by Liz Fichera
I wasn’t about to tell Trevor that the dude was Riley Berenger, although I wasn’t sure she’d had a motorcycle in mind when she suggested it. “No one you know,” I said. “Just a friend.”
Trevor smirked. “Uh-huh. You got a girlfriend now, don’t you?” His eyebrow arched.
“No!” I said. “Well, yes. I mean, no. Well, kind of.”
Trevor chuckled, his arms across his chest. “Which it is?”
I looked straight back at him and sighed. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea. All I can tell you is this girl confuses the hell out of me.”
Trevor patted me on the shoulder, still laughing. “S’okay, Sam. Take it easy. Girls have a way of doing that to us.”
I looked back at the bike and my stomach sank again. “But I don’t have the money on me.” I couldn’t peel my gaze away from the bike. I thought that if I didn’t keep staring at it, my future would disappear into thin air.
Trevor raised his palm. “Don’t worry about the money tonight. Give it to me whenever.”
“For real?”
“It’s yours. Take it!”
“I really don’t know what to say.” I shook my head, breathing hard. It was the most beautiful moment in my whole life. Finally, my own wheels. I felt ten feet tall.
“Don’t say anything. Just jump on her and ride. Just like I’ve showed you.” He reached around to a metal shelf in the corner, grabbed a black helmet and tossed it at me.
I caught it in one hand, cradling it.
He grinned. “At least now I don’t have to give you a ride home.”
A smile stretched across my face that could wrap clear around my head and back again.
The key was already in the ignition, a white rabbit’s foot dangling from the ring. Trevor turned it. He grabbed the bike by the clutch lever and shifted it into Neutral as he kicked the stand sideways. Then he pushed the bike from beneath the carport. He’d let me ride his bike lots of times in the past. The first time was when I was fourteen. I’d made circles in the desert and driven down dirt roads, but I had never taken it off the Rez.
“Jump on.” He moved to the side, and I reached for the levers. “Feels familiar, right?” His grin widened.
Familiar? I grinned back. The bike fit me like a glove. I put the helmet on the ground and then swung my leg over the seat, sinking into the leather. I twisted the throttle and let the engine growl a little louder. It was the most beautiful sound in the world. The sound of freedom.
“Pretty sweet ride, ain’t she?” Trevor said over the engine.
Sweet didn’t exactly describe it. Heaven? Winning the lottery? Nothing was better than this bike, my hands getting reacquainted with the levers like they were old friends. I didn’t know what to say. I’d walked over to the Odays’ simply to talk to Trevor. I hadn’t expected to leave with a rockin’ motorcycle! I knew my mother would be all sorts of crazy when she saw it, but I was too stunned, too elated, to care. Dad? He’d hardly notice.
Trevor looked down at the gas gauge. “She’s gonna need some gas soon. Only got a quarter of a tank. Come by the station tomorrow. I’ll even give her a bath for you.”
“I’ll bring your money, too.”
“No rush. Just take good care of her, okay?”
I nodded. I wanted to hug the guy, but of course, I didn’t.
“Chicks always dig guys who ride,” Trevor said, his arms crossed over his chest again. “Remember that, Sam.”
I felt heat rush up my neck and I was thankful that the sky was almost black. “I’m just glad I can get myself to school.”
Trevor smirked, like he didn’t quite believe that was my real reason for wanting the bike.
“Seriously, dude,” I said. “I’ll take care of her. Promise.” I scooped the helmet off the ground.
“Oh, I know you will. Got no doubts on that.” He moved to the side so that I could idle the bike to the dirt path that led away from the trailer. But then he reached for the right lever, stopping me. “Hey, you want to wait around for Fred?” His tone was equal parts hopeful and doubtful. “Still early.”
“Nah,” I said, feeling all fidgety again. “Better get home. I got homework to do.”
Trevor’s nose wrinkled. He didn’t believe me, either. But he lifted his hand and waved me away, anyway.
Homework? Seriously? I wanted to ride all the way to Tucson and back on my brand-new bike. I wanted to fly.
