I frown; “Wait, the Riley Rileys?”
Dad chuckles; “Do we know more than one Riley family? You remember their son Josh, right?”
I roll my eyes; “Yes, Dad. He tried to feel my boobs when we were fourteen.”
He laughs; “Well, apparently he’s turning into quite the upstanding young man. He’s back home from Exeter for the summer before he heads to Yale in the fall. Impressive resume, and he wants to get into politics, too.’
“Good for him.”
“He’s been asking about you.”
I look up sharply, the pieces suddenly clicking; “Wait, is that why they’re coming over for dinner?”
“Oh, of course not. Richard and I have been meaning to catch up for ages, and I know they’re excited to meet Amanda as well.”
“And Knox?”
“Of course, and Knox.”
I arch my brow at my dad; “So this has nothing at all to do with trying to set me up with Josh Riley?”
“Paige!” Dad laughs; “Of course not, honey.” He gets up, shaking his head and chuckling; “But,”
Ahh, yeah; there’s a ‘but’.
“But, if you two did somehow hit it off, well, how great would that be? Our family and their family? Together?”
I purse my lips before I speak; “Richard Riley’s in tanker shipping, right?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, yes he’s doing quite well with that.”
I want to scream. What the fuck is this, feudal, medieval England? Am I being set up with another rich old money family to secure business? Married off into the fold?
Yeah, I remember Josh Riley just fine. I remember him being a spoiled little trust-fund brat. I remember him as being clean-cut, and groomed, and smooth. And it seems older Josh is about the same; from prep-school to Ivy League, and then probably off to run a hedge fund or run for state senate or something. Basically, he’s the opposite of Knox, who is raw, and wild, and rebellious. Knox who’s hot, not groomed. Knox’ who’s dirty, not clean cut.
Knox who apparently after a week, is still totally and completely still on my mind.
“So, Sunday then?”
“Can’t wait?”
My dad comes over and puts his arm around my shoulders as he leans down to kiss my head; “I love you, you know.”
I smile; “I know, dad.”
“You fuckin’ kidding me, kid?”
“Huh?” I turn, the unlit cigarette in my lips and the lighter in my hand. Great, what now, a “hey ya know those are bad for you” speech?
Gee, I had no idea.
Mike, the oilfield foreman I’m trailing with today, is not a small man. He’s actually larger than what you might even identify as “human-sized”; more like a yeti, or Bigfoot or something. He scowls at me, as if defying me to flick that lighter in my hand before he jerks his thumb back at the “absolutely no smoking” sign behind him. And then the one behind me, and then the one on the side of the truck, and then the one posted on the door to the office, and then...well, you get the idea.
I quietly take the cigarette out from my lips.
“Smart move,” Mike says dryly, before handing me a hard-hat.
This sucks. It’s hot out here in the fucking apocalyptic wasteland that is the oil fields outside Dallas, and I can’t smoke anywhere apparently. Which, when I think about it, does sort of make sense considering we’re standing around about a billion gallons of crude oil.
The machines part I can dig; it’s like working on my bike, in a way. Except it pisses me off that I’m here instead of in the driveway doing that. I don’t mind getting dirty, or the heat, or whatever, but the fact that I’m here because Paige’s father put me here gets under my skin.
Well, this is what you get for not sending anything back to those schools.
Schools with crests and shields; schools with names people who never went to college even know about. Schools that sent me letters a month ago asking why they’d never heard back from me.
But again, fuck that. The whole college thing is a broken, stupid path anyways. Like I need to go spend a fortune I don’t have on acting out on my teen impulses away from home while I major in something I’ll never use.
Pass.
I climb up into the big truck with Mike that’ll drive us out to the far fields. It’s less hot in the truck with the AC going full blast, and Mike rolls the windows up; “You can smoke in here if you want, kid. Just keep the windows up.” He glances at me wryly; “I don’t have to be the one that breaks the news to you that those are actually bad for you, do I?”
“Nah, I think I read that somewhere once or twice before.”
“Suit yourself, kid. Die young, and crippled, and in pain. See if I care.” Mike shifts the truck into gear and I frown down at the pack in my hands before tossing it back on the dash.
Mike grins.
“So, this what you and my Dad used to do? Drive around the desert shooting the shit?”
He laughs; a deep, resonating sound the bellows out in the small confines of the cab; “Sort of, I guess.” He looks at me; “You and your pop close?”
