“Everything okay?” Paul comes up to my side and puts an arm around my waist in a movement that seems a little more than friendly. I put my phone in my back pocket, which bumps his arm out of the way.
“What do you want to do now?” I ask.
“What do you want to do?” Paul asks.
Well, this is off to a good start. Neither of us knows what to do as friends.
My time with Paul starts off like any first date, awkward and forced, yet somehow comfortable. I guess it’s our first date as friends, and we’re still finding a rhythm to this new normal. Except, Paul doesn’t shy away from hinting he wants to be more than friends. I pick up on it in his movements and words. It reminds me of Bridgette, and she’s the last thing I want to be thinking about. I’m not sure how Paul handles it with Bridgette. He seems to ignore Bridgette’s desire, but I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to string him along. There may be the possibility for more someday, but right now the only plan I have is to be friends, even if my head defies my heart.
Paul and I sit on the couch in the living room, watching a movie together. The house is quiet again. Paul only invites me over when his parents aren’t around.
“Does your mom know I’m here?” I ask.
“We’re friends,” Paul says, his eyes turned my way. “She won’t care.”
He hasn’t told her. If he did, she’d be sure to be here and poking her head in every few minutes. I wonder if she does that with Bridgette.
Paul extends his arm up and over the back of the couch, draping it near my shoulders. I know he does this to other people, but it feels more than friendly. I twist toward Paul and move away from him touching me.
“Friends,” I say. “You can do that?” Because if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know how I can do it. It’s hard. Maybe it’ll just take time to get to where I’m comfortable being friends with Paul. There’re too many memories, and I’m not as at ease with Paul, like I am with Dylan.
“Friends.” Paul pulls out his phone and his face contorts while he looks at it. He pops off the couch, pockets his phone, and holds his hand out to me. “Want to go get some ice cream?”
“Your mom is coming home, isn’t she?” I still know Paul and can decipher things through his quietness. I only wish I could figure out why he broke up with me. I push myself off the couch and Paul draws his hand back with downcast eyes. “We’d better go then,” I say.
I gather my stuff and Paul leads me to his truck. Settling into the passenger seat, I grin to myself. I wonder what Paul would think if I put a bra in his glovebox. I can imagine his mom’s reaction if she found it. She’d ban me from ever riding in Paul’s truck again.
Paul drives us to a seasonal ice cream place. It’s only open in the spring and summer. It has a window to order from and you can eat at the picnic tables outdoors or take your food with you. I order a waffle cone with chocolate ice cream, and it’s not nearly as good as the one Chase made for me. It’s chilly outside, and we sit in Paul’s truck eating our cones.
“Oh, no.” Paul groans as I take the last bites of my cone. He gazes out the windshield at a Jeep pulling in. Bridgette is driving and Tara sits in the passenger seat.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. Stupid question. Bridgette and Tara are what’s wrong.
“I suppose it’s too late for you to dunk and hide?” Paul hunkers down in his seat, but Bridgette and Tara have already spotted us.
“And it’s too late for you to drive away,” I say. Bridgette hightails it over to us, with Tara on her heels.
“Hi,” Bridgette says after Paul reluctantly lowers his window. She leans her arms against the window frame and peers in at me over Paul. “What’re you two doing?”
“Getting ice cream,” I say.
“So are we,” Bridgette says, looking at our empty hands. “Want to join us?”
“Actually, we just finished,” Paul says.
“You can still join us.” Bridgette smiles. “We’re all friends, aren’t we?”
Internally, I groan and give the most massive eye roll I can. Whereas Paul and Dylan don’t hide the fact they can’t stand each other, Bridgette and I pretend to get along. I’m not sure if what I do is pretend. I’ve just never countered Bridgette until recently.
“I think we’re going to take off,” Paul says, his hand reaching to start the ignition.
“You can hang out for a few minutes.” Tara joins Bridgette at Paul’s window and then points between us. “Are you guys…you know, back together?” Tara’s eyes flick at Bridgette, while Bridgette’s jaw tightens.