Just when you didn’t think the universe could be any crueler, it threw you a bone.
Trevor’s nose wrinkled again but this time he lifted his chin and sniffed the air. Over the engine he yelled, “Hey, dude. Wait. Are you…wearing perfume?”
I shook my head and exhaled. “Don’t ask.”
And then I sped away.
31
Riley
As I waited for Drew to pick me up for Jay Hawkins’s party on Friday night, the phone rang throughout the house.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Riley.” It was Fred. “Ryan around?”
I pulled my shoulders back, steadying my resolve. Then I swallowed. “No,” I lied. Ryan was in the shower. I swear he took longer showers than I did. “Isn’t he at your house?” I added. The one thing about lying is that it gets easier the more you do it. And I’d been doing my fair share lately. Nothing major—just a little fib here and there to get Sam and Fred in the same hemisphere and see if nature could take its course. I thought I’d seen Fred weakening a couple of times this week, especially when she’d looked at Sam as if she were seeing him for the first time, now that he dressed like he cared. Now that his face wasn’t hidden by waves of uncombed hair. And it wasn’t just my imagination that he was looking more confident, too.
“Ryan was supposed to call me,” Fred said. “At least, I thought he said he would.” Good thing Fred didn’t have a cell phone, either, or getting Fred and Sam together would be just about impossible.
“Were you going to Jay’s party tonight?” It really wasn’t a question, because who in their right mind wasn’t going?
“I was planning to. With Ryan,” Fred said. “But he was supposed to have called by now.”
“Huh,” I said. “That’s odd. At dinner Ryan mentioned something about going out tonight with a bunch of people to the movies. Something about a new action flick.” I paused to run my tongue across my dry lips, ignoring the bitter taste that came with distorting the truth. “But you should totally still come to Jay’s party. Everybody will be there. Why don’t you catch a ride into Phoenix with Sam?”
“Really?” Fred said, glossing over my suggestion. “Ryan didn’t mention the movie to me.”
“That’s what he said. But you could still come to the party with Sam, right? Maybe you could catch up with Ryan afterward?”
Fred hesitated and I held my breath, waiting for her answer. “Maybe.” Then she said, “You’re sure Ryan’s going to the movies?” It was hard to ignore the hurt in her voice.
“That’s what he said at dinner.” I maintained my innocent tone. “You want me to have him call you?”
“Yes, please. Thanks, Riley.”
“So, I’ll see you at the party? Everyone’s gonna be there.”
“Yes. If I can catch a ride.”
Drew texted me: Im outside. “Well, gotta go. Drew’s here. See you later.”
“Later, Riley.”
Click.
I returned the phone to the cradle and started humming. Being someone I wasn’t was becoming way too easy. Maybe this new Riley was the person I was meant to be? I grabbed my purse and the overnight bag that I had laid at the foot of the staircase and skipped outside the door and into a Friday night full of possibilities. “’Bye!” I yelled into the house before I slammed the door. Mom yelled something from the kitchen but I was already gone.
“Love the outfit!” Drew called from the driver’s window.
“Thanks!” I said, managing a spin near the hood of her car, careful not to reinjure my right leg. It barely throbbed today
. The only pink I wore was a thin strip on my belt, which I thought gave my outfit a cool, retro look. The rest was black. Black sleeveless tee, black jeans. I’d even painted my fingernails black.
“New shoes?”
I reached for the door handle? “You like?” They were black-and-white-checkered Converse. Very Gwen Stefani.
“Love,” Drew said.
“Good,” I said, shutting the door. “But I brought another pair in my bag, just in case you hated these.”
“Jeez, Riley. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you should definitely bottle it. You’re positively glowing.”
We assessed each other’s makeup and clothes as we drove to Jay’s house with the windows down, radio blaring. My fingers tapped against the armrest and my pulse raced the closer we got to the party. We were going to have an epic time. I could just feel it. I was part of the energy now, the hip part that everyone envied on Monday morning. And the fact that Jay’s parents were on a cruise somewhere on the other side of the world was the true pink icing on the cake.
