AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lexi gingerly climbed onto the back of the bike. She wrapped her arms tightly around Ramsey torso and pressed herself against his back. Nuzzling into his shoulder, she tried to calm her heart which had kicked into overdrive. Ramsey revved the engine, kicked the clutch into gear and took off. When Ramsey had said he was going to go slow, Lexi had thought he had meant slow, but apparently their definitions were different. He raced ahead easily taking the lead from his friends. The shorter layers of Lexi's hair released from her ponytail and whipped around in her face. She felt him switch gears and zoom forward into the tree line following a dirt trail that she couldn't make out. Her terror alleviated some the longer Ramsey drove down the path, but her grip only barely loosened.
As they took a sharp turn, a fire burning in the distance alerted her that they weren't the only ones in the woods. The adrenaline from the ride kept her mind vigilant. As she became more comfortable on the bike, she also became more aware of her surroundings. A dirt path lay before her and she realized that it was wider than she had originally thought. The tree line had gradually begun to grow in overhead to fight for the sunlight, but the moon was still visible.
Lexi clasped her hands tighter around Ramsey's torso and nuzzled in closer to his warm body. She could feel his taut muscles underneath her grip. A smile spread across her face at the feel of him and she realized, despite her terror, that she was having a good time. She would have never done anything like this, she never had done anything like this before.
Just as she was finally getting into a rhythm of the bumps and curves, Ramsey pulled into a clearing. He made a circle around a roaring bonfire, then hit the brakes and killed the engine.
"Did you like it?" Ramsey asked helping her off the bike and setting her carefully back on her wobbly feet.
"Uh…" she managed clamping and unclamping her frozen fingers. "You said you were going to go slow."
Ramsey laughed boisterously at her shocked face before throwing an arm over her shoulders and dragging her closer to the bonfire. "That was slow."
The rest of the group skid to a halt next to Ramsey's Raptor and joined them by the fire.
"Man that was awesome," Brad crowed wandering up to Ramsey and clasping him on the back. "Haven't been up here since the summer."
"Yeah I forgot how killer the ride is," Jason said sidling up to Lexi. "You like it?"
Lexi smiled noncommittally though she had enjoyed herself once she had gotten used to it. The rest of the group seemed to all know each other. A few of the girls giggled about the ride up. One of them reached up and directly kissed a guy staking her claim. They introduced themselves but as soon as they were said she had forgotten them save for one redhead, Jessie, who kept eyeing her warily.
After settling in around the fire, the group began to roast marshmallows for smores and talk about some event that had happened in high school. Lexi wasn't really paying attention to the conversation since she didn't follow more than half the players involved, but she did listen to the next thing that was mentioned.
"Do you remember when you guys came up here after prom and she insisted on wearing that ridiculous long dress on your tiny dirt bike, Bridges?" Jessie asked her eyes shifting from Ramsey to Lexi.
Lexi glanced up at Ramsey who was glaring in Jessie's direction. "Yes I remember," he growled.
"That was a crazy night. I think I was dating Jeff Kensington," she said giggling. "He had such a crush on me. Would have done anything for me."
"I think he did," Brad said with a wink. The group laughed aloud at some private joke.
"Well not compared to…" she began.
"Jess we know the story," Ramsey snapped narrowing his eyes.
"Fine. Whatever," she snapped right back at him, reaching into a cooler, and pulling out a light beer.
Lexi's senses were on end from the conversation and she didn't even know what it had been about. All she knew was that he didn't want to talk about it, and she had a feeling it had something to do with her. She wanted to ask him what that was about, but she couldn't do it in front of all of his friends. This was the second conversation she had overheard about Ramsey with another girl. First his dad and now Jessie. She wondered if they were related…though she doubted it.
After an awkward silence, the conversation picked back up, but Lexi's mind was lost in Jessie's few sentences. Who was the girl that had come up with him after prom? She wasn't naïve enough to believe that they had driven all the way up here for no particular purpose.
A conversation came to her mind that she had with Ramsey when he had come to visit. He had claimed to never have a girlfriend…to never have been in love. Yet, he had snapped so forcefully at Jessie, Lexi couldn't help but wonder about the cause.
She knew there had been women in his life. The conversation had never drifted past that point though. She was still too anxious about her own past to push him to find out about his own. She knew that she would never fully rid herself of Jack. Despite telling him that she was completely over him after his actions, she knew she had only said that to hurt him. She still missed him and her heart ached for him whenever she allowed herself to think about him. They had shared something incomprehensible to most people, and it wasn't to be taken lightly. However, with Ramsey's help she was slowly thinking of him less and less all the while eliminating the baggage that she had always carried around with her. Now that she sat down and thought about it, Lexi realized she hadn't even though about Jack after the past two days of carefree fun with Ramsey.
Feeling Ramsey's fingers gently lace with her own brought her back to reality and she looked up at him and smiled. "What has you so entranced?" he asked her rubbing his thumb against her soft skin.
"I was just wondering," she began hoping to cover up her real thoughts, "why do you have roommates?"
"Hey," Brad said overhearing her question.
"I didn't mean it like that," she said backing up and correcting herself. "I just meant, well, I sound stupid…"
"You mean that I don't need to have roommates," he finished for her.
She nodded. He had all the money in the world. He could live wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted. There was no need for him to live with two other guys. It didn't make any sense to her. She would have loved the freedom of living alone. Rachelle was great, but she had her habits that drove Lexi off the wall and vice versa. They did it out of necessity, not from choice. Yet, Ramsey had the choice and still he lived with two other guys.