“We’re friends,” I say, leaning forward to see them. “That’s allowed.”
Tara’s lips twist and downturn into a sneer. “You didn’t tell us you were hanging out with Ash tonight.” Tara addresses Paul, and completely ignores me.
“Well, I am,” Paul replies.
I clench my fists tight in my lap and my body feels tense.
“What should we all do together now?” Bridgette asks. She puts on her fake smile and leans into Paul. I can smell her perfume from across the truck.
“We’re going to take off.” Paul starts the vehicle, while Tara and Bridgette frown in surprise.
“You’re choosing her over us, your friends?” Bridgette asks.
“No.” Paul shakes his head. “It’s just I’m hanging out with Ash right now. I’ll catch up with you later.” He puts the window up, causing Tara and Bridgette to jump back. I pinch my lips together to not laugh out loud at their shocked faces.
“Thanks,” I say when Paul pulls out on to the road. “For whatever that was back there.”
Paul sighs. “It’d be easier if everyone got along and we were all friends.”
I chuckle. “Tell me about it.”
It takes Paul a second to understand what I’m talking about. “Oh, yeah. Sorry,” he says.
Paul’s stuck in the middle of being friends with Bridgette, Tara, and me. I’m stuck in the middle of being friends with Dylan and Paul. We have more in common than we realize.
FORTY-ONE
“How was your Saturday night with Dylan?” I ask Taylor at lunch on Monday. I draw out Dylan’s name. Taylor still hasn’t said much about her mystery guy.
“Great.” Taylor looks around, her black hair swishing over her shoulders, and leans into me. “Wonderful. I owe you two. Can we keep this up a little longer?”
“I guess.” I bite into my sandwich.
“Did you have a good time with Paul? Are you two back together?” Taylor asks.
With my mouth full, I shake my head with rapid movements and swallow. “No. I want to be friends a while longer.”
“Good luck with that,” Taylor says. “If something’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”
“True,” I say. “But I’m happy with friends for now.” I glance across the lunchroom to where Paul sits under a poster for A Night to Remember. He looks my way and I avert my eyes. I turn my attention back to Taylor. “Are you going to prom?”
Taylor jabs her fork into her bowl. “Still trying to figure that one out. Chad’s parents and mine want us to go together. He’ll be home from college then. I don’t know.” Taylor’s fork pulses against the side of the bowl with her hand movements. “We might have to do the whole dressing up thing, make an appearance, and then ditch.”
“How long can you keep this up?” I ask.
Taylor blows some hair out of her face. “I hope until I go to college. And what about you? Prom plans?”
My head rapidly shakes again. “Nope.”
“I’m sure there’s someone who’d go with you.” Taylor grins at me.
“Not interested,” I say. “And I’m Dylan’s excuse to not go.”
When I get home from work and enter my room, there’s a garment bag draped across my bed. I rub a hand across my forehead in frustrati
on because I know what’s in the bag.
“Mom!” I holler for her.
She’s at my door in seconds, a smile on her face. “Have you looked at it?”
I pick up the bag and shake it in her face. “No. I’m not going, so I don’t need to see it. You can return it.”
Mom shakes her head and takes the bag from me. “It was a good deal. You can keep it whether you go or not. It might come in handy for something else in the future.”
I roll my eyes and sit on the edge of my bed. “I’m not going,” I say again. Prom is less than five weeks away, and I have no plans to attend.
“You could go with friends. I’m sure Dylan or maybe even Paul would take you.”
“Mom.” I whine while she unzips the bag.
“Ash.” Mom lasers her eyes on me. “I don’t want you missing out on something your senior year.”
“You don’t want me to miss out on awkward dancing and an uncomfortable social situation in a dress and heels?” I narrow my eyes at her. “Sounds like a night to remember in stuff I hate to wear.”
“It’s your only senior prom.”
