Fireworks: A Holiday Bad Boy Romance

by Claire Adams

  That’s how it always happens. My dad told me about this particular brand of misery a long time ago. At first, I thought he was just spouting the curmudgeonly conspiracies of his age, but I’m really starting to think he was right. “Every time someone decent and talented is about to get ahead, they’ll be overshadowed or dragged back down by someone with all the inspirational qualities of a cherry pit.”

  Dad’s not much of an optimist.

  Still, as I’m watching Zavala, I.—the I. apparently for Ian—I’m having trouble remembering why I’m so upset. For a minute, I even forget that it has something to do with the guy skating on the other side of these barricades.

  I didn’t even really bother looking at him before. I just wanted him to go away.

  It’s not his general look so much that captivates me, though his sometimes colorful sleeves of tattoos do catch the eye a bit. It’s the way he moves that gets me.

  He’s smooth, but precise. There doesn’t seem to be any wasted motion whatsoever, but every movement of his is a flourish. The guy is pulling some insane junk out there. There’s something else, something I can’t quite put my finger on, but whatever it is, I’ve never seen someone skate like this.

  I don’t know how I’ve never heard of him, but he must be some near-pro on his way to a business meeting that’s going to render him permanently ineligible to enter competitions like this one in the future.

  He’s riding a manual up to the rail of the fun box and he doesn’t need to do anything else. He could fall flat on his face and he’d still trounce everyone by at least twenty points.

  Before the last few seconds of the round click away, Ian makes what starts as the slightest gesture and the manual turns into a hardflip late kickflip as the clock runs out and he somehow manages to kiss the rail before his board is back on the incline and he rolls out perfectly.

  Mike who?

  Chapter Two

  Snooze Button

  Ian

  “…I’m not going to tell you again!” dad shouts and slams the door.

  The only problem is, I was asleep for the first part of the conversation, so that thing that he’s not going to tell me again—he might have to bend that rule a little bit.

  I’m not really dad’s cup of tea anyway. He was decent enough about the way I choose to spend my free time while I was still a teenager, so long as I kept my grades up and went to college after high school graduation.

  That’s probably what the old man was yelling about. I’m looking at the clock and I’m running late for my first day of the new semester.

  I get out of bed and throw something on. After my first class, I’m free for the next four hours, so why bother getting all nice and pretty for everyone? Not that I’ve ever been accused of being pretty. I think the tatts took care of that.

  I’m daddy’s little ray of gloom.

  So far, I’ve managed to meet his absolute bare-minimum requirements of me, so he can’t kick me out, but I’ve been riding that line for a while now, and I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to put up with it.

  Dad’s a rich lawyer, so I’m supposed to be a rich lawyer.

  I’m pre-law, sure, but that’s not where my interests lie. That’s just how I’m getting by until I get my shot. I’m not worried about blowing it, either. I just need one shot and I’m out of here on my own terms and I’ll never have to work a real job a day in my life.

  What can I say? I have ambition. I’ve heard that’s a positive thing to most people.

  I take a moment to admire the trophy from that street competition a few weeks ago. It was my first time going up against Mike Onomato. Everyone told me he was the guy to beat.

  Well…

  Dad’s waiting in the entryway, holding out the key to his new Mercedes, but I walk past him, muttering something about the beautiful fall air. I get my hand on the front door knob.

  “You’re going to be late,” he says. “It’s your first day. Do you think you could at least try to put forward an effort? Maybe even just pretend for my benefit so I don’t have to sit so close to your continued attempts to implode your future? Is that possible?”

  “You’re kind of high strung, dad,” I tell him. “Has anyone ever said that to you?”

  “You’ve said that to me multiple times a day since you were fourteen, son,” he says. “Now I don’t care if you drive or ride, but get in the car and leave that—” the jerk grabs the skateboard from out of my hand “—behind. I want you focusing on your classes. You’re coming toward the end of pre-law and soon you’ll be headed to law school as long as you keep your grades up, so this is the time for you to make your mark and build the—”

  I finish the sentence, “—build the foundation for an enjoyable and comfortable future for me and my family. I’ve heard the spiel, dad. I’m not that late.”

  He opens the front door, still holding my skateboard in his other hand.

  “You’re not a teenager anymore,” he says. “You’re too old to ride a skateboard to class.”

  “I’m a skater, dad,” I tell him. “It’s kind of what I’m going to be doing for a while.”

  “Right now, you’re unemployed and you live at home with me and your mother, so I think we can start taking skateboarding seriously as a career when it starts paying for your school and your housing and your…” he goes on.

  This is the most ridiculous thing about my life. I’m an adult, but I’m still under his thumb. I guess I could move in with one of my buddies from the park, but they’re squalor junkies and it’s all I can do to stand at their doors while they grab their shit.

  Maybe I could get a real job, but there’s not a whole lot of hiring going on around here. There’s a waiting list to work at the burger franchises. Maybe if I had some sort of marketable skill other than pushing around a wheeled board for the enjoyment of others it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but for now, I suckle the teat of my father’s wealth.

