by Heidi Acosta
A guy in swimming shorts in a plastic beach chair narrates the ride through a broken karaoke machine and microphone. “And Nash stuns the audience with the kiss of death. Nash racing is sponsored by his minimum wage paycheck from Nash and Sons tow yard, and lady and gents that was the finger he just gave us. If you would like to support the career of this young lad, you can start by telling him to grow a pair of balls and enter this upcoming EnduroCross. You can also support young Nash racing by drinking those beers and driving as well as not paying for your tickets.” The audience the announcer is speaking to is about ten of us sitting in the bleachers. “And speaking of not having a license … ladies, I’m single and ready to mingle. Of course, you will have to pick me up, any takers? Oh, and they are on the last lap, Dirt Ball is holding his own, but ohhh that’s too bad, looks like his brother James is not, he just ate shit, friends.”
I bite my bottom lip as I watch James wreck, but he gets up and out of the way in time for some bikes racing past him. I can barely sit still as I watch Adam; he is amazing on an orange and black bike. He changed into pants that are black, with orange stripes running up the sides. Fox is written on them in bold white lettering.
“And this is the last lap, it’s going to be a tight one, it looks like it’s between Nash and Ryan. Who is it going to be? Not only does his life depend on it, yes his life, but rumor is that this lovey vixen will give it up to him if he wins.” The announcer points at me. There are cheers from the nine other spectators, and I’m sure my face matches my hair. I notice Karly storm off out of the corner of my eyes. “And it’s Nash who wins, looks like he is getting lucky tonight. Hope you did your stretches, little lady.” Adam rides around the track standing up while the other riders flip off the announcer with both fingers. I’m so excited I don’t even mind the announcer’s comments. When he stops riding I jump down and clap my hands, I’m so impressed with Adam. Apparently I’m the only one who is impressed as I’m the only one clapping. I race down the bleachers and meet Adam halfway as he pushes his bike toward me with a grin that says he appreciates my enthusiasm.
“Wow,” is all I can say when I reach him.
“Thanks.”
“I mean, I never knew that this existed. I knew that there was bike racing, but this is different, you were … you were amazing,” I say, a little breathless as I take Adam in. I had him pinned for a womanizing man whore going nowhere fast. I still think he’s a man whore, but there is more to him than what I thought, and I have a feeling that this is just the surface of Adam Nash.
A sheen of sweat beads across his forehead as he props up his bike with his body. He pulls off the grey, long-sleeved shirt over his head and drapes it over his shoulder. I try not to stare, but I can’t help it, my eyes are drawn to his chest and the lean muscles of his stomach that are well defined under the cooper skin. He is the perfect male specimen and he knows it. He is somewhere between an Abercrombie model and a biker with the tattoos that blanket his shoulder in a black tribal pattern. I squeeze my hands into fists to keep from reaching out to touch him.
“Want to go for a ride?” he asks, breaking my concentration on his body. My heart is fluttering so fast I feel lightheaded and slightly dizzy. Oh God, looking into his eyes that are glittering with heat and the mischievous grin on his face is not helping.
“What? No, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
I laugh before answering. “Absolutely not.” If life has taught me anything, it’s not to trust anyone … but my heart wants to trust him. I can feel it ripping apart with desire and hope. No matter how much my brain is telling me no, this is bad—and this is really bad—my heart is screaming yes. Reaching out for me he rests his hand on my hip, and that burning heat surges through me. Holy shit, I’m in trouble.
“Katie, I promise you I will never hurt you.”
I close my eyes, wanting more than anything to believe him. “You get one chance,” I say.
“That is all I need.” He helps me onto the back of his bike. His skin is cool to the touch, but I can feel the heat under it rising to the surface. I press into him, keeping my arms wrapped firmly around his waist, my legs squeezing against his thighs as we take off. At first, I think he is just going to take me around the track, but he veers off and soon we are darting between pine trees so fast that they turn in to a blur.
We ride until the bike peaks over the hills and through fields that spread out for miles in front of us. All too soon he turns into the pines that line the field, swerving between trees, racing the shadows that chase us. A slight panic flutters to life in my chest when I realize how far away from everyone we are—it’s just me and Adam. Taking a deep breath, I squash it down, burying the fear deep inside of me. I’m curious for him to disrupt more of my perceived notions I have of him.
Once we are deep in the woods, he rolls the bike to a stop and I get off. He props the bike against a tree before turning on me, and I have to will my heart to slow down and remember how to breathe. I don’t want this. I don’t want to feel anything for him, but I do. He makes me want to lose focus on my end goal, to change my carefully laid out plans and see where he will take me. “See, I didn’t hurt you,” he says, his voice taking on a husky tone as he steps closer to me. I want to step away from him and put some distance between us, but my legs don’t seem to be in agreement with my brain so I stay there, unable to move.
“Yet,” I breathe.