Jay lived in the foothills at the end of Pecos Road, the dividing line between south Phoenix and the Gila River Indian Reservation. His house snaked up the side of South Mountain along with a few dozen others. The neighborhood wasn’t as cramped as mine and the homes were even bigger. It was as close to being in the middle of the desert as I’d ever been, other than that time when Ryan and I had raced across the reservation to stop Seth Winter from running over Fred with his pickup last year. That was crazy scary.
When we reached Jay’s street, cars and trucks dotted both sides from beginning to end. I thought we’d have to park on another street, maybe even at the end of Pecos Road. But Drew reached inside her purse and pulled out a vodka bottle, surprising me, as she wove her tiny car down the crowded street. She took a sip and said, “Fear not. I know a secret spot.” Then she handed the half-empty bottle to me as if we shared alcohol all the time. Tonight was full of firsts.
I tried to pretend I knew what to do with it, but the bottle felt strange in my hands. I didn’t want to be left out so I took a sip, just a small one. “Where?” I said. A handprint could measure the space between any of the parked cars. “I didn’t know you were so friendly with Jay. Since when?”
Drew chuckled before taking another swig and shrugged her shoulders. “Here and there.”
“And you never thought to mention it to me?” My voice grew louder but then she cranked up the radio another notch, blaring a rap song, before she pressed the accelerator as the car climbed up South Mountain. At the end of the street in the middle of a cul-de-sac, a two-story house was set deep into the side of the mountain. Lights brightened every window and at least ten cars covered the driveway like checkers on a board. I could hear music pounding from inside Jay’s house over the car stereo.
I stared up at Jay’s house. It wasn’t the outside that fascinated me but what waited inside. Two weeks ago, I would never have imagined being a part of this. I would only have heard about it with all the other losers on Monday morning who weren’t invited. In a way, I should be thanking Sam Tracy and my tumble down the Mogollon Rim.
Drew handed me the vodka bottle and I chugged back a long sip. This time, the burn lasted only a second.
Then, somehow, Drew maneuvered her car along one edge of the driveway, almost taking out the Hawkins’s mailbox before parking on a thin strip of asphalt next to the garage meant for garbage cans. She turned off the ignition so that all we could hear was a thumping bass from somewhere inside Jay’s house.
Surprise must have still filled my face as I looked back at Drew because she said, “What?” Her eyes were shiny. “What can I say? I’ve got parking karma.” She paused to drink from the now almost-empty vodka bottle. “And I’ve been here before. Lots of times,” she added, almost as an afterthought and almost as if she were letting me in on a big important secret, which she basically was. She capped the bottle, stuffed it inside a brown paper bag and then tossed it behind her seat.
I gaped at her. “How come you never told me?” Especially since she knew I had a crush on Jay. “And since when do you carry alcohol in your car?”
She ignored my second question. “Jay and I had the same babysitter when we were kids. Our parents have been friends forever. It’s not like we hang out, though.”
“Have you got a thing for him?”
“God, no. He’s all yours,” Drew said. “Jay’s like a brother.” She checked her bangs in the rearview. “Speaking of brothers, yours will be here, right?”
“Maybe.”
“Just maybe?”
“Maybe, but I really hope not. I’m hoping Sam will come tonight with Fred.”
“How’s the matchmaking going?”
“Slowly. But surely.”
“What if Ryan sees Fred with Sam and gets jealous or something?”
“That could be bad.” Really horribly tragically bad, but, oh, so good for Sam. My vodka lips sputtered. “Do me a huge favor?”
“Anything.”
“If my brother shows up, keep him occupied? Any way you can. This could be your chance, too—you know, with getting my brother.” I shouldn’t have said that but it was too late to take it back.
Drew looked like she could bust out of the car. “Absolutely.”
“He was asking about you today,” I blurted. I knew that was a lie, too, even as I said it but I was on a roll.
She grabbed my arm. “Ryan?” Her eyes widened another notch. “What’d he say? Tell me! Don’t leave out a single word.”