  I usually call it something different.

  “I’ll ride in the car,” I tell him, probably interrupting what he was saying, though I honestly couldn’t tell you for sure. “Just give me the board and spare me the speech, will you?”

  He turns his head away from me slightly, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes. It’s his lawyer stare. Maybe I’m just used to it, but I don’t really remember ever being intimidated by the look. It’s funnier that he thinks he can intimidate someone with a look than anything.

  “Fine,” he says and hands the board back to me. “Where’s your backpack?”

  “I’m picking one up,” I tell him. “I haven’t really had time to do much school shopping.”

  “You’ve been spending all of your time practicing for that competition,” he says. “You’re going to have to learn that there are things more important than hobbies in life.”

  “Wasn’t there an agreement that you’d spare me the lecture?” I ask.

  “I’m your father,” he says. “Until you’re doing what I think you should be doing, I’m going to lecture you relentlessly. It’s how we work as parents. Mothers nag, though. Fathers lecture and mothers nag. It’s a little different. I honestly don’t know which is worse.”

  This is his attempt to get back into my good graces, the old, “aw, come on there, champ,” routine. It’s almost endearing. The problem is that I’m twenty-one years old, and I’m a little tired of the, “aw, shucks,” routine.

  “So, did you meet any girls this summer?” he asks. “I’m sorry I haven’t really been around all that much. You know I had that big case and that just led to another one, and, well, you know how it goes sometimes.”

  “It’s fine,” I tell him. “You work hard so that I can blow your money on tattoos and skateboards. I appreciate it.”

  All right, so the buddy, buddy routine still works a little bit.

  “You can keep those through law school,” he says, “but you’re going to want to have them removed, at least up to the elbow before you go to work with a firm.�
�

  “What if I don’t want to work for a firm, but as a pro-bono lawyer that helps poor people sue rich people?” I ask.

  “What’s the point of that?” he asks. “If that’s your rebellion, you’re in for a shock, boy, because you’re going to find out those poor people you make rich are going to end up just like the rich people you made poor. Anyone’s an asshole with enough money in their bank account.”

  “You inspire me to be a rich man like yourself, dad,” I tell him.

  “There’s a sweet spot,” he says. “I’ve lived in that sweet spot my entire professional life. We’ve got enough money that we don’t have to worry about day to day financial concerns, but we’re not so rich that we think we need to build some sort of empire for the fact that we’re rich and we can.”

  “You should come and teach economics,” I tell him.

  “I really should,” he says. “Those guys you’ve got now haven’t been churning out any winners.”

  Dad pulls over somewhere near the center of campus and unlocks the door.

  “I know you don’t think this is where you want to be right now, but what you do now is going to have an incredible impact on what kind of life you can have later down the road. I’m not going to support you forever, Ian,” he says. “Once you’re out there, you’re going to need to have something that will provide for you and any family you may have down the line.”

  “Weren’t we done with the lecture?” I ask.

  “I thought I explained rather clearly that we’re never done with the lecture,” he says and smiles.

  As I get out of the car and close the door, I catch a look on my father’s face. It’s only there for a brief moment, but it almost looks like a tinge of pain at seeing me going back to school, like a parent sending his kid to kindergarten for the first time.

  Then I realize that he’s wincing at the sight of the board in my hand and the knowledge that that’s how I’m going to start this semester: riding up to class on a skateboard, tattoos popping out from under sleeves and pant legs, hair a wonderful mess, and yesterday’s clothes on my back.

  This isn’t the prestigious moment he’d envisioned when he scheduled this morning off so he could take me to my first day of fall classes.

  Not really my problem.

  I push the pine across the campus, then across the street to the building where my psychology class is. I get to my classroom without too many awkward glances.

  Really, I don’t like being the moron sitting in class with a skateboard under his feet, but I can’t miss a moment working. This next competition is the big one.

  Class is late in starting, so I dodged a bullet there, but most of the seats are already filled. I’m about to make my way to one toward the back when I recognize that chick I was trying to flirt with at the competition a few weeks ago and I change direction.

  The only open seat near her is directly behind, but I take it.

  “Small world,” I say, but she doesn’t turn around or otherwise acknowledge my presence or existence.

  “All right, class,” the professor says. “Sorry about the late start; how was everyone’s summer? Wonderful. Now, let’s get down to business: The human mind. It’s one of the most fascinating things—scratch that—the most fascinating thing that we can study, because through its ability to perceive and to process…”

  I thought it would be better to get the core pre-law stuff out of the way first, that having a couple of semesters where I only had to worry about generals seemed like the way to go at the time.

  Yeah, the professor’s still talking.

  Psychology is interesting as a subject, but I hate the touchy, feely direction it’s taken in the last few decades. Nurturing is great, and sure, it’s important, but sometimes people need to be confronted with the results of their negative behavior and learn that there are real consequences involved in being the dapper little snowflake that we’re all supposed to be now.