“Mom.” I try to get her attention because she’s removing the dress from the bag and making goo-goo eyes at it. “Did your senior prom make that big of a difference in your life?”
A puff of air leaves Mom’s body as she sits next to me. She nearly crumples the dress in her lap. “Okay, you’re right. Looking back, it’s a small blip in my history. I went with your father, and on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be encouraging you to go.”
“Thank you.” The dress in Mom’s lap drapes across mine, and I smooth it down. “It is a pretty dress.”
“Will you try it on?” Mom asks. “At least let me see you in it.”
“Fine.” I don’t sound excited. “But you should know I have plans to hang out with Dylan that night. I’m his excuse for him to not go.”
“He probably has girls lined up to take him.”
I roll my eyes and snatch the dress from Mom. “Which is why he needs me. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
I take the dress into the bathroom across the hallway and shut the door. Mom chatters on from my room.
“Is Nora going to prom?” Mom asks.
“She’s going to Nick’s,” I reply as I drop my jeans. “What kind of bra do I wear with this dress?” The dress is sleeveless with a black lacy tank style top over a turquoise bodice. The bottom is a full skirt of turquoise tulle which will hit at my knees. I’m not sure if the material over the shoulders will fit me.
“Whatever you want,” Mom hollers back.
I guess the sports bra I have on now will work for trying it on. The lacy top is stretchy and forgiving, and clings to my torso like a swimsuit. It also stretches to accommodate my shoulders and I appreciate the high neckline. The color is a little more splashy than normal for me, but I like it. It reminds me of Dylan’s eyes. My reflection looks back at me in the mirror and I twist to see the dress at all angles.
“Why is it you and Nora can find me a dress on the first try, and I never have luck?” I ask as I walk across the hallway to my room.
One of Mom’s hands flies over her chest and the other covers her mouth when I walk in the room. Her eyes might even be filling with tears.
I run my hands over the tulle skirt. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me in a dress before,” I say. She’s seen me in one at least twice before.
Mom waves her hands in front of her face, trying to dry her eyes. “You’re just so beautiful. So grown up.” She flaps her hands even faster. “It’s hitting me I only have you here for a little bit longer.”
“Mom.” I sit next to her, wrap an arm around her shoulder, and lean my head into her. I love how her hair smells of coconut. “You’ll always have me.”
“I know.” Mom sniffs. “Just not next to me like this. You’ll be off at college soon.”
“I won’t be far,” I say, enjoying the feeling of being next to my mom. “Plus, you still have Jacob.”
Mom chuckles and shakes her head. “That kid. He keeps me on my toes. You’ve always been the easy one.”
An exasperated noise leaves me. “I don’t know if anything’s been easy this year.”
Mom runs her hand over the tulle of the skirt covering my legs. “Would you have changed anything?”
I lift my head off her shoulder and furrow my brows. Would I? Nothing turned out as I planned. I finally shake my head. “No,” I say. “Even with all the trouble, I don’t think I’d change anything because it would have altered the outcome.”
“How?” Mom asks.
I shrug my shoulders, and the dress moves with them. “If I didn’t date Dylan, Nora wouldn’t be with Nick and she’s so happy. If Paul hadn’t broken up with me, I wouldn’t have gone on spring break with my friends. If I got the scholarship to the private college, I never would have tried water polo or even gotten the full-ride to Eastern.” I still wish I could have defended my state championship and remained valedictorian, but the sting of those failures isn’t as strong as it once was, and I don’t know what I could have changed to have kept those.
Mom straightens the neckline of the dress I wear and brushes her fingers over the lace on my shoulders. “Things do have a way of working out, even if it isn’t what you planned.”
FORTY-TWO
Things do have a way of working out, it’s just not always how I expect them to. Two weeks pass in a blur of training, projects, and managing friends. The triathlon is in two weeks, prom in three, and graduation in four. This trimester has flown by, and I’m creeping up on the end of my senior year.
