"How was morning skate?" Francesca asks as she gets into my car. Most Mondays I am just getting out of practice with Dunk and trying to race home to shower, change, and grab my stuff before my 10am class, so today is a welcome change.

"Chaotic. Going to and leaving practice was like watching a bunch of chickens-"

"Can we not say chickens? Still having war flashbacks of the feathers."

"Sorry. It was like watching a bunch of baby bunnies trying to escape a hungry coyote."

"Oh my god you sicko, why is that the first comparison you thought of?"

Francesca is looking at me horrified as I pull out of her parking garage and drive toward the diner. Our to do list today consists mainly of three things: kill Pman, take out Heather, and stay alive. Easy enough.

"It's true. Everyone was running around all jumpy and hitting people with hockey sticks."

"I would judge but Parker locked himself in his room for so long, scared Luna or I had him, he nearly pissed his pants. We had to send him a snapchat with our sticks for him to come out and go to the bathroom."

"Parker is an interesting guy. Speaking of your roommates, have you heard from Maya? How is she holding up?" When Francesca texted me the other day telling me about Maya and Pman I gave him an opportunity to explain to the team what went down between them. After I realized he is nothing more than a royal asshole my blood was basically boiling, along with the rest of the bus. We have all gotten really close to the figure skaters but if it was us or Maya they'd choose her any day. That includes Francesca and the last thing I ever want is to go back to only seeing her when we have our shared ice time. I am already worried she will come around less because of this mess. That is why killing Pman is the first thing on today's agenda.

"She is still upset but Maya is strong and she will be ok."

"Good, I hope she still hangs out with us. Her and her brownies."

"Carson Thomas Ryder, you can't use a woman for her delicious brownies!"

"Did you just make up a middle name for me?" I laugh.

"Yeah what do you think? I was thinking Thomas or maybe Archibald."

"Please anything but that, like literally anything." I pause thinking about what I just said. "Ok maybe not anything, but definitely not that."

"Hm I don't know it kind of has a ring to it." She is sitting in my passenger seat in her big puffy coat, hood up nearly covering her eyes, with an evil smirk on her face. She gets such a sick joy out of teasing me and I would be the butt to a million of her jokes if it meant her being happy like this.

"You better behave butt or I am breaking our alliance."

"Gasp, you wouldn't!"

Instead of answering I turn the car off and get out. I hear the other car door slam behind me and little panicked footsteps chasing after me. "Don't leave me Ry, I don't want to lose on the first day."

I wrap my arm protectively around her shoulders as we both scan our surroundings. "No one is going to get you Beck, I promise."

Francesca molds her body as close to mine as she can. We are so close I am shocked we don't trip over each other but we manage to keep a swift pace into the diner where we grab a booth in the back corner facing the door. We slide in next to each other, neither of us wanting our backs to people.

"I have practice at 1 today and Heather has practice after me."

"I have Pman's snapchat location on. After this, do you want to go find him? I think everyone would be happy if he was the first killed."

"Absolutely," she nods.

I can't tell if she is excited or nervous but her leg is bouncing up and down rapidly. I try to ignore it and focus on my menu but it is distracting. The waiter comes over to take our orders and before Francesca can speak I cut her off. "Can we have the Nutella french toast, two eggs over easy with toast and bacon and a side of hash browns."

"Yup, I will go get that started for y'all."

"What if I wanted something else," Francesca asks me and I can't tell if she is amused or annoyed that I ordered for her. I don't really know why I did it, I guess I just wanted to make sure she ordered what she actually wanted this time.

"Did you?"

"No," she smiles and now I know she is definitely not annoyed. Sometimes I can't tell with her, my knowledge of girls is pretty limited besides Maddie and Maddie and Francesca are extremely different. For as long as I've known her Maddie did just enough to get by, never more, but Francesca goes above and beyond in everything she does. There is something truly special about someone who puts their all into everything no matter how small.

"What's wrong?" I finally ask, putting a hand on her fidgety thigh.

"I'm nervous about this weekend."

"Stressing all week isn't going to make you compete better, Beck."

"I know," she sighs as our food comes.

I spend the rest of our time at the diner trying to keep her mind off this weekend's competition. We talk about the ladies for a while. I ask about her parents even if it is a little painful to hear her talk about what a great family she has. She tells me about her classes and I tell her about mine. We talk for two hours non stop while we stuff our faces with food and coffee.

"Ready to go kill P?" I ask after we fight over the check. I pay the bill and she covers the tip in the end.

"This ones for Maya," she yells as she charges toward my car in the fresh snow. "Where is he, Ry! Let me at him!"

"Relax, you lunatic. I checked his location and it looks like he is at the gym."

"To the gym," she shouts, one hand on her hip and the other pointed forward in some sort of superhero pose.

I do as the girl said and head right for the gym. Francesca grabs her can of silly string and we both swipe into the gym and begin searching for Pman. We are both in workout gear, since I came from practice and she is going to practice, so we fit in pretty good.

"Over there," I whisper pointing her toward the rack of weights. "I will go over and talk to him while you sneak up behind us and take him out, got it Beck?"

"Aye Aye Archibald!"

"Beck," I hiss as she jogs off to hide while I walk over to Pman.

"Sup," I greet him, causing him to set the weights down. Killing him while he is lifting would be dangerous and break the rules but now that he has put them down Francesca is free to take him out.

"Yo, lifting today?"

"I'm bored so I figured why not." I see Francesca literally army crawling on the floor behind Pman and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Why is she so strange? Little fucking freak.

"Nice, Ni-"

Before he can finish Francesca is unloading her entire can of silly string all over him. "You're dead, you're dead," she chants, dancing around him happily.

