by WB Amore
I’m walking out of the class when I slam into a wall of steel, stumbling I start to fall but I feel someone grab me by the waist pulling me to them. Taking a sharp breath the cologne is familiar, my breath hitches as I realize who I ran into. I don’t have to look up to know who is. I’m not sure what to do,
I’m always told to stay away from him but we were best friends at one point, I just miss him heaving a sigh, “Hey Liam.” Pulling back enough that I look up into his pretty green eyes and I can’t help but smile. With a smile on his face shaking his head he laughs, “How did you know it was me?” I finally start to pull away at the same time someone clears their throat. Looking for the sound I about choke when I find an angry looking Ryan. I try to smile softly as I say “Hey Ry.” It was probably more of a grimace.
Chapter Six
Ryan
As I head to my locker when I find Gracie in Liam’s arms, I don’t want to be angry but I know who Liam is. I don’t want Gracie to ever find out, If she knew she may not want him in her life, on the other had she may not care. She would probably be happy just to have him back in her life but the ties that he has would almost be worse for her then her own father. I won’t let him dismantle everything her father has done to keep her safe. With cutting himself out of her life, which also means I need to step back. If I don’t he’s going see how close we’ve become over this summer. What she truly means to me.
“Gracie go to your next class.” I tell her in a hard cold voice. I know I’ve never used that tone of voice on her but I need her far away now, and the kinder I am the longer it will take. “Ryan all Liam did was keep me from falling on my face! So don’t be an ass to him for keeping me from getting hurt.” I can see the sly smile trying to peak out as she asks.
“You wouldn’t want me hurt now would you Ryan.”
Pulling my eyes from Liam turning my sharp gaze to her and I hear the sharp intake of her breath and I tell her the truth “No Gracie I don’t want you hurt, but I do not want his hands on you. Now Gracie please go to your next class.” With a huff she looks at him “Thank you for keeping me from looking like a fool and for not being an ass to me. I’ll see you later Liam.” Then she turns her anger on me. “Good bye Ryan. I have a ride home so don’t wait for me.”
With that she is gone. Turning back to Liam “You need to stay away from her, she’s too sweet to have her eyes opened to this world, least of all by you.” With a sigh he leans back and starts in “Why Ryan, did I find a soft spot, or should I call it a warm spot. Hmm maybe even a weak spot.” I stiffen. I force myself to loosen up and I smirk “You wish Liam, she’s just a friend much like you were and yes I care for her like I used to care for you. I hope you remember what she used to mean to you and don’t hurt her. Take this as my one warning Liam. Stay away from her.” I turn and walk away leaving no room for argument.
Heading to Gracie’s locker. When I see her there’s a look of complete and utter pain on her face, causing me to stop in my tracks. I need to talk to her. She needs to know that I’m trying to protect her. Slowly I start towards her. “Gracie please let me explain.” She rolls her eyes.
“No Ryan I’m going to class we’re done talking. It’s always the same with you I’m protecting you, I’m keeping you from getting hurt. Well time for a news flash, all this so called protecting, it does nothing but causing me pain. So for today I want… No I need you to step back and let me be. I’ll find a ride home and when I’m ready to see you, I’ll call you, so just let it go and leave me be.”
“Damn it. We have a lot of things to talk about, let me take you home and hear me out after that I’ll let you go and leave you be, give me this, that’s all I ask. Please Gracie.”
“OK Ryan, you can tell me on the way to my house but not another word until then do you understand?” I smile at her and nod my head yes but little does she know we have all but one class together for the rest of the day. As she turns to leave I have to ask “Gracie are you sure you don’t want me to say another word the whole day?” With a small sigh she says “Please Ryan if we have to have words about anything today not one word about anything that’s happened today, no feelings, nothing personal, just school. Think you can manage that?” My smile is getting bigger because she really has no clue what’s in store for the rest of the day.
“I’ll leave you alone until you tell me to talk.” She turns around and sees my smile now she’s trying to fight the smile as she shakes her head and says,
“I think that is the best idea you’ve had all day. Now shouldn’t you be getting to class?”
“Oh I’m going to class, see you soon Piccolina.”
“Talk to you after school Ryan.”
I watch her leave and I know she’s going to be pissed when she catches me in the rest of her classes. With that thought I can’t help but smirk, she’s going to think I planned it, I honestly didn’t but her and my fathers may have had something to do with it, but that won’t ever get out.
Chapter Seven
Gracie
I’m headed to Government, my last class before lunch and all I can think about is the anger in Ryan’s eyes when Liam had his arms around me. I don’t get it, something as innocent as Liam keeping me from falling, pisses him off. I can’t think about this now, shaking my head, I take a seat in the far row near the back by the window. I’m staring out the window when I hear someone take the seat behind me, but I’m still so pissed off about Ryan so I pay no attention to whomever took the seat behind me. I hear Mrs. Adams shut the door and start taking role but I’m still not really paying attention. I’m forced out of my daze when I hear Mrs. Adams call Ryan DeLuca and hear his voice right behind me. Snapping my head around, so fast I may get whiplash. All I can say is “What the fuck” but thankfully it barley comes out as a whisper and when he looks at me and smirks but doesn’t say a word,
“Oh for the love… Why me?” I say as I look to the ceiling.
