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“Maybe not to you, but it’s happened with a few other girls, too. Everyone wants my brother,” she says, dropping her chin in her hands. “You can’t trust the spectator girls.”
“Spectator girls?”
Shelby holds up a finger to shush me while she listens to the announcement about the next moto. “The girls who race are trustworthy, but the ones who just watch the races typically aren’t,” she says, stealing a quick glance at Alyson. “Except for me,” she amends, flashing a smile. “You can trust me.”
I nod, wondering if college life would be like TV reality shows, where everyone has a knife waiting to stab you in the back. Felicia is the oldest friend I’d ever had, not counting shallow friendships I gathered at each school I went to as a kid. She’s never betrayed me, but then again, I’ve never had a brother.
Many checkered flags later, moto number sixteen lines up at the starting gate. The bleachers have no empty seats. According to everyone, the Pro class is the best race to watch. Shelby focuses on Ash with her fingernails between her teeth. She says she hopes he gets the holeshot, whatever that means.
All the racers are dressed head-to-toe in protective garb, so it’s impossible to distinguish between the helmeted heads revving their bike engines and waiting for the gate to drop. Luckily, I remember Ryan’s bike number, the infamous number ninety-six, so I find his red bike in the crowd. The gate drops and he soars past the competition, quickly grabbing the lead.
“Ugh,” Shelby groans, slamming her fists onto her knees. I don’t want to disappoint her by cheering for Ryan, so I keep quiet. When the checkered flag flies across the finish line, Ryan is first, but her brother is a close second.
“Once again folks, Raging Ryan for the win, and Ash ‘The Flash’ Carter in second place,” the announcer says. It sounds like Marty. “And in third place is Eric Morgan. Those are our cash winners in the two-fifty Pro class! Up next, the eighty Super-Mini, women’s class and then we’ll have a twenty-minute intermission.”
“I better go console him,” Shelby says before I have the chance to ask if everyone has nicknames like “Raging” and “Flash.” We make our way down the bleachers.
“My parents grill every Sunday race,” she says, stepping around a toddler in a dirt bike shirt. “You should come to our pit during intermission and eat lunch with us. I know they’ll want to meet you.”
Mmm, food. “That sounds great.”
I keep an eye out for Ryan while walking to the tower and I even take the long way through the pits hoping to see him. He isn’t at his truck but his bike is there, so he must be basking in his victory somewhere else.
After meandering through the pits a second time, I give up and actually do walk to the tower. And because I have the worst luck ever, there he is standing at the bottom of it talking to other racers and drinking an energy drink while two girls smile at his every word.
I call on all the confidence buried inside me and walk right through his group of friends, “accidentally” brushing my shoulder across his chest. I turn back to him, as if it was an afterthought. “Nice race.” All of their eyes are on me but the only pair I care about are the blue ones staring straight into mine, one eyebrow cocked in surprise.
Inside the tower, I rest on the futon and play cards with Teig to pass the time until intermission. He’s in an exceptionally good mood, despite losing Go Fish four times in a row. This kid must always be on, just like his mother. I like that.
The roar of engines die out, signaling intermission. Members of the staff water the track with huge water hoses and go over it with a tractor that ruffles the dirt and removes the ruts formed from this morning’s racing. Through scientific ways beyond my understanding, the track doesn’t get muddy when they douse it with water. Maybe the sweltering summer sun has something to do with it.
My new family goes back home to eat lunch, but I excuse myself saying I have a lunch invite from a new friend.
“This new friend isn’t a cute boy, is it?” Molly asks as we walk from the tower to the parking lot.
“I wish,” I say, rolling my eyes and meaning it more than she could ever know.
Shelby hadn’t told me where they were parked but I vaguely remember her driving a beat up red car. I search for it amid the trucks and motor homes that dominate the pits. Before I find her car, I find the dreadlocks. Ash sits on a step stool doing something to the wheel of his dirt bike. Shelby’s car is behind his truck.
“Do you know where Shelby is?” I ask the back of his head. He turns around. His eyes get wide when he sees me, and it isn’t a good sort of wide. Is my black eye still that bad?
“Yeah, she went to find you,” he says, hands still on the tire, his body now facing me. “You can sit down if you want.” He motions to some canvas chairs customized with Carter 336 on the back. Two of them are occupied with his parents. I take a seat and introduce myself to Mr. and Mrs. Carter. They tell me to call them Rick and Barb.
Barb is older than my mom and considerably more mature. She has pale skin and brown graying hair. Rick is olive-skinned, like Ash, and has the same eyes and smile that Ash and Shelby share.
They tell me about their younger son named Shawn, but I don’t get to meet him. Barb says Shawn is friends with every kid here, including Teig, which is why he never came back to their pit unless it was time to race. Ash calls him a social butterfly.
The entire family is like Shelby: polite and happy. They are the picture-perfect example of the all-American family. Maybe this is what Dad meant when he talked about the motocross family.
When Shelby finally appears, she swears she searched all over the park for me. “Except for the one place that’s the most obvious,” Ash says, tossing a wrench in his tool box.
Shelby’s dad makes the best brisket I’ve ever tasted, and her mom somehow manages to have an endless supply of sweet tea in the ice chest. I like this job more every day.
All thoughts of Ryan disappear until Shelby and I get on the topic of sexy celebrities. We debate if muscular is sexier than tall and lean. Shelby likes this short squatty guy from some MTV reality show because he’s really muscular. I argue that Ryan Reynolds is tall and muscular, thus the perfect embodiment of male perfection. The name Ryan makes me think of my Ryan. And that’s all it takes to make me bored with the Carter family. Slouching back in my chair, I daydream about him for the rest of intermission.
“Shell, where’s my helmet?” Ash asks, leaning into his truck. His lower half is dressed in racing gear. The rest of his clothes hang over his arm as he searches for something in the front seat.
“On my head.” Shelby hovers over me, wearing a helmet that wobbles on her small head. “I’m an alien!” She wiggles her fingers in my face and runs around the truck. Ash chases her. “You’ll never catch me,” she sings.