“Oh, yeah; best buds.” I nod, turning to look out the passenger window as the silence descends on the truck.
“Yeah, me and my dad weren’t very close either.”
Mike’s face is neutral when I turn back; “Well, I mean, he traveled a lot, I guess.” I crack a grin; “You know, traveling, making it all happen, seeing the country. My dad was the man, huh?”
Mike just sort of nods and looks out his own window as the truck rolls down the road.
I frown; well that’s a strange response.
We drive in silence until we hit the first derrick, and we skid to dusty stop before we melt back out into the desert heat. Mike’s checking the systems panel inside the control box, when I decide to bring it up again; “Yeah he was a real cool guy, my dad, huh? Played by his own rules, marched to his own beat; all that shit, right?”
Mike just nods again, and I frown; “OK, what’s the deal?”
Mike frowns; “With?”
“With my dad.”
“It’s nothing, kid. Let’s just get this done and I can show you around the control booth back at base,” He says, looking away.
“Dude, c’mon. I heard the stories; you and my dad just tearing it up, going wild, not staying tied down, making your own-”
Mike whirls on me suddenly, his face red and his eyes frowning at me; “Yeah? How’d that work out for you and your mom, huh?”
I scowl; “Hey, my dad was a fuckin’ rocksta-”
“Your dad was a prick, kid.”
Anyone else in the world - anyone else in the world who wasn’t seven fucking feet tall and 300 pounds of muscle that is - and I’d deck them. As it is, I just glare at him, feeling the anger rage inside; “What the fuck do you know about-”
“I know he was a prick to your mother and his only son, that’s what I know. And this is a man I was friends with, kid.”
Words sort of leave me, as I stand there in the swirling dust with my fists clenched and my teeth bared at him, hating that everything he’s saying hits closer to the mark than I want it to.
“Oh c’mon, kid; ‘traveling for work’? You’re smarter than that.” He shakes his head as he slams the control panel lid back shut and marches towards the truck; “What the fuck is an oil derrick foreman doing traveling? What, roughneck conferences?” He laughs dryly; “Fuckin’, piping meetings?” He scowls as he shakes his head and yanks open the truck door; “He was just stepping out on your mom, that’s all.”
I slam the door shut on my own side, feeling my fists clenching and the red-rage of my glare narrowing on the dash in front of me.
“Listen, kid. Your dad was a friend, you gotta know that.” Mike shakes his head and reaches for my pack of smokes on the dash, pulling one out, sticking it in his mouth, and lighting it before tossing them back in my lap. He inhales deeply and blows the smoke out through his nose as he cranks up the AC; “He was a good guy, your pops,
at heart that is. But actions speak louder, kid; they always do. And if you’re asking if I think what he did was ‘cool’ or made him some sort of rockstar, then you’re shit outta luck.”
My bed is a hurricane wreck of nucleotide tables, biochemistry notes, a dorm roommate compatibility poll for Columbia, and, well, me. My eyes are blurred and fuzzy from reading, and as I open the book in front of me to yet another discussion on gene treatment, I groan and sink my head against the pages.
Yikes.
It’s moments like this when I really do get it. I get that this isn’t exactly normal eighteen-year-old behavior for the last summer before college. I get that I’m nerding it up to the max spending a Friday night cooped up in my room reading about biochemistry and cramming for placement exams instead of - well, I don’t even know what else.
I mean I do have friends; it’s not like I was some sort of social outcast at school before I delved into my summer of sequestered studying. But most of them are like me, or already gone for school, or -
Ok, fine; so I don’t exactly have a ton of friends.
But still, I don’t even know what I’d be doing with my last summer anyways; whatever it is people my age are supposed to be doing right now I guess. Drinking? Smoking? Making bad decisions? And am I just describing Knox because it’s easier?
We aren’t talking much, speaking of Knox, which sucks I guess since we were finally starting to understand each other, but it’s also totally necessary. It became necessary when “starting to understand each other” turned into kissing, or his fingers touching me where I’d never been touched before, and his come across my stomach.
Yeah, no that went a bit above and beyond “getting to know one another” I’d say.
It’s been a week of coldness, at least from me towards him. He’s done his usual shenanigans like trying to trip me up with thinly veiled sexual innuendos at the dinner table in front of our parents. And just tonight, when I came upstairs after practicing, I’d found my panties missing from their drawer and strewn across my neatly made bed in the shape of a penis.
