Текст книги "Dare You To"
Автор книги: Katie McGarry
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 25 страниц)
The wad of cash feels heavy in my back
pocket. Even though I’m determined to see this year out, I also know that life sucks. It’s best to be prepared.
The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch. “I gotta go.”
As I walk past him, Isaiah wraps a hand
around my arm. “One more thing.” His eyes darken into shadows. “Call me. Anytime. I swear to you, I’ll answer.”
“I know.” It takes a second to work up the courage to say it, but he’s my best friend and worth the words. “Thank you.”
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“Anything for you.” Isaiah releases me,
and as I walk back to school my fingers trace the area where my skin still burns from his touch. He’s my friend…my only friend.
I pull on the handle of the same door I’d snuck out of and my heart sinks as the door stays shut. No. I broke the cardinal rule of ditching: always make sure you can sneak back in. I wiggle the handle. Nothing. I wiggle the other door’s handle. Same result. The dread sparks deep in my stomach and becomes a
flash fire of panic in a heartbeat. I can’t get back in, which means I’ll be busted when I don’t show for next period. When Scott finds out, he’ll burst a blood vessel.
With both hands, I grab the handle again.
“Come on!” I yank. The door gives. A hand flies out, snatches my arm, and drags me into the building.
I glance up at my rescuer and my insides
become liquid when I see the most beautiful light brown eyes staring down at me. Ruining the moment, their owner speaks. “I’m not sure this is what your uncle meant by showing you around.”
“Damn, my life sucks,” I mutter.
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It’s Ryan. I really hate this town.
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Ryan
SKATER GIRL IS ON THE LOSING END of this moment. She snaps her arm out of my hand
and glares at me with those unblinking blue eyes. “I don’t want your help.”
Winning feels great. Awesome. Drives me
higher than anything else in the world. The twisting and pressure that I so often feel—
gone. Winning leaves my muscles loose,
makes me lift my head higher, and damn if it doesn’t bring on a smile. “You may not want it, but you need it.”
The second bell rings and Beth slams into my arm as she stalks past. Twenty bucks she thinks she’s late for class. “It’s only second bell.”
She hesitates and her spine goes rigid. “How many are there?”
“After lunch?” I casually walk up to her.
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This is too much fun. “Three. One to
release lunch. A two-minute warning bell.
Then the tardy bell.”
She releases a slow stream of air from her perfectly shaped lips, and relief relaxes her cheeks. This girl is sexy, but she’s also a handful. If I hadn’t accepted the dare, I’d toss her into avoid-like-the-plague territory.
“What’s your next class?”
“Go to hell.” Beth rushes down the hallway and I pursue her at a leisurely pace.
Lockers lurch open and clang shut. Chatter fills the hallway. People stop and stare as Beth moves. Moves—that’s exactly what the girl does. She holds her head high and owns the middle of the hallway. A few kids have
transferred to this school since my freshman year, but they spent their first couple of weeks trying to blend into the paint. Not Beth. Her hips have this easy sway that catches the eye of every guy, including me.
Beth checks out the numbers over the doors, no doubt searching for her fifth-period room. I pick up the pace and fall in step with her as she pulls a badly folded schedule out of her back pocket. Her thumb skims the list until it finds HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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its target: Health/Physical Education.
The odds of winning just increased in my
favor. That’s my next class too. “I can show you where it is.”
“Are you stalking me? If so, you’ll get your ass kicked.”
“By who? The guy you made out with in the tree line?” I have a hard time believing that a man as great as Scott Risk would allow his niece to date Tattoo Guy, but maybe that’s why he switched her schools. You gotta love a man who takes care of family. “Sorry to tell you, but I can hold my own.”
Beth wears a scowl that could kill on sight.
“Threaten Isaiah again and I’ll kick your ass.”
I chuckle at the thought of the tiny, black-haired threat throwing swings at me. Punches from her would feel like a bunny biting a lion.
