. I'll be back with your travel mug (and interest) tomorrow. Check the microwave if you even know where it is. ;)”
She pauses, debating on the last line that they both throw around so often before she adds it, cheeks burning:
“Love you.”
YOU ARE READING
All My Sins (For You To Take)
Teen Fiction"The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that." –Woody Allen