Yeah; see what I’m dealing with?
But a week later - a week after I made the huge mistake of letting my guard down and letting him smooth talk me like that or whatever voodoo magic he used to get to me like he did - things are getting easier.
I won’t say stopping things with Knox was like ripping a band aid off or anything either, because it’s not. But it’s a slow release; a slow release of pent-up tension in getting him out of my head out from under my skin. And like I said, after a week, it’s getting easier to forget about Knox entirely.
There’s a sudden and jarringly staccato beat on my bedroom door, tearing me back from my daydreaming; “Oh priiiin-cesss!”
Well, so much for that “it’s getting easier to forget him” idea.
I frown, and I’m debating whether or not to feign sleep when he knocks again. And then again, and again, and-
I huff loudly as I jump off the bed and stomp towards the door; what is wrong with him?
“What?” I say flatly, spitting it out of pursed lips at him as I yank the door open.
“Nice, Paige. Cute attitude.”
He’s dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket; his hair pushed back out of his face and slicked back and to the side, A hint of ink peaks out from the collar of his shirt, and he’s looking every inch the tempting bad news I know he is.
“Sorry,” I grumble, pinching the bridge of my nose and rubbing the spot there; “I’ve got a ton of work to do, Knox.”
“Not anymore you don’t”
I raise an eyebrow at him; “Huh?” I’m really not in the mood for any of his games right now, or this little tit-for-tat back and forth we do; “Knox, I-”
“Put some clothes on, we’re going out.”
My face wrinkles; “No, we’re not. And I am wearing clothes.”
Knox makes a skeptical face as he looks down at my sweatpants and t-shirt. I’m suddenly much more self-conscious of how I look right then than I feel like I should be around him; as if I suddenly care what Knox Shepard thinks of my outfit.
“Like, some real clothes, Paige. And your dad’s in Atlanta for that meeting, right? And my mom’s out doing wedding stuff.”
He winks at me, and suddenly I can feel that creeping, forbidden heat spreading through my body as I find myself staring at his lips. I shake my head quickly; “Knox, I warned you, what happened before is never happening a-”
“Oh, get over yourself, princess; I’m not talking about that. We need to get you out of this house though.”
“I’m working.”
“Well, work at having some fun for a change.”
I grin in spite of myself, and slowly, reluctantly, I can feel my willpower starting to crumble. I frown; “OK, hypothetically, what sort of fun did you have in mind?”
Knox’s lips part in a big shit-eating grin, like he’s gloating or triumphant that he’s managed to wear me down like this; “Just put some clothes on and meet me in the driveway.”
*****
“Not a freaking chance. No way.”
I’m standing in the driveway in jeans and I hope is a nice enough “going out” tank-top, just staring and shaking my head at Knox. Knox who’s standing astride his motorcycle grinning as he holds out the spare helmet to me.
“Oh c’mon, hop on McCauley.”
“I am not getting on that thing.”
He rolls his eyes; “Oh live a little.”
“I want to live a lot, actually, which is why I’m not getting on.”
He laughs; “I’ll drive slow, I swear.”
“Have you been drinking?”
Knox rolls his eyes; “Do I look suicidal?” He shoots me another look, and once again, I can feel my defenses failing under that piercingly blue gaze. Once again, I can feel myself saying yes when I ought to be saying no, and before I can second guess that anymore, I’m swinging my leg hesitantly over the bike and getting on behind him.
Knox cranks on the engine with a guttural growl, and suddenly I’m shrieking and grabbing him tight around the waist as we go roaring down the driveway like a bullet. I’m squeezing my eyes shut and probably still screaming into his back as I hug him fiercely for dear life as we go barreling onto busier and busier roads, and it’s then that I realize we’re heading downtown. We thunder through city streets, but it’s when we come to a shuddering halt that I look up and feel my pulse jump even higher, as if that was even possible after that ride.
We’re at the Music Hall; the place where he saw me play; “What- Oh my God, what are we doing here?”
He grins as he turns off the bike and swings his leg over it before he reaches into one of the side bags and pulls something out. I’m frowning as he grins and passes it my way, but then I shaking with rage as I realize what he’s holding.
It’s my songbook; the one I write all of my ideas in, all of my little snippets of lines and ideas and feelings, and it’s right there in Knox Shepherd’s hands.
“Where did you get this!” I sputter, snatching it out of his hands.
Crude: A Stepbrother Romance Page 9
