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They stop on either side of his truck, both threatening to run the opposite way. Ash goes left and Shelby darts right. Not wanting to be left out, I jump out of my chair and steal the helmet. It smells like sweat, but I put it on my head anyway. Shelby grabs my hand and pulls me behind her. Ash is now outnumbered in the game of keep away, but he’s still smiling so we haven’t taken the joke too far. I move a few paces behind his truck and duck down behind the tire to hide.
Shelby yells, “Hana, run!” I jump up and the helmet slides sideways, leaving me blind. His helmet is huge.
I take one step and crash into Ash’s unbelievably hard chest. He removes the helmet from my head with a gentle movement. I wince, expecting that horrible eye pain again, but it never
comes. Ash brushes his fingers across my bruised eye.
“Are you okay?” His eyes bore into mine. How is it possible for him to have gorgeous, manly features, and share the same face with Shelby, who is just as feminine as I am?
I’m about to tell him that I’m fine, and the only pain I felt was the popping of my fingers when they hit the rock he kept underneath his jersey. But before I can get the words out, some other words came from much more important mouth.
“Hana,” Ryan says, “Can I borrow you for a minute?”
He doesn’t speak until we’re several cars away. “What are you doing messing with trash like them?”
“What?” How can he say that about the nicest family in Mixon? His cell phone rings. He takes it out of the waistband of his riding pants, looks at the screen and ignores the call.
“You heard me. You’re too pretty to be seen around him, and I won’t have it.”
His wink is slow, but the half-smile he flashes lasts only a second. In that second I want to reach up and kiss him, but this is no fairytale and in the real world, girls just don’t do that. Plus, I’m pretty sure he just called my new friends trash. But I may be mistaken because everything around me is all fuzzy. I’d be an idiot to make such a bold move only to be rejected.
Then he goes and asks something that makes me regret not kissing him.
“Can I have your number?”
Chapter 6
It’s been four days, six hours, and thirty-two minutes, (not that I’m counting) since Ryan programmed my number into his cell phone. Lying face up on my bed, I try to make shapes out of the blobs of plaster in the ceiling. Every single blob reminds me of Ryan, or his shiny black truck, or the way his hair was drenched in sweat when he removed his helmet.
I check my phone for messages every two minutes. A normal person would know there is no reason to check if you don’t hear it ring when it’s right next to you in a quiet room. But I am not normal today. Fatigue, mixed with the sunburn on my shoulders is enough to alter my mentality.
Even worse than the ache in my feet is the one deep in my chest. A thick, dull pain arrived the first day Ryan didn’t call me and has lasted all week. Every hour I don’t hear from him makes the time creep even slower than the hour before. I am stuck in a room with dreary ceiling blobs, while time drips like the clock on a Dali painting. This teen angst is going to swallow me whole.
Why hasn’t he called? I smash my hand to my forehead. Thank God I don’t have his number or I would have succumbed to the craziness and called him first. And as every self-respecting girl knows, boys always call first, and I can’t break that rule. Sure, I’m becoming an over-dramatic diva, but I’m perfectly fine with that.
I roll over and gaze at the wall for a change of scenery. The wall’s plaster blobs aren’t unlike the ones on the ceiling, but these are painted tan and thus slightly more pleasing to the eye. Too bad this small town has nothing to do if you aren’t a dirt bike racer. If only Felicia were here to cheer me up and tell me boys were a pathetic waste of time, not that she believes that because she loves boys more than I do. But she’d say it anyway just to lift me from my wallowing.
Molly may be a good listener, but we aren’t at the stage where I can tell her about my boy troubles. The only friend I’ve made so far is Shelby, but I didn’t have a way to contact her.
Teig plays Xbox in the next room. Every five seconds, a gunshot sound echoes through the wall followed by a cheer. Just as I decide to crawl out of bed and hang out with my little brother, his TV goes quiet and his door swings open. He bounds down the stairs. I roll out of bed with all the enthusiasm of a ninety-year-old lady, grab my cell phone – just in case – and follow him.
The answer to my loneliness is right in our garage. My dad and Ash hang around Teig’s dirt bike talking about carburetors and suspension. Teig hands Ash a wrench from his toolbox.
Ash wears jeans stained with black smudges and a blue and black baseball shirt. His hair is tied in a fat ponytail with a rubber band. He scrunches his eyes and bites the corner of his lip as he works. It’s a look I’ve seen before, but not on Ash. Though he has pounds of muscle and masculine features Shelby lacks, their expressions and mannerisms are almost identical.
Dad once told me the Carters owned a small engine repair shop and they often worked on Teig’s bike, so I guess it makes sense for him to be here. Had I associated that with Shelby earlier, I could have saved myself seventy-two hours of miserable boredom.
Three heads turn around, see that it’s only me, and then focus back on the bike. I put my hands and my phone in my back pockets and listen to the conversation for a whole minute before zoning out. Dirt bike-talk is boring, and sitting around the house is boring. Shelby is not boring and hopefully Ash will be able to help me – if they could just stop talking about guy stuff long enough for me to ask.
That glorious moment of silence finally comes when Dad goes back in the house. Teig still wants to help Ash work on his bike, but there isn’t much for him to do, so he finds a rag and polishes the aluminum bike frame. Ash’s chair has wheels and he rolls around the bike, closer to me.
“Your eye looks better.”
“Thanks,” I say, not wanting to be reminded of that stupid accident.
“How do you like your new job?”
“Do we have to talk about that on my day off?”