  Really, I think I’d be willing to tolerate living with my friend Rob. He’s about the sloppiest guy I’ve ever met, but there is that one big perk that comes with living at home: I don’t have to worry about a job.

  It’s juvenile, yes; irresponsible, absolutely, but them’s the breaks, and if I don’t have the time to do what I need to do with my board, I just might end up living dad’s pet fantasy of my life course.

  Speaking of fantasies, I have never actually found myself attracted to the back of someone’s head, but the girl sitting in front of me who caught me checking out what she was packing under her Vans shirt at the competition has every bit of the attention I’m not willing to let the professor borrow.

  Her hair is dark, maybe black, though it’s hard to tell with the highlights coming out under the fluorescent lights. The hair’s almost to her shoulders, but it gives way just in time to leave the curve of her neck bare, only it’s not bare, teasing the proximity of an angle with a better view leading below. She’s wearing a black choker. I caught a glimpse of some kind of pendant on the front, but I wasn’t looking that high as I was passing.

  I don’t know what it is about her, but even before she turned around, I knew that I wanted to talk to her. It’s something in the way that she carries herself. You usually only see it with people who’ve been skating for a long time, but I’d never seen her around.

  She’s standing up now, and my eyes don’t raise, they only resettle on the curve of her hips.

  She’s the only person standing and I should probably be paying attention to what it is that she’s saying because it looks like I’m up next for whatever we’re doing, but there’s nothing but the punch in the gut of my attraction for her.

  Now she’s sitting back down and the professor is looking at me. The rest of the class turns to look at me and I stand up.

  “I, uh…” I start. It’s very eloquent, I know. I think Keats said that at one point.

  I’m starting to regret my mini-fantasy.

  “Tell us your name, what year you are in school and what your major is,” the professor says.

  “Ah,” I say and clap my hands, eliciting a couple of raised eyebrows, but more generally, slight annoyance. “I’m Ian Zavala,” I tell the class. “I am a…” I actually have to think about it “…junior, and I’m pre-law.”

  “Pre-law?” the professor says. “Well, it’s good to know the constitution’s going to be in good hands.”

  I lean toward the girl sitting next to me, a very nervous-looking Asian girl who can’t be more than fifteen years old and ask, “Is she being sarcastic? I can’t even tell?”

  “What is one thing about you that most people don’t know,” the professor says.

  Apparently I hadn’t filled my obligatory time.

  “Uh,” I start again, beginning to become increasingly aware at just how foreign an entity these people think me to be. “Most people don’t know that I once caught my dad hiding money for one of his clients. I think the guy was a drug dealer or something—never came by the house or anything, but I used to go to my dad’s office after school when I was younger, and when I got off the bus and into his office that day, this crazy-looking guy with all these scars and just insane muscles was coming out of there and my dad was stuffing a duffle bag full of cash. I don’t know if the guy ever got his money back or not, but I know my dad lost the case. I’ve always kind of wondered if he blew the case just so he could keep the money, but the police don’t like to investigate—”

  “And let’s move on,” the professor says, and I sit down, hardly able to contain my laughter.

  Apparently, nobody here thought I was joking. Either that or nobody here thought the story was funny, but that can’t be it. I’m hilarious.

  Class goes on and ends, and I remember something about a big project coming up, but once those magical words, “We’ll start next week…” came out of her mouth, I just naturally tuned out.

  Out of class now, and I decide to forego my scheduled skate home to nap and go straight to the skate park near
the college.

  There are a few guys tooling around, but this park only really ever gets busy after everyone’s done with classes for the day. This is my favorite time to come here.

  If I ever woke up early enough, I could probably get in some time with the park all to myself, but mornings are death and coldness and burning eyes and certainly not the kind of comfortable dream or well-furnished nightmare I could otherwise be experiencing at six AM.

  I hate mornings almost as much as I hate the coffee most people drink to cope with their own hatred of mornings.

  It’s a tortured existence.

  My problem right now isn’t the street part of the coming competition, it’s the vert portion. Some jackoff got it into his stupid head that it would be great to have an all-around competition rather than three separate competitions. That way, the dickhead no doubt theorized, the best all-around skater would win.

  It’s not that big a deal. It’s just something that I should have learned before now that I just never quite got around to.

  I mean, I’m a street skater. What the hell do I know about vert? The parks around here don’t have vert ramps. How the hell am I supposed to practice for that?

  Everyone says it’s not that different. Once you roll in, it’s just the same board on the same wood. They never say what you’re supposed to do if you can’t roll in.

  There’s a concrete portion that equals out to be comparable to one side of a vert ramp, but I’ve always just done wall rides on it. It never occurred to me to climb to the top and practice dropping down. I guess I’ve just never really thought of this as a suitable substitution for a full vert ramp, but it’s close enough for what I need.

  I cruise around the park a bit, pulling a few tricks here and there, but mostly just eyeing that tall concrete fall into a curve which is supposed to allow for a person to become vertical again without crashing. I’m going to see if it’s really that simple.