by Gary, Codi
“Nope, the sun is coming out to play and it will be a beautiful day to take a long drive on the chopper.”
Katie gulped a little at the thought of riding on a motorcycle for longer than three minutes. “I need to go home first. Shower and change.”
He sighed. “Okay, I’ll take you to your car and then I’ll pick you up with breakfast.”
Now that sounded perfect.
KATIE TOOK THE fastest shower of her life and wrapped her hair up in a towel. Heading into her bedroom, she decided to spend very little time primping, since a two-hour motorcycle ride would wreak havoc on her hair anyway.
She was just grabbing her light black jacket and her Skechers when someone knocked on the door.
“Great.” She looked at the clock and frowned. Chase was fifteen minutes early. Didn’t he know a girl liked to take her time?
Walking out to the front door, she looked through the peephole and saw it wasn’t Chase but Steph.
Pulling the door open with a confused smile, she said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
Steph cocked a perfectly arched brown brow and looked her up and down. “Well, you don’t look sick.”
“Oh, like you’ve never called in to work?” Katie said.
“Sure I have, but you don’t. Ever. Unless you’re dying, and only then because you don’t want to get anyone else sick.” Steph walked past her into the house, and Katie closed the door. “What’s up, Katie? This isn’t you. You don’t do weird things with your hair or dress like a . . . well, actually, the clothes are cute, but still. And the guy . . .” Steph said.
Katie was caught between surprise and anger. “What is wrong with Chase?”
Steph snorted. “Besides the fact that he’s got heartbreak tattooed on his forehead?”
“In case you don’t remember, I had my heart broken about eight months ago and I’m finally over it.” Katie laughed bitterly and said, “You should be happy for me.”
“I know that you were broken up over Jimmy and I was worried,” Steph said, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. “And if a little fling with a hot guy gets you back in the swing of things, then great. I just don’t want you getting attached to him and getting hurt all over again. And I don’t like the influence he’s had on you. You aren’t acting like yourself, and I feel like I don’t even know you.”
That stung a little, and Katie wondered why Steph was being so dramatic. “Why are you being so down on Chase? You don’t even know him. I dated Jimmy for years and you never liked him, but you were never this adamant. Is this really about Chase, or something else? I don’t think I’ve changed that much, and if I have, it’s because Chase makes me stronger. He makes me not want to be the meek little mouse and stand up tall and say what I think. What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s not wrong. You just used to care if you hurt people or made them feel bad, and now it just seems like you’re only out to please yourself,” Steph said.
“And what’s wrong with that? I have done what other people wanted my whole life. Why can’t I, just once, do what I want? Be happy and not constantly worry about what other people think!” Katie said, her voice rising.
“Because you’re better than that!” Steph yelled back.
“God, I am so sick of everyone saying that. I’m too good, I’m better than this and that and whatever. It’s my life and I want to live! You of all people should get it and support me. You’re my best friend, Steph, not my mother,” Katie said firmly, trying to calm down.
Steph’s face went red and she snapped, “Yeah, well, if she was here she’d be ashamed of the way you’re acting.”
Katie felt like she’d eaten six bad tacos and they were all making her sick at once. She had never been a violent person, had never even been in a fight before, but right now all she wanted was to slap Steph’s horrified face. Of all the things Steph could have said to her . . .
And part of you thinks she’s right. Your mom would be ashamed of you.
It was one thing for Mrs. Andrews to say something like that, but for Steph, it was almost unforgivable. She had said the one thing she knew would hit Katie the hardest . . . and hurt her the most.
Katie’s eyes stung as she growled, “Get out of my house.”
“Katie, I’m sorry . . .”
“I want you out of here now!” Katie yelled, her vision blurred with unshed tears.
Steph turned with what sounded like a sob, opening the front door with a jerk, and burst out of the house. Katie slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, trying to stop the tears from overflowing. Straightening up, she walked into the living room to sit down on the couch, swiping at her wet cheeks.
Steph was wrong about her. She was just having fun. Trying something new. And as far as Chase went, they were good together. She was happy, and Steph hadn’t respected that. Hadn’t respected her.
I’m sure she didn’t mean it. She was just worried about you.
Katie knew that Steph was protective of her. They had been friends since preschool, and Steph had always been there to support and defend her. While Katie had smiled and taken things with all the grace her mother had instilled in her, Steph had been outspoken and sometimes impulsive, shooting off her mouth without thinking. She had been Katie’s champion more times than she could count, but that didn’t give her the right to push her opinions on Katie now. Especially about what her mother would say or do.
Steph had loved Katie’s mother too, but that hadn’t stopped her from telling Katie that she needed to stand up to her. Tell her she was an adult. Funny how Steph had forgotten all that rebellious talk today and tried to use her mother to control her.
But it had worked, like kryptonite; Katie couldn’t stop thinking about what her mother would say.
“Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time, Katie? Boys only want one thing and if you give them that, you might as well show them the door.”
Another knock pulled her out of her own self-doubt, and she tried to sound normal as she called, “It’s open.”
