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I raised an eyebrow. “Show me.”
In my room, Ash sat at my desk and pulled up a website for some motocross company. There were too many of them to remember, but by the look of their website, all jam-packed with articles and photos, I figured it was a big company. I stood behind him, looking over his shoulder as he searched the homepage for the newest article. “Ready for this?”
I put my hands on my hips. “What could it possibly be? I already know you’re a professional now.”
“It’s something that comes with being a pro,” he said by way of explanation. He clicked the trackpad and then looked over his shoulder at me. “I made the calendar.”
“The what?” My eyes bulged. Chagrin and arousal hit me at the same time. Right there on the website, for the whole world to see, was an article about next year’s motocross calendar. More specifically: Motocross Men – the only thing hotter than your exhaust pipe!
“Oh my god,” I said as I took over the mouse and scrolled down the website. There, in all his gorgeous motocross-god glory, was my boyfriend. Shirtless, wearing racing pants and boots, making his shy grin while he held onto a pair of goggles. He was standing next to Dylan Bakers, a seasoned professional racer, and they were in front of their dirt bikes. It wasn’t a scandalous photo or anything. It was actually cleaner than some of the others, but now people everywhere would be able to drool over my boyfriend for the entire month of April.
After scrolling through the rest of the article, I went back to Ash’s picture and read the caption. It mentioned that Ash was the first rookie to make the yearly calendar—available online and at the races for thirty dollars each—with the proceeds going to charity.
“What do you think?” he asked. When I looked at him, he was chewing on his thumbnail, and it hit me then that he was actually
nervous about it. “They contacted me the other day for a photoshoot, and I didn’t even realize it was for the calendar until they brought me the papers to sign. Kind of cool, right?”
I kind of nodded and looked back at the photo. Not really sure how I felt about all of this, but certain that he looked downright hot, I saved the image as my computer’s wallpaper with a few quick clicks of the mouse. Ash chuckled and wrapped an arm around me, tugging me into his lap. “So you’re not mad or anything, right?”
I turned to face him, letting my fingers tangle into his. “Why would I be mad? That’s awesome, Ash.”
His shoulders relaxed and he ran his free hand through my hair. “Well it’s for charity and all, but Dylan was telling me how his wife gets kind of pissed about him being made into a sex symbol.”
I scoffed. “She shouldn’t. She’s, like, the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. She has nothing to worry about.”
Ash’s hand squeezed mine. “Well, if beautiful girls don’t worry about their boyfriends, then I guess I’m in the clear.”
I playfully punched him in the chest. “Is that supposed to be some kind of joke about you thinking I’m pretty?”
“The prettiest,” he said. “Why, was it lame?”
I leaned forward until my forehead was pressed against his. “Very lame.”
“Sorry,” he whispered. “My sneaky compliments will be suave and sexy next time.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, letting my fingers twist around one of his dreads. They smelled tropical. We sat like that for a while, me curled up in his lap on my pink desk chair, while the photo of him stared back at us on my laptop.
“So, you’re like, totally famous now,” I said, titling my chin up to look at him.
He placed a soft kiss on my lips and considered it. “No, not really. But maybe a little bit.”
“I wonder what celebrity-type thing you’ll do next,” I murmured, leaning my head to rest on his shoulder. My finger traced the logo on his shirt. “You’ll get all famous and forget about me, the nobody loser in Hicksville, Texas.”
He shook his head. “That will never happen, Hana. I will never forget you.”
Chapter 6
Present day - May
Turns out Molly really does have something for me to do in the house with her, so I don’t feel as bad for ditching Lincoln’s lunch date request. From the clean, non-exhaust-smelling living room, I help her sort five stacks of flyers into envelopes for the track’s quarterly mailing to everyone signed up on their list. The great thing is that it still counts as work so I’m still on the clock.
Luckily, Molly keeps the television on her favorite show, some drama about women lawyers, and she doesn’t bring up Ash, or Lincoln, or anyone else for that matter while we work. Unfortunately for me, my brain only wants to think about Ash and Lincoln. I try so hard to make up games in my head as I grab the papers, fold them together and stuff them in envelopes. I try to focus on the show, but I get the feeling it’s the kind of show where if you haven’t watched it from the start, you’re totally lost.
The sad part is that I’ve been doing pretty well lately—at least I was before I came back home for the summer. Ash is a part of the motocross world. And when the motocross world is out of sight, it’s out of mind. Now I’ve willingly flung myself wholly back into the scene. I live and work on a freaking motocross track. Why did I ever think coming home would be easy?
After my hard day’s work of stuffing envelopes and boasting about not getting a single papercut, Dad has me join him in the score tower for some catching up about college. It’s nice, hanging out with him; I barely saw him at all this last semester except for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and back then, I spent most of that free time with Ash.
He takes a sip from his soda and makes a grimace. “Ugh, this shit is like poison.”