“Katie, I promise you, I will never hurt you.” He reaches for me, his hands going around my waist as he pulls me closer. Oh God, my body, feels like it’s on fire where he touches me and I want to believe him, but I know that there is no way that one of us—if not both—will not end up hurt. This is a dangerous game we are playing at. I close off my brain and reach out for him. He lets out a breath as if he had been holding it when my hand presses against his chest. He closes his eyes as my hand explores the lean muscles of his chest and then his shoulders, tracing the swirls of his tattoo. His fingers dig deep into my hips, sending warmth traveling down my legs. What am I doing? I’m feeling him up in the middle of the woods! Then again, it was his idea to take me up here without wearing a shirt and talking about promises that he will never hurt me.
Sighing, he pulls me closer so that I’m pressed firmly against him. The roughness of his pants rubs against the thin fabric of my pants. “Katie, what is it about you that makes me want you the way I do?” He leans his forehead against mine. I don’t have an answer for him because I feel the same way about him. I can’t figure out why I’m so attracted to him. It’s more than his promises, and attractiveness, there is something about Adam Nash that makes me want him. He leans his face closer so that his lips brush against mine, and I’m instantly a puddle of Jell-O. All my carefully built walls are crumbling down around me. His breath mixes with mine—it’s sweet and warm and perfect, and all I want is to press my mouth to his, to taste him, to … Wait! What? I step away from him, and with the space, every reason of why this is a bad idea slams back into me. My heartbeat picks up from a flutter to a fierce racing, slamming into my rib cage, trying to escape. I need to escape. The world starts to spin too fast again as I try to hang on, my mind racing. My stomach turns and my mouth goes dry as I scramble to get a hold of the situation.
She backs up, but I’m not going to let her get away that easy this time. This storm we have been creating has been building, and there is no more holding it back. She wants me as bad as I want her, I can feel it. But why is she fighting it so much? I want to tear down all the walls she has built up and see into her soul, to know what hurts her, what makes her laugh, what makes her cry. I want to try to rebuild whatever damage that she has.
“Tell me right now that you don’t want me to kiss you and I will take you back without another word.” I make my way closer to her.
“Adam, I don’t—”
Fuck that! I can’t let her get those words out. My hand is on the back of her head and I pull her to meet my mouth. She
goes rigid, but as my mouth presses against hers, her whole body goes limp and she leans into me, kissing me back. My tongue slips into her mouth, tasting her, and she is the sweetest thing I have ever tasted. My body instantly craves more of her. Kissing her is everything, flames dance off her into me. It’s the same feeling of taking a jump, a free fall, a shot of adrenaline to the heart, but like all jumps there is a hard landing, and kissing Katie is no different. Her hands find my chest and she shoves me back.
“Adam, take me back. Now.”
“Katie, I didn’t mean to—”
She turns away so I can’t see the tears welling up in her eyes.
Fuck! Tears that I put there. “Katie, please.”
“Just take me back, Adam,” she snaps. Her voice wobbles, and I know that means she’s crying. Fucking crying because of me. This is not how I pictured kissing her going.
“Katie …” I grab her hand, wanting to spill my guts to her, to tell what I’m feeling for her.
“Adam, this doesn’t make sense.” She spins so she is facing me, and places a hand on my chest to keep me back. The tears she is trying so desperately to keep back slip over her green eyes and escape down her cheeks. Each one is like a stab to the heart.
“Even more reason for us to try,” I say, grasping at anything to keep me from losing her, the girl of my dreams.
“Don’t you hear what you are saying? It would never work out. To even entertain the idea is ridiculous, one of us will end up hurt.”
“I said I would never hurt you.”
“And I’m afraid that you’re right. Look, my life right now is a mess; it’s not how I want it to be. We are two different people, this is not what I want.”
“Then what do you want, Katie, and I promise to get it for you. Do you want me to go to fucking college? Then done.” I’m shouting now. “Change my clothes, never ride again? I will do anything you ask, just don’t say no before you even give what we are feeling for each other a chance.”
She steps away from me as if that will help her, but it leaves a gaping hole in my chest. Whatever she says I will try to get her it, I will never give up on us, on her.
“I don’t know what I want.” Now she is screaming. “I don’t know, Adam. How about I want to go back to my school and finish my degree, I want my car back, I want to be in Florida for summer break with my sorority sisters, I want my mom not to be popping pills and drinking on a beach, and my father to have not committed fraud. I want my life back. Can you get me those things, Adam Nash? Because that’s what I want.” She is crying hard; the tears fall down her face, leaving an ache deep inside of me because I can’t give her those things she so desperately wants.
“We can try together. I’m going to be right here handing you the pieces, trying to fit them back together.
“Adam, please just take me home.” She looks at her feet and I know that she has gone somewhere I can’t reach her.
Me: Katie?
I’m desperate to talk to her. I drove her home just like she wanted me to, but she was silent the whole way. It takes her about ten minutes to text me back and it has me going fucking insane.
Doll Face: Hey.
Me: I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. I pushed you too far.
Doll Face: You’re not an idiot, I just don’t think I can do this anymore.
Me: Don’t say that. It’s only one more day. Don’t tell me you are sick of me already?
Doll Face: I’m not sick of you. Not yet anyway. I’m just way more screwed up than you realize.
Me: I like screwed up. So is that a yes, you will give it one more day?
