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The analyzing turns to fantasizing until Ash’s dusty truck pulls up, crushing my daydream of Ryan and me making out. He doesn’t have to leave his truck since it isn’t lifted ridiculously high off the ground. His window lowers and I rest my forehead on the top of his door while he signs the clipboard.
We don’t speak as he prints his name illegibly, signs it even more sloppily and writes the date. He pulls the stick shift into neutral
. He watches me a few seconds before saying, “Anything wrong?”
We’re the same level as I stand outside his truck with my head still pressed to the dirty surface of the door. I’m scared to move it now, figuring I’ll have a dirty smudge across my forehead.
“Nah.” I take the clipboard and decide to be generous to him as well. “You don’t have to pay today. It’s on the house.”
“No, I can’t do that.” He pulls the clipboard away from me and slides ten dollars under the clasp. He pushes a couple dreads behind his ear and returns the clipboard. “Thanks for stealing my sister last night. It was really horrible not having her around.”
“Anytime.” I snicker and he shakes his head at me, smiling as he drives away. I wipe my forehead and press the talk button on my walkie-talkie.
“Molly, tell Shelby her brother is a dork. Over.”
Shelby spends most of the day with Ash, watching him practice and cleaning his goggles when he comes back to the pits to rest. Thursdays are uneventful; nothing happens besides signing in riders and the occasional phone call. Molly and Dorothy play cards in the tower, while my dad stands on the sidelines of the track teaching Teig valuable riding skills. Since everyone is busy, no one will notice if I turn off my walkie-talkie and abandon my job to head to Ryan’s truck.
I climb to the top floor of the tower, holding onto the railing for balance as my knees tend to wobble when I’m three floors off the ground. The view of the track is amazing from this high. I can see the night track, the day track and even the kid track, all spread out over twenty acres. I find Ryan’s bright yellow helmet and follow it around the track. He zips around turns and flies over jumps twice the length of semi-trucks.
Ash is his only competition in the state, yet I they never ride together. When Ryan is practicing on the track, Ash will ride on the other track or stay at his truck. Without fail, Ash always pulls on his gloves and cranks his dirt bike within a minute of Ryan exiting the track. Their hatred for each other is as thick as the padding in their helmets. I can almost feel it, and I’m a hundred feet away, viewing them from the top of the tower.
As soon as Ryan pulls off the track, I hustle down the stairs as fast as my fear of heights will let me. Ash rides past me on his way to the track and waves. I wave back hoping Ryan is out of eyesight. A dark feeling forms in my chest. I have a mini-secret that I’m keeping from Ash and Ryan. Ryan doesn’t want me to be friends with Ash, but Shelby is my friend and I truly like her. Shelby and Ash are a package deal, regardless of what Ryan wants. Besides, it’s not that big of a secret, and I’m sure he will understand when I get around to telling him (or not telling him).
If I only knew why they despised each other so much, there may be a way to resolve the fight, and we can all be friends. I mull over the things two seventeen-year-old guys would fight about. All I come up with are girls and maybe something motocross related. They may be rivals on the track, but I’d heard enough of Dad’s “Motocross is a big family” talks to know that most rivals were enemies on the track and friends off of it.
Just because they’re the two fastest two-fifty Pro riders in Texas, doesn’t mean they have a reason to hate each other. I promise myself I’ll find out the big secret that Shelby doesn’t know. I’ll find it and I’ll fix it. But when I see Ryan, all thoughts of anything remotely comprehensible drift out of my mind like a message in a bottle, tossed out to sea.
He’s on the tailgate of his truck, slouched over with his elbows on his knees, staring at the ground and breathing heavily. A half-empty bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade teeters in his hand. Sweat rolls off his hair in all directions – down his ear, through his bangs, and probably down the back of his neck though I can’t see that far. It’s amazing how something as gross as sweat can be so gorgeous sparkling in the sunlight on a sculpted, beautiful, and extremely talented body.
I have to stop thinking in metaphors, or my heart might share the fate of an over-inflated water balloon. There I go again. I slow my steps so as not to seem eager, and approach him with as much apathy as I can gather in my weakened state of mind. Apathy is, after all, one of my more prominent talents.
“Hey there,” I say, hands in my front pockets. Ryan looks up and sweat rolls down his temples like water. For something with no body fat, how was that much sweat coming out of his head?
“Hey.” He shuffles to the left and taps his hand on the spot next to him. The tailgate is as high as my neck so there is no way I can climb up there. He sees my hesitation and grins.
“Put your foot on the tire and grab my hand and I’ll pull you up.”
I do as he says, and when my foot is on the tire I grab onto the side of the truck and reach for his hand. In one swift motion he pulls me onto the tailgate like how Wesley saved Buttercup from harm in the Fire Swamp. There may not be any Rodents of Unusual Size under Ryan’s truck, but it’s fun to daydream.
My legs swing freely below me. I need to say something clever that will show off my intellect and charm, or at least make it seem like I have some. Ryan gulps the rest of his Gatorade and tosses the bottle on the ground.
“So what kind of gas mileage do you get with this thing?” I ask.
He laughs. All of my careful conversation planning, and he laughs.
“If you really want to know, I get about ten miles to the gallon with these tires.”
He leaps off the tailgate, grabs the empty bottle and tosses it in a blue plastic trashcan. Then he comes back to his truck and unzips a large duffle bag full of clothing and extra riding gear.
“Sometimes it’ll get up to twelve.” He chooses a white t-shirt from the bag.
“That must get really expensive.”
“I can afford it.” He grins, removing his jersey in a quick motion. My heart stops and a chill runs through my body. I curse myself for wasting sixteen years of life never noticing how gorgeous a man’s chest can be. How could I have been missing out on this? But then again, I’ve never seen one this close. With the t-shirt still in his hand, he stands in front of me on the ground, letting his eyes meet mine. I’m so high in the air, I can probably see over the top of his head if I dared to look away from his shirtless torso, but that isn’t a dare I want to make.
“Girls ask a lot of questions about my truck but that my dear, is never one of them.”
“Well, maybe I’m just not that kind of girl.” Girls ask him about his truck? Way to be original, Hana.