Katie heard the rustling of bags and Chase said, “So I got you a caramel mocha and a chocolate chip muffin, since Gracie said that’s your usual. And I was actually thinking we could take a drive to Hailey instead of Boise . . .” He was standing by the couch and she tried to hide her red eyes, but he’d already seen them. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she answered, wishing her voice didn’t sound so nasal.
Setting the food down on the end table, he sat next to her and turned her face toward him. “Why are you crying, Firecracker?”
She shook her head. “That’s a stupid nickname.”
He tilted up her chin, studying her. “Maybe so, but I don’t think me calling you Firecracker really bothers you; you’re just changing the subject.”
“I’m fine. I just had a fight with Steph is all.”
“Already? What happened?” he asked.
She stood up and said, “I don’t really want to talk about it, okay? I want to get my hands on this mocha you promised me.” She grabbed the mocha off the end table and walked away from his penetrating gray eyes and his questions. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with either of them right now.
CHASE LET THE fight go, but he knew that something was really bugging her. They ate their muffins in the kitchen in relative silence, though he was afraid he knew why Steph and Katie had been fighting.
“Please, Chase, you can barely afford lunch. How are you going to pay for prom?”
Emily Wilson had said that after having sex with him in the back of his mother’s van. They had hung out for a little over a month senior year before he’d found out exactly what she really thought about him.
“You’re a hot guy, but I could never really date you. I mean, you live in that run-down trailer and you have no ambition. You’re going to end up stuck in this town with the rest of the losers.”
He came back to the present with clenched fists. Emily had spent a month with him and never knew a thing about
him. She’d seen a boy her daddy would hate and a way to make him squirm. She hadn’t even known he was leaving for Berkeley at the end of the summer.
But Katie wasn’t like Emily. She was sweet and she was interested in him, in who he really was. When she wasn’t constantly worried about what everyone in this pissant town thought, she was fun.
More than fun.
But whatever Steph had said had to have been about him, and about the way Katie had changed. If Steph had thought warning him off wouldn’t work, going to the source would have been her next stop. It wasn’t like he didn’t know Katie was just experimenting. He knew she was going to wash the streaks out of her hair and always keep her tattoo hidden from view, and when it was all over, she’d move on with her life.
Without him.
Chase knew this was all temporary. He just got to be the lucky guy in the right place at the right time, but he didn’t like thinking about Katie not being around for him to touch. That she wouldn’t be there to laugh at his outrageous comments or run her hands over his scruffy face.
He liked Katie. Maybe someday it could be more than like, but he would never know.
“All you are is trailer trash, Chase, and that’s all you’ll ever be,” Emily’s voice said, taunting him from the past.
Katie wrapped her arms around his waist and nuzzled his chest. “I’m sorry that I’ve been such a bummer this morning. You want to back out? Find something else to do?”
He looked down into those clear blue eyes and slid his hands into her hair, kissing her softly. “Nope. Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
She snuggled closer. “You say the sweetest things.”
Only to you.
That thought brought with it a rush of panic. He had to stop entertaining these serious thoughts about Katie. Adventurous and ballsy he might be, but he wasn’t stupid. Especially when it came to women, and to putting himself out there. Which is how he had lived thirty-three years without a single broken heart. A few dents to his ego, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a couple of beers and a warm, feminine body. But if he let Katie become special to him, he was setting himself up for a whole world of pain.
Come on, man, you’re just fooling yourself. She’s already special.
Breaking the moment, he slapped her ass playfully and said, “All right, since it is already close to ten and I have to open the shop at five, what do you want to do?”
She rubbed her injured posterior with a grumble, “Wow, I cancel my appointments for the day and you can’t even close your shop for a few hours? Nice.”
He saw the challenging look on her face and conceded. “Fine. We’ll put a note on the door as we head out of town.”
KATIE REALLY DIDN’T want to ride two hours on the back of Chase’s motorcycle, but she sucked it up and got on. The road to Hailey from Rock Canyon was an easy drive on a two-lane highway with lots of open space around them. Chase had brought a helmet for her, though even the extra protection didn’t calm her fears. She held on tight to his waist and tucked her head against his body.
After an hour she was squealing and yelling, “This is awesome!”
Of course she stopped yelling once she got a bug in her mouth, but she still loved the feel of the wind and the warm sunshine.
And the hot, solid man in her arms.
Chase parked along the main stretch once they reached Hailey and she got little tingles when he squeezed the hands she’d wrapped around him. “You okay?”
The helmet got in the way of leaning forward to kiss him, so she just said, “Yeah, except for the one bug who found its way into my mouth. Now I have bug breath.”
He laughed and turned his head to catch her lips in a kiss. When he pulled back, he teased, “You taste fine to me. Not buggy at all.”
Laughing, she reached up to unclasp the helmet and swung off the chopper. Catching his grin, she asked, “Why are you smiling at me like that?”
He slipped his arm around her waist to pull her against him, “Nothing, you just look good in my helmet. Very sexy.”