Another ten minutes pass and I’m crawling up the fucking walls. This girl is torturing me and doesn’t even realize it.
Doll Face: Okay, but I need a few days to process everything. I will text you when I’m ready.
Me: Deal.
The next few days are brutal, I avoid going into the office when I know Katie is working. I shut off my phone so that I don’t grow desperate and call or text her. It’s not until a week later when I have almost lost my mind, that Katie comes to find me. I just finished with the last tow of the day and I’m in the barn working on my bike, trying to keep my mind busy. I sense her before I see her, but when I do I swear it’s like my heart stops working. I watch her weave around engine parts to the back of the barn where I’m at.
“Hey,” she breathes when she reaches me.
“Hey,” I say back. “I was beginning to think you forgot about me.” After wiping my hands on a rag, I motion for her to sit on some lawn chairs that Dirt dragged in.
“If forgetting you was only that easy.” She lets out a nervous laugh and I can tell that there is more on her mind than just our one last day.
She sighs. “I want to apologize for how I acted the other day.”
“Don’t apologize, I am the one who needs to be apologizing, I took things too far.” If only it where that easy. Kissing Katie has been torturing me; it’s all I can think about.
“No, I wanted to kiss you, I was just--” she trails off looking at the ground and I am afraid that I might have lost her again, but then she looks up at me. “I know where I would like to go on our last day.”
“Anywhere,” I whisper, relieved that she is still giving me a chance.
“But you can’t ask where we are going, or why. All questions must wait until afterwards. Deal?”
“Deal.”
True to his word, Adam doesn’t question me on why and who I’m going to see. We drive the three hour trip in almost complete silence. I’m lost in my own world and him in his. I can’t think about what is on his mind right now or try to figure out what is happening between us. I’m about to see my father in prison. Horrible images come to mind as I think about my father in such a miserable place. This is the man who would sit at the foot of my bed when I was little and afraid of the monsters that hid under the bed.
I need Adam to see this part of my life, to see why he doesn’t want to get involved with me. While he will not see the inside or the person who I call Dad, he’ll get the idea. Not only is this my present, but it will also be my future. What will happen to my father when he gets out? He will need a place to live, a place to get back on his feet, and someone to support him, and that someone is me. After my last meeting with Mr. Basest, its clear Dad is not getting out anytime soon. I have helped as much as I can, and now we just have to wait until his trial date.
We pull into the parking lot. Adam is sitting so still I almost forgot he was in the same car. “If you want to leave I understand,” I whisper. He looks over at the chain-link fence wrapped in barbwire and to the guard tower, before reaching over the center console and taking my hand.
“There is no place I’d rather be.”
“You’re not allowed in, because you aren’t on the visitor’s list, so—”
“Katie, it’s okay. I will be right here waiting for you.”
“Adam, don’t you get it?” I turn so I’m facing him, so I can look into his steel-colored eyes and see the truth behind them, to see the disappointment that I’m not the perfect girl.
“This is where my father is. He is here because he tried to keep the façade of our perfect life up. Don’t you get that I’m not perfect? That I’m a mess.” I can’t keep the tears away; hot tears pour down my face.
Adam reaches over, taking me into his arms. I fold easily into them, burying my face in his shirt. “I don’t want you to be perfect. I want you just the way you are, mess and all,” he says into my hair. I let the tears pool onto the fabric of his shirt. How did he crash into my life at the perfect moment? How can he want me so damaged, so beyond repair? I know that what Adam says is true. With him I’m safe, and he would never try to hurt me. That notion sinks deep into my bones and I know that to be true, that Adam Nash would never intentionally hurt me. I squeeze him tighter, burying my face into him and smelling the sweet, sharp, comforting smell that is only Adam.
He pulls me away so he can look at me; I�
��m a sniffling mess. “Now you go in there, and tell your father I said hi and I can’t wait to meet him in a year, or ten. That no matter what I will be here waiting.” Gripping his shirt with my fist, I nod. He kisses me on the forehead, filling me with the strength I need to face my father.
The table is cold and metal; the small grate that the air conditioner is pumping through rattles. I shiver against the frigid temperature, I wish I wore a sweater. I smooth back my hair, pushing it back into the low bun I pinned up. Adam likes my hair down and loose, but this is not the place that one lets their hair down. Running my fingers across the top of the table, I try to ignore the eyes of the younger guard watching me. There are two of them standing on opposite sides of the room. The other tables are occupied, one by a man in a suit and the other two by what must be family members of the inmates. Just the thought of the word inmate turns my stomach sour and I have to fight to keep the bile down.
Finally, there is an announcement and a buzzer goes off, but I can’t make out the sound with my heart pounding, making everything else white noise. I picture my father an aging, weak man in prison orange, chains wrapped around his ankles and wrists. It makes my throat constrict and my chest ache at the thought. Then I see him. He is not in orange, but a grey sweat suit and white sneakers. His hair has taken on a greyer tone, adding to his salt and pepper hair so it’s more salt then pepper. A lump fills my throat, choking off my air supply, and more tears sting at the corner of my eyes as I try to swallow around it. He looks up at me and smiles, and that is when the tears fall, blurring out his image.