I turn around because I can’t believe he’s in this class. I zone back out until I feel someone kick my chair with a curse under my breath I look up and hear Mrs. Adams call my name “Here” I say and go back to looking out the window. I hear her talking about what we’re going to be doing this semester but I’m not really paying attention. When I feel a tap on my shoulder I turn to look at Ryan, I don’t say a word just cock my right brow at him and when he doesn’t say anything I snap, “What do you want Ryan?” When he still doesn’t say anything I finally sigh, “Ok Ryan, this is probably school related what can I do for you?” After a minute of just staring at me he finally answers me. “Did you not hear her say that we all have a group project for the semester?” Shaking my head at him because I really didn’t hear anything she said. I can see the corner of his mouth turning up like he wants to smile. “So who’s your partner?” He flashes a beaming smile at me, shaking my head back and forth no, no way. “You are Piccolina.”
Well shit there goes not talking to him for the class. “Well I guess we’ll be talking today, won’t we?” we discuss what our project options are and how we’ll go about taking time to do this along with the other class project we were paired up on. I’m putting my bag over my shoulder when I feel a slight tug on my back pack when I look back, I see that Aurora has slid between Ryan and I, “I’m so happy to see you Rori! I’ve missed you!” I squeal throwing my arms around my best friend.
“I’ve missed you too! Two weeks seem like forever!”
“How is your gram?”
“Well she got to go home, after a week in the hospital where they pumped her full of antibiotics for pneumonia, which is much better. So they let her go home a few days ago.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. When did you get home and why didn’t you call me?”
“Well it was after eleven when I got home, I was pretty sure that you were asleep.”
“I actually wasn’t but I’ll let it slide this once.” I feel another tug on my backpack, Rori has a sly grin on her face. I turning to look at who pulled at my bag
, I’m shocked to see Liam with a little grin on his face.
“Hey Liam, How’s your day going?”
“Good I saw you two in here on my way to lunch, thought I would come and say hi. What do you two say you, want to join me for lunch?”
Rori and I both say “Sure” at the same time. With that we turn to head over to the cafeteria, when I walk in I see Ryan sitting at a table, scowling when he sees Liam walk in on right behind me, his scowl deepens as Liam put his hand on my lower back leading me away from Ryan. Liam gets his lunch and sense Rori and I bring our own. We decide to take a table outside in the nice warm sun. Lunch is almost over when I catch a movement on the side of the school, turning to look I see two of Ryan’s fighter buddies talking as if they are waiting for something to happen. Just as I start to scan the courtyard for Ryan, Liam snaps his fingers in front of my face trying to grab my attention.
“What Liam?”
“Where did you go Gracie?”
“Nowhere. I’m going to throw away my trash, want me to throw anything away for you?” Rori hands me her little brown bag of trash while Liam just watches me and shakes his head no. Walking to the trash can that happens to be next to Ryan’s friends, when Ryan comes out of nowhere and cuts me off “Where are you going Gracie?” as I lift the two bags that are trash in front of his face. He cocks a brow at me and steps away from me allowing me to pass just as Beni and Richie step forward with a sigh I stop turning to look at Ryan “What do you want Ryan?” he just looks at me never saying anything so finally Beni steps forward, “Gracie you shouldn’t be hanging out with Liam, he’s trouble. It’s not safe.” This causes me to laugh, causing them to scowl. I’m finally able to get ahold of myself and just look at him.
“Really Ryan? You want to tell me, who’s good and who’s bad for me to hang out with? Maybe you should take a look in the mirror and stop coming over and talking to me. I know you do shady shit, so what makes your shady any different than anyone else? What makes you special?” With that I throw the trash away and turn around and walk away.
I hear Rori and Liam say something as I grab my bag, but I keep walking and head to my locker. I don’t have a book for Econ, so I just grab a new notebook and head to class with Mrs. Cooper. I pay no attention to who’s around me, I just go to class, I don’t pay attention to who’s in this class or what’s going on in class and before I know it the bell rings. Next I have P.E. so I don’t even bother going to my locker just head to the locker rooms.
When I get there Rori’s there. I’m excited that we finally have a class together
“Hey Rori.”
“Hey what happened earlier?”
“Nothing, just Ryan being an over baring ass hat.”
“Did you bring your gym clothes?”
“No, I forgot.”
“Well you’re in luck I grabbed two shorts and two shirts.”
“Ha, leave it to you to bring double.”
“Well I knew you would forget.”
“Whatever! You always do this! You’re almost always over prepared.”