I’m trying so hard to keep things casual, and then you go and say something like that.
Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she said, “I’ve always fantasized about a tall, handsome bad boy taking me for a ride on his bike.”
He shook his head. “I’ve told you before, Firecracker, it’s not a bike.”
“Chopper, then. Are you going to kiss me or not?”
He kissed her and she leaned into him, not caring if anyone was watching.
I don’t want this to end.
Katie knew it would, though; he wasn’t the type of guy to stick around. He’d told her himself he didn’t like to stay in one place too long. He’d lived in six towns in the last twelve years, and when it got to the point that he was ready to go, he did.
Although he did say the house in Rock Canyon was the first one he’d ever owned. That meant something, right? Even on a subconscious level?
“I think your kisses are like crack,” she murmured.
Chuckling, he said, “If I’m crack, then you’re sugar. Probably why I can’t taste the bug. You’re so sweet.”
Katie melted at his words and pulled away reluctantly. “So, what do you want to do?”
Swinging off the motorcycle, Chase stretched out his arms and back, making his muscles twist and ripple. He was so wonderfully made; it was like a bunch of women picked all the best parts of a man and put them together to build him. Even the small studs in his ears added to his sex appeal.
“What do you say we just walk around? I haven’t really been up here except for snowboarding back in February.”
Of course he snowboarded. “Yeah, I don’t do that. Snowboard, I mean. The only thing I do in the snow is sledding down very small hills.”
Her stomach rolled excitedly when he draped his arm around her shoulders and said, “Well, maybe we’ll have to change that.”
She glanced up at him, and he looked a little surprised, like he couldn’t believe he’d said that. He might be regretting the slip, but it gave her hope. If he was imagining them doing things together in six months, maybe he wasn’t thinking this was just a casual thing anymore either.
Chapter Ten
* * *
CHASE PULLED UP to Katie’s house at half past ten and she was yawning as she swung off his chopper. He’d had a great time with her, making her try sushi, and laughing when she’d made a twisted, disgusted face. They’d checked out the town, and she’d told him about the different stars who lived in the area, even taking him to what she said used to be Bruce Willis’s house.
Afterward she’d shown him this beautiful place, where a creek ran just under the majestic Sawtooth Mountains year-round. They’d sat under a pine tree, him leaning back against it and her leaning back against him. She’d told him more about her mother, about watching her friends dye their hair or get second holes in their ears, and her mother telling her that employers didn’t want to hire people who didn’t look professional. She’d never wanted to do anything major, but her mother had not been a big fan of anything that altered the appearance unnaturally.
“That’s what started my list at Buck’s,” she’d said. “I was just sitting there thinking how I’d done almost everything she had wanted and I was alone, while other women who had done everything else had husbands and families. It wasn’t fair.”
He’d hugged her. “It’s not about how good you are or how many rules you follow. You just have to meet someone you can stand to live with for a lifetime and go for it.”
“Gee, that’s romantic. Not someone I can love, just stand,” she’d said.
“Girls always want to talk about their feelings and beat a subject to death, whereas manly men like myself like to just say, ‘Hey baby, you wanna do this thing?’” he’d said.
She’d burst into that charming laugh, ladylike snort and all. “Not all guys are like that.”
“Uh, yes they are, unless they’ve conformed to the romantic-comedy st
andard of what a relationship should be.”
“I’m not looking for the perfect rom-com relationship. I’d just settle for someone to love me for me.”
“You mean the sweet, docile version of you who cuts hair and never steps out of line, or the quick-witted, naughty girl who isn’t afraid of anything?” he’d asked.
“I want to be both. I can follow my mother’s ideals without letting people take advantage. And I can tell people how I feel without being brutal. I just need to find a happy medium,” she’d said.
After that, the subject had changed to her work. How much she loved cosmetology, creating something that brought people so much joy and confidence.
“That moment when I’m done blow-drying or curling and I show them their hair, it’s like they’re seeing themselves in a new light. They feel good and they walk a little straighter. Not that I always have happy clients, but for the ones that get that little spark afterward, that’s why I love it.”
He’d understood what she meant. She was an artist in her own way, just like he was.
They’d spent several hours in that place, talking, teasing, and touching. He couldn’t seem to get enough of being near Katie. She was soft and warm, with just enough spice. She really didn’t like to hurt people’s feelings, which he had to give her mom props for. She’d raised a decent human being.
While they were in one of the trendy shops, Chase had dared her to steal something, even just a key chain. She’d made it all the way to the door and stopped. Veering left to the counter, she’d bought a cheesy pink rabbit’s foot, and handed it to him for good luck. He’d taken it with a smile, knowing she wouldn’t go through with it. There were some rules that Katie just couldn’t bring herself to break.
While riding out of town, she had insisted they stop and try a fast-food place called The Snow Bunny. He’d stopped, but Katie’s description of the amazing food had left him doubtful it could measure up. He’d taken his first bite and groaned at how good the burger was. She’d laughed as she dipped her fries in the homemade fry sauce. “I told you it was yummy.”
