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A moment later his lips twist into a smirk and form a full smile, which he then directs toward me. His lips part and I feel every single microsecond linger in the thick air between us until he finally answers. “You are correct.”
I let out the breath I’ve been holding. “So that’s why you and Ash aren’t friends?” Again, he nods. “That doesn’t seem like a good reason.”
“Oh?” He challenges me with narrowed eyes. I shrink into my seat. Standing up to Ryan is even harder than trying to flirt with him.
“I just think you should be united together for your brother, not against each other.”
“It’s not that easy, Hana.”
He moves his hand from the steering wheel and slides it over to my knee. Goosebumps trickle from the warmth of his hand and spread down my leg. I focus on a lock of his hair pointed directly at his eyebrow, as his face is too gorgeous to look at in the setting sunlight. I can’t risk swooning over him in a serious moment like this, but part of me knows I already am.
“You’re a sweet girl. You wouldn’t understand.” I want to object but a squeeze on my kneecap is all it takes to keep me quiet. “Life just doesn’t work that way. We will never be united.” He makes air quotes with his left hand when he says the word united, while his right hand still burns through the flesh and bone of my leg.
“Both of you can ride for him.” My voice is a weak thread. Now I’m just talking for the sake of talking. Nothing I say will make him change his mind.
“He didn’t deserve my brother’s bike. I did.” Ryan’s voice is razor sharp. He releases my leg and puts both hands on the steering wheel. I watch the place his hand had been, then glance up to him to find his eyes back on the road, hard and no longer sympathetic.
“But he loved him too.” I’m talking more to myself than to Ryan.
“He tried to steal my brother’s legacy from me. That’s unforgiveable.”
The ice is mostly melted between Ryan and I by the time we arrive at the lake. After a brief intermission of rap music, he has opened up again, and we talkeof lighter, less threatening topics. We don’t go near the subject of motocross again.
I had only been to one lake in Dallas. It was heavily wooded and full of vegetation and the only people who visited were bird watchers hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare grasshopper sparrow.
This lake is nothing like that. For one, it is several times smaller than the great lake I had seen as a child. I can see across the entire thing as we drive down a dirt road that runs parallel to the sand. This lake is in the middle of a dry, flat patch of Texas with little to no greenery. The entire perimeter is lined with a sand bank that resembles a beach.
More than a dozen trucks are parked along the shore, many of them comparable to Ryan’s mammoth of a vehicle with large mud tires and expensive accessories. Two guys about our age chased each other on jet skis, and a few people swim. Ryan pulls in next to a red truck and that’s when I notice the two beautiful girls in string bikinis laying on the sand trying to catch the last rays of sunlight.
My stomach knots up and threatens to take any bit of self-esteem I have, chain it up in shackles and bury it into the depths of my soul. How am I supposed to fit in with girls like this? I glance down at my lap where my hands rest awkward and child-like. My pink nail polish is chipping off and my outfit is, as Felicia would say, “So last season.”
The girls look back to see who has arrived and one of them flashes a gorgeous smile and waves at Ryan. I am no match for these girls. Why did Ryan bring me here? Is he using me for something? I have no marketable skills or connections with anything. I don’t have the reputation of being easy. He can’t possibly be using me. He responds to the girl with a quick head nod. I feel slightly better knowing he treated her with the same nonchalance he often gives me. But only slightly better.
Then I think of Ryan’s arrogant head nod and wonder if I am being used to get back at another girl for breaking his heart. This was a stupid idea; I should not have come here with him.
The engine is still running but Ryan hasn’t said a word since we parked. He’s looking at me, and not in the condescending way he usually does, but intently, and purposefully. My eyes meet his. Moments like these always seem to span light-years instead of seconds when I’m with Ryan. Had he been watching me the entire time I was looking at my hands trying to discover what motive he could possibly have for using me?
“I know you have a thing for him, or whatever,” Ryan says as his arm stretches across the back of the seat. His fingertips circle on my shoulder and as if by magic, I can no longer remember my name. He continues, “But I have a thing for you. And that’s why I invited you here tonight, so we could spend time together.”
“You have a thing for me?” I repeat, wanting to hear the words in the air again.
My hand slides across my chest. My heart beats, but not with the force and passion I feel it should be at such a momentous declaration. Ryan is right here, right now, telling me exactly what I had wanted to hear from him all summer. It is the same thing I wanted to hear from Ash. But for some reason my heart isn’t overjoyed or giddy or filled with butterflies knowing I finally heard it from Ryan.
I have just enough time to blink and when I open my eyes, his face is now an inch away from mine. I flinch and his lips break into a grin. The blue eyes that are now staring into mine are like a still pool of water – blank and emotionless.
I’m not much of an eye-gazer, but Ryan’s empty eyes startle me. Ash’s eyes are always swimming with emotion; in fact, everyone I knew had something in their eyes. Why are Ryan’s so…dead?
The arm around my shoulder squeezes me even closer to his body while the other hand sweeps a stray hair behind my ear. I take shallow breaths. He has no idea what happens to me when we are this close.
“For one night,” he begins, speaking in a raspy whisper, “Can you just forget about him and give me a chance?”
My head starts to nod in its automatic response to anything Ryan asked me, when suddenly my mind regained control and I pull out of his grasp. Is he seriously saying these things to me? I guess I’m supposed to swoon at his Jedi-mind tricks and say, “Oh sure, I’d love to forget all about Ash who’s done nothing but be nice to me, and give you a chance when you kissed me and then forgot about me, thus crushing my soul into a thousand tiny pieces!”
And while I’m thinking about it, now is as good a time as ever to ask him the question that runs through my mind every single day.
“Why did you kiss me that day and then stop talking to me?”
He shifts in his seat and runs a hand through his hair, stopping at the base of his neck. I know there is no reasonable excuse for what he did. If he’s trying to think of a lie, maybe he will humor me and think of an exceptional one.