It’s another Saturday afternoon, and Paul and I film segments at his house for our calculus video presentation. We ride road bikes around his neighborhood, and Paul has a sports camera on me. I’m on his mom’s road bike and we cruise the paved road. The road bike feels twitchier than the mountain bike, and it’s a rough ride on certain segments of the asphalt. We coast down a hill, and I’m enjoying the ride when Paul yells.
“Ash, watch out for the…”
I hit the huge pothole and it swallows my front tire. The tire comes out of the hole, but the bike is no longer balanced, and it veers to the left. I try to compensate, but Paul is next to me. We bump into each other, and before I even know what happens, I’m sprawled on the ground with the bike on top of me and Paul nearby.
“Ow.” The right side of my body aches and I think my helmet hit the ground. I don’t want to move yet, and I remain still. It seems everything hurts, but most of the pain radiates from my right hip. Paul crashed too, but he’s already getting up. He was able to brace himself for the fall, and I wasn’t ready.
“Ashley!”
I hear the thump of shoes running my direction on the pavement, and they get louder with each step.
“Are you okay?” Paul asks. He tries to untangle me from the bike.
“I just need a minute,” I say, closing my eyes tight. This hurts worse than the crash I took in the Spring Fling.
“Are you okay?” Dylan’s at my left side, on his knees, trying to help me up.
“Just leave her alone for a minute,” I hear Paul tell Dylan.
“I saw what happened,” Dylan says, and I feel his hands near my neck. “You knocked her over.”
“It’s not his fault,” I say between clenched teeth. “It was mine.” I let Dylan help me up to a sitting position.
Paul starts to unbuckle my helmet. “There’s a dent.” Paul examines the helmet after removing it from me and then places a hand on my cheek. “Did you hit your head?”
“I think…” I rub my head where the helmet hit and push Paul’s hand away. “It bounced on the pavement, but it wasn’t hard. It doesn’t hurt as much as my hip.”
Paul lifts the edge of my shirt on the right side and I wince.
“Do
n’t touch her.” Dylan’s voice is a growl.
“She was my girlfriend.” Paul glares at Dylan. “I’m just checking her injuries. She’s already bruising pretty bad on her hip bone.”
“She’s not your girlfriend anymore.” Dylan returns the glare.
“Like she ever was yours,” Paul says. “You only used her.”
“You don’t know anything,” Dylan says back. “You never deserved her.”
“And why are you always around?” Paul asks, his voice louder than normal. “It’s like you’re stalking her.”
“It seems someone needs to keep an eye on her. You’re not doing a very good job,” Dylan says, an edge in his voice I haven’t heard before.
“I do a better job of it than you,” Paul mumbles.
“Then why am I always the one catching her when you cause her to fall?” Dylan asks. I feel his grip tighten on my arm.
“I picked her up after what you did to her first trimester.” Paul’s voice is vicious, not his usual soft-spoken one.
“You shouldn’t have-” Dylan starts, but I can’t take it anymore.
My head doesn’t hurt, but it’s going to start if these two keep going back and forth with each other.
“Stop!” I yell and put my head in my hands. “Just stop. Don’t do this.” Both boys quiet down and look at me. “You’re not in a competition. Neither of you are my boyfriend. You’re my friends. I just need you both to be my friend. Now help me up.”
Paul and Dylan profusely apologize and take an arm to help me. My right hip screams in pain when they hoist me off the ground.
“Are you going to be able to get back?” Paul asks.
I lean into Dylan because he’s on my uninjured left side and shake my head. It’s only half a mile, but I can’t do it. There’s no way I can get back on the bike and it hurts to put weight on my right leg.
“I’ll bike home and get the truck,” Paul says and then looks at Dylan. “Can you stay with her? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Dylan and I watch Paul bike off like he’s in a race. I never even asked Paul how he’s doing, and I feel bad looking at his retreating form. Dylan holds me close to his side and I cringe anytime I move my body.
Cycling Downhill: A Sweet Young Adult Romance (Love is a Triathlon Book 3) Page 20