I cleared my throat. “He just asked what you were doing tonight.” In truth, he asked what we were doing so it wasn’t like a complete and total lie. Only a little selective pronoun placement.
She squeezed my arm. “And what’d you say?”
“I may have said we’d be here.” That was another white lie. Ryan didn’t know I was invited. If I’d told him I was, he would have told Mom, and then Mom would have insisted on picking me up from the party and there was no way I could survive the humiliation of that. Your parents waiting to pick you up outside a cool party? I think not. What I did tell my brother was that I was spending the night at Drew’s. That was all.
Drew’s expression was hopeful. “Oh, my god. I totally hope he’s here already.”
I smiled at her. I really needed her to shower Ryan with attention, especially when Sam showed up with Fred. In Drew’s defense, my brother did like her. He thought she was really sweet. But he thought kittens and rabbits were sweet, too. That Drew was my best friend did not work in her favor. I didn’t have the heart to tell her all that. But, who knew what could happen when you threw people together. People could surprise you.
“Let’s go!”
My head was buzzing with excitement and alcohol as we walked across the driveway to the front door. I recognized guys from the varsity football team, a few girls from the junior cheer squad, even a senior girl from dance club, who nodded at me with approval as we passed through the front door. I tried to look disinterested, like I frequented these parties all the time, but my cheeks tightened from holding back a huge smile. Plus I was biting down on the inside of my cheek.
Inside, the house was crawling with kids from school. If I didn’t know their names, I most definitely knew their faces. And they weren’t the faces I was used to seeing, either.
Music blasted through speakers in every corner of the room. The ear-bleeding levels only added to the excitement. From the looks of the place, I wasn’t the only person pumped to be at the party. Drew dropped my arm and wove her way directly to the counter, leaving me at the edge of the room. I bumped someone’s shoulder everywhere I turned but no one cared. I smiled to a few of them and head nodded to the music.
I stood on tiptoe, looking toward the kitchen for Drew, when someone dropped a heavy arm across my shoulder.
“Wow!” The voice was clear but faint.
I turned.
“Jay!” I yelled over the music, relieved. My whole bod
y warmed at the mere sight of his face. He had perfect boy lips. Completely kissable.
He leaned those lips down to my ear. His breath was hot, his words slurred. “Glad you made it, Mountain Girl. You come with Just Sam?”
I pulled back. “Sam? You mean, Sam Tracy?”
“Yeah. Just Sam.” His grin turned mischievous.
“No. I came with Drew.”
“Awesome.” Then his eyes traveled the length of me. “Been waiting for you to get here!” He fingered one of my pink highlights between his fingers.
My skin flushed all the way up to the tips of my ears. Jay was always saying the nicest things. This morning at my locker he told me he liked my tee. “I didn’t know you and Drew grew up together,” I said but I wasn’t sure if he heard me. Someone raised the music volume another thousand decibels.
Jay leaned down, his head bobbing. But his eyes smiled at me, along with the rest of him. Then without even asking me, he placed his wet lips over mine, startling me. I tasted cigarette smoke and beer. It wasn’t what I expected.
It wasn’t anything like Sam’s kiss.
But I wanted Jay to kiss me, didn’t I? I’d been thinking about what it would be like to be with Jay Hawkins since freshman year.
When he pulled back, he pressed his hot forehead against mine. “Been wanting to do that for a while. Got carried away. Sorry,” he added, although he didn’t sound sorry. He looked at my lips for more.
“Really?” I was barely breathing, barely able to speak, my eyes bouncing between his eyes and his lips, wanting to try it again. Maybe we just needed more practice….
“Really. I’ve been watching you, Berenger. How come we didn’t hook up a long time ago?”
Because you never noticed I was alive till now. “I don’t know.”
“There’s something special about you.”
Jay Hawkins thinks I’m special? I was too stunned, too happy, too excited—too everything—to do anything except reach up and put my hand on his shoulder.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight tonight. You’ve been warned.” His forehead pressed harder against mine. “You’re mine.”
My breathing stopped. “I’m not going anywhere.” I closed my eyes, leaning into him. I’d waited forever to have this moment.
