“Well,” he says, staring me straight in the eyes. Maybe he won’t tell me a lie after all. I feel a smirk creep across my face as I await his apology.
“You didn’t exactly talk to me either.”
Unable to control my shock, I let my jaw fall open. “Are you serious? You’re the guy…you’re supposed to call me.”
He laughs. “How do you know I wasn’t gonna call? Maybe I had every intention of calling you but then I found out you were spending time with Carter.”
“Is it really so hard to say his name?” I grumble under my breath. Now that I know the reason for their feud, it seems childish to avoid his name as if he were the dark lord Voldemort. He shakes his head, smiling to himself, as if remembering a hilarious joke. “I decided if you wanted the lesser man – Ash – well, you could have him.”
“Oh I se
e.” I put on a more confident face than what I feel inside. “But now all of that has changed because you have a ‘thing’ for me?”
“Exactly.” That cocky smile is back on his gorgeous face.
A loud thud brings me out of his hypnosis. I catapult back against my door as a fist continues to beat on the driver’s side. Ryan lowers the window. A blue-and-white WTSU baseball cap hovers outside. I had forgotten how tall Ryan’s truck was and am grateful no one could see us sitting in here with his arm around my shoulder.
“Ya’ll naked in there or something?” the voice under the cap asks and Ryan leans his head out the window and shakes hands with the intruder.
Knowing our serious conversation is over and probably won’t be revived, I open my door and hop to the ground. Ryan follows and soon I’m introduced to every bikini babe and muscled jock within a ten-truck radius.
We sit on a fallen tree trunk around a pile of wood that hasn’t yet been set on fire. Dusk sets in and the full moon casts enough light on the lake to make a fire unnecessary. I doubt anyone wanted to add warmth to this already hot summer evening.
Not one girl here has a smile as warm as Shelby’s and it doesn’t take me long to realize none of the girls want anything to do with me. They are all interested in chatting with Ryan, mostly about motocross, while every single guy wants to know more about me. When Ryan lets it slip that I was a home-schooled kid, I become even more of a novelty.
A shorter-than-average guy with more muscles than Ryan approaches me. He drags an ice chest behind him, places it in front of us and uses it as a chair. There’s a beer in his hand although he doesn’t look old enough to drink. He wipes his hand on his jeans and then extends it to me.
“I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Kevin.” His hand is calloused and rough. Ryan and Ash’s hands are the same way, so I take him for a motocross racer too. I only remember one Kevin on the sign-in sheet and realized this was him. He already knows my name.
Ryan shifts next to me and I look over to see him making room on our log for two girls with wide eyes and big smiles who are evidently eager to talk to him. Ryan may not have been my boyfriend, but I don’t like where this is going.
Kevin is still talking to me, so I feign interest for an agonizing five minutes while he explains to me in detail how Mixon is the most amazing motocross track on earth. I nod with a fixed smile on my face as I try to ignore the overuse of giggles by the man-stealers behind me.
The next hour blurs past my subconscious. I am sucked into a dozen conversations, none of them dealing with anything I care about, all while Ryan chats to people he knows and I don’t. Occasionally he tosses me a bone by flashing me a quick smile. Ryan is definitely the man to be friends with, as everyone from other campfires take the time to stop by and say hello to him. He’s constantly offered good luck in the races and one guy old enough to be in college even said he’s got a hundred dollars on Ryan beating Ash.
I sink my chin into my hand and draw hearts into the sand with a stick. It seems as though Ryan is friends with everyone here but not best friends with any of them. Maybe he is happy with a large array of acquaintances who worship the dirt his tires race on, but I would take my one Shelby over several of these girls any day.
Out of boredom, I check my cell phone and have one voice mail. Shelby’s voice gushes about how Jake asked her out to dinner yet again. So Shelby is on a date tonight too, (if I want to call this awkward gathering a date), but I bet hers is like a teenage romance movie. Jacob probably brought her flowers and held open the Mustang’s door for her. I guess Ryan did open the truck door for me, but that’s because he thought I couldn’t reach the handle.
There is no reason I had to concede and let tonight go down in worst date history. Ryan is sitting right next to me after all. Even though he’s deep in conversation about which local mechanic does better suspension work on his bike, I can still turn this into a real date.
I lean to the right and let my head rest on Ryan’s shoulder. The scent of his cologne fills my personal space and puts a huge, cheesy grin on my face. Ryan takes my cue and his left arm slides around my back and his thumb settles into my pocket. I look up to see him wink at me before returning to his boring conversation with the guy who insisted Josh was a better mechanic than John.
The butterflies in my stomach multiply tenfold and fill my entire body as I slouch against Ryan’s hard chest and listen to the talk around me. The cute girls who aren’t hiding their rude stares in my direction don’t seem like much of a threat with Ryan’s arm around me.
Much like any good thing involving Ryan, my cuddle is over a moment after it starts. I had been enjoying the façade of being Ryan’s girlfriend when a guy I recognized as a rider in the pro class yelled from a few trucks down, “Hey Raging Ryan, come check this out!”
Ryan’s hand disappears from my pocket and he sprints across the sand leaving me all alone in a crowd of people. I swipe over the sand hearts with my flip-flop and start again. This time I stab the stick into the sand and make a collection of dots, each one deeper than the one before it.
So much for having a date. My date isn’t even in the same league as Shelby’s. I take out my cell phone so I won’t look like an awkward loser with nothing to do and send her a text message.
I got roped into going to the lake…Borrrring. Hope you’re having a good night!
“Hello.”
A lawn chair sinks into the sand next to me and a tanned hand reaches out to shake mine, “I’m Seth.”
I pocket my phone and shake his hand, glancing up at him through the spaces in my bangs. He is blond, like Ryan, and the faded black tank top he wears display his muscles even better than Ryan’s expensive polo. Physically, he is almost a clone of Ryan but his smile is more sincere. I toss on my polite smile, add a touch of charming and say hello, hoping Ryan is watching from wherever he is.