Taking the shirt and shorts and walking to the locker next to hers I pull my backpack off and my hoodie. When I look at Rori she shakes her head and asks “Do you have a lock for you locker?” I hang my head with a smile on my face, I can’t help it she knows me all too well. With a laugh I look at her and shake my head no “If I didn’t bring my gym clothes what makes you think I remembered my lock?” The look she gives me makes me take a step back like she might smack me…
“Ok smart ass you want to put your stuff in my locker?”
“Are you going to smack me if I get close to you?”
She finally lets out a laugh and shakes her head no and turns back to her locker. I scoot closer to her to hang my backpack up and I bump hips with her and making us both fall into a fit of giggles. “Rori I really missed you, I feel like you were gone forever.” She lets out a sigh “I know me too, but I am glad I got to spend that time with Grams, even if she was in the hospital most of the time… you know her she made it fun, though I’m not sure that her nurses would agree that it was fun.” We both fall into more giggles as we change. We finished getting ready and headed into the gym. Walking into the gym I see Liam and Ryan talking to each other so I loop my arm through Rori’s and head in the other direction. That’s not something I want to get in the middle of, not now… Maybe not ever. After about five minutes of sitting on the bleachers Rori finally can’t take the silence “What the hell was that about?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh bull, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Why did it look like Ryan and Liam were about to fight each other?”
I let out a big sigh as I watch the two. They aren’t arguing any more but they both look really pissed off.
“Earlier when I was walking out of English I ran into Liam and almost fell over. He got super mad when he found me wrapped in Liam’s arms, neither one of us let go immediately. When Ryan walked up and I was still wrapped in Liam’s arms, they had words. Then at lunch today Ryan and I had words and well… They weren’t very pretty either.”
“Awe, that makes sense.”
“Are you nuts? How the hell does that make sense? Those two are freaking crazy. They have no reason to fight, both of tell me tell me I don’t know the other like I think I do. Though Liam’s not near as bad as Ryan, but I’m getting so sick of hearing it. Well, they can both butt out for a while and just leave me be.”
She starts laughing, like deep in your gut laughing. I smack her once in the leg but all it does is make her laugh harder and I can’t help but smile. I have no clue what she thinks is so funny but I’m glad to see her happy after the scare with her gram. Looking up I see everyone staring at us.
“Aurora shut it, everyone’s looking over here.”
“Oh Gracie you know I don’t care what they think.” She says with a giggle.
“No but now both Ryan and Liam are heading over here.” That shut her up real quick.
“Well shit.”
Just as the words leave her mouth Coach Harper walks in “OK class while it’s nice outside I want to take you all outside and have you run your mile. We’ll do it now and at the end of the semester.”
With a lot of groaning from all the class, we all start to head out the doors. I notice that Liam is talking to coach and Ryan is almost to the door. When we get out to the track I see a lot of students already running. What they don’t know is coach will make them restart so he can time them, with that I sit down and start to stretch. After all of the training I’ve helped Ryan do, getting ready for his fights a mile will be a walk in the park. My shoulders tense at the sound of footsteps, when I look up I’m very relieved to see its just coach.
“Gracie are you going to join the track team this year?”
“Well I missed the tryouts this summer and honestly I’m not sure if I want to run this year.”
“Well how about this you can use this mile as your tryout if you want to join, but I’m going to tell you I know you helped Ryan over the summer train for fights and you were on the team last year so I’m not really worried about you not doing very well today we see what your time is and you can think on it sound good?”
With a smile I tell him “ok coach sounds good but I’m not pushing today just a lazy run.”
With a laugh he walks over to the track.
“What the hell Gracie, why didn’t you do tryouts this year?” Rori finally asks me.
“Shit, no one else noticed. I was just going to skate by, pretend like I never ran track. Damn it. Come on Rori let’s get this shit over with.”
With that we both get up and head over to where coach is, he has finally stopped everyone who was running. We all line up and wait for the count to go. Coach counts down and yells GO! Everyone takes off while I just kind of jog. Rori doesn’t bother to stay with me she knows I run well enough to catch up if I want to. While I run I take this time to reflect on my day starting from waking up i
n Ryan’s arms and the dream I had, while I have no clue where that came from, I think I’m afraid to lose Ryan for any reason. I continue to think about all the bullshit in his truck, I know it was less about my dad and more with the fear of losing him, shit how do I even explain this I know he’s going to want to push me.
I know that once we graduate I’ll be going to college and there’s no chance Ryan will go with me. His father wants him to stay and be in the family business running the gym. All Ryan wants to do is follow his dream of being an MMA Fighter. With those two roads alone I won’t ever see him even if I don’t go away to college. This makes me wonder if I should start to push him away, well shit I think as I start to run faster, I let out a laugh, this is why coach says I’m so good at running I can’t get out of my head and when I get mad I feel the need to run faster, with a sigh I shake my head, I’m now on my second lap with no intention of slowing down looking up at coach who has a satisfied smile on his face. I grunt and push forward I can’t stop thinking about all that’s happened today. Damn it, coach knew once I got this started I would have to join the team!