Pman is looking at me clearly pissed off but I just laugh. Yeah asshole, I set you up, and now I am counting down the days until you graduate in May and move out. "Well that was a good lift, make sure you text the group chat you're dead," I yell as I grab the popsicles stick from his pocket and hook an arm around Francesca, dragging her hysterical self out of the gym.

"He is dead," she beams at me as we get back into the car to head to the arena for her solo practice with her coaches.

"Good job Beck."

She skips through the arena to her coaches clearly on cloud 9 from her successful kill. I walk a little bit behind her. "Hey, this is Carson. Ry this is Scott and Lori."

"Nice to meet you," I wave to her two coaches.

"Nice song choice," Lori compliments, referring to the competition song I picked for Francesca over a month ago.

"You skate?" Scott asks. I guess he doesn't follow hockey. Or pay attention to his surroundings because my face is plastered on posters all over the arena.

"He is captain of the hockey team," Francesca answers for me while she puts her skates on. I don't miss the proud look on her face as she tells her coaches and it makes my heart swell.

"Oh," they both say in unison. Guess they didn't realize their team had gotten close to the hockey team. Coach knows but then again he sees them at our games and after the games but her coaches have never seen us all together. I mean they know about the prank war, they've seen our two teams fighting, but I guess they didn't realize we'd all become friends too.

Francesca hops on the ice, bringing her coaches' attention back to her. I make myself comfortable in the stands and watch her. I haven't seen her do this routine full out yet, since we always share the ice. As she skates I listen to her coaches so I can learn more about figure skating.

Her first run thought, in my opinion, is flawless but her coaches have other opinions. I listen to their critiques to try to figure out what they mean. I googled about half of it but on the third run through I start picking up on things and I am actually excited when I can name almost every trick she throws in her routine. I never told Francesca this but last month during the Winter Olympics I watched all the women's figure skating events hoping she'd bring them up. She never did bring it up but I keep my new knowledge ready to impress her at a moment's notice.

"What do you think Ryder? Doing your song justice?"

"Your triple lutz is cleaner than when I first met you."

Her jaw drops. "My triple? You know what that is?"

"Yeah?" I tell her, faltering in my confidence a little.

"This is the first time I am ever competing it, I am nervous."

"Don't be, it's clean." Francesca looks like she's about to climb over the plexiglass and hug me but she opts for another run through instead. Her final run through is her most confident and cleanest run yet. She finally lets go all her nerves and second guessing and lets herself just skate. Francesca is beautiful all the time, I mean there is a reason my entire team is constantly begging for her attention, but on the ice she is something completely different. She manages to make it all look so easy and delicate while throwing her body through the air and landing so softly. Her legs look so small and dainty yet every time she jumps you can see the power they possess. Only a complete fool would question the pure athleticism she has coursing through her body.

When her practice is over we wait for Heather and I take her out just like Francesca took out Pman, only slightly less braggy. Our new targets are Dunk for me and Paulie, a male skater on her team, for her. We decide that since both are at hockey house we are better off waiting to strike. Making sure Francesca avoids everyone is the easiest way for me to protect her. I am still trying to hunt down who has her but so far no one will fess up.

"It's snowing," she notes as we exit the arena. "I don't like the snow."

"You go to school in Michigan, how do you not like the snow Beck?"

"They were giving me money! Never turn down free money."

When we get back to my car I look at her outfit, my outfit, and the stuff laying on my back seat. "Do you have snow pants at home?"

"Yes of course. We go to school in Michigan, I am prepared."

"Good." Without explaining anything to her I drive to my house, leave her locked in the car while I run inside and grab things, drive to her house, run into her place and grab a bunch of things then drive to my hidden gem.

"It's a hill," she points out the obvious when we arrive and I park the car.

"Ever been sledding?"

"Yeah, when I was like 5."

"That was forever ago, get dressed we are going," I inform her, throwing her snow pants, boots, and other stuff at her.

I grab the two blow up sleds from my back seat and blow them up. Bray and I come sledding at weird times just to blow off some steam and feel like kids again. We spent most of our time as kids on the ice and didn't get to go sledding with our friends so now we sled with each other to make up for it. We are two Michigan boys who love the snow and cold so for us this is like paradise. For the little marshmallow waddling to me, maybe not, but I am going to make her like the Michigan snow just a little bit today.

"This is crazy, we are 20 not 10."

"There is no age limit on fun, Beck." I grab my sled and begin walking up the hill. I can hear the swish of her pants as she treks behind me less enthused. As soon as we are at the top she looks like she wants to punch me. Her nose is already red from the cold and there is not an ounce of joy in her eyes. "One run, you hate it, we leave."

"One," she repeats. I grab her sled and hold it while she climbs on. It is one of those big round inner-tube type ones and right before I push it down the hill I spin it in circles. As she starts going down I throw mine in front of me, take a running start, and slide down right behind her. We both crash land in a soft pile of snow at the bottom and I can hear her laughing before I can see her.

"Again," she demands the second she gets to her feet. She takes off running up the hill with her sled without me and I jump up and follow her.

For three straight hours we run up the hill and sled back down. We built a ramp at one point and tried to do tricks off of it. Francesca tried to run me over, twice. I ran her over, once, by accident. A few times I pulled her onto my lap and she rode down the hill with me. By the end we are both too exhausted to climb up the hill anymore and climb into my car soaked and cold from the snow.

"I like the snow, a little. I still don't like to walk to class in it but anytime you need a sledding buddy, you have my number."

"Looks like you are a little bit of a Michigan girl after all, Beck."

Merry Christmas Eve to all those who celebrate! I have a little special Christmas surprise tomorrow my gift to all my amazing hopeless romantic, head in the clouds, Taylor Swift loving readers as a thank you for all the support, so make sure you keep an eye on my IG and Twitter tomorrow! Stay safe everyone and see you Monday for another chapter!