By the way she pinches her lips together, I can tell my laughter pisses her off. Time to end this bull. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”
“Helpful? You mean you’re trying to help
yourself. You’re a walking hard-on for my uncle.”
A muscle near my eye ticks. On rare
occasions, bunnies can develop rabies, and HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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Scott did warn me she was rough around
the edges. He failed to mention that razor blades are her softest layer. My mouth snaps open to ask what the hell is wrong with her when Lacy sidles between us. She shoots me a warning glare. “I got this.”
“Come on, dawg.” Chris waggles his
eyebrows and I realize he sent in Lacy to disturb us, thinking he interrupted me making a play. “Let’s go to class.”
“Yeah.” Class. I want to win the dare, but that won’t happen if I lose my temper. I follow Chris, willing to do anything to get away from Beth.
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Beth
The moment Ryan turns his back, I sag against a purple locker. The acrid smell of fresh paint fills my nose. Watch—the damn locker is
newly painted and I’ll have purple on my ass.
A hallway full of strange teenagers gawk at me like I’m an animal caged at the zoo. I swallow when two girls giggle as they pass.
Both crane their necks to get a better glimpse of the new school freak.
People judge. They’re judging me now.
“Your hair used to be blond,” says Lacy.
What is the deal with the people in this town and my hair? I barely recognize the girl I once claimed as a friend. We sized each other up in English, trying to figure out if the other was really who we thought she was. Lacy has the same chestnut-brown hair as when we were
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now. She nods at Ryan’s friend Chris,
indicating that he should follow Ryan into the classroom and he does.
“You used to hang out with cool people,” I say.
The right corner of her lips tilts up. “I used to hang with you.”
“That’s what I just said.”
The bell rings and a few remaining
stragglers race to class. Lucky me, I share another class with Ryan. I push off the wall, check for paint, and feel off-balance when Lacy follows.
The cliques split off as fast as cockroaches when a light shines. Ryan and a couple other guys relax at a table near the back as if they’re God’s gift to women. Their expensive jeans and T-shirts that sport their favorite moronic teams scream total jock. I hand my enrollment sheet to a teacher deep in conversation with two more jocks. They discuss baseball,
football, basketball. Blah, blah, blah. It must be a male thing to talk about playing with balls.
Lacy plops down at an empty table and
kicks out a chair for me to join her. “Ryan says you go by Beth.”
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I fall into the chair and glance over at
Ryan. He quickly averts his eyes. My blood tingles—was he really staring at me? Stop it.
The tingling fades. Of course he was. You’re the freak, remember? “What else did Ryan tell you?”
“Everything. Meeting you Friday night.
Yesterday with Scott.”
Fuck. “So the whole damn school knows.”
“No,” she says thoughtfully. Lacy looks me over and I can tell she’s searching for that pathetic girl from a long time ago. “He only told me, Chris, and Logan. The one with dark hair sitting next to Ryan is my boyfriend, Chris.”
“My apologies.”
“He’s worth it.” She pauses. “Most of the time.”
For four classes, people have ignored me. I helped the situation by sitting in the back of each room and glaring at anyone who looked at me for longer than a second. Lacy drums her fingers against the table. Two thin black ponytail holders wrap her wrist. She wears low-rider jeans and a green retro T-shirt imprinted with a faded white four-leaf clover.
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“How many people have you told?” I ask
her.
The drumming stops. “Told what?”
I lower my voice and pick at the remaining black paint on my nails. “Who I am and why I left town.” I’m fishing. Because of the
enrollment slip, no one has called my name out in class and no one’s mentioned my uncle. For today, I’m anonymous, but how long will that last? I’m also testing the waters for the town gossip. Lacy’s dad was a police officer and he was the first one to walk into the trailer that night.
“No one,” she says. “You’ll tell people about your uncle when you’re ready. It’s sickening.
No one gave a crap about Scott until the World Series. Now everyone worships him.”
A group of girls break into laughter. The same type of purse rests on the table in front of each perfectly manicured girl. Sure, the colors and sizes of the purses are different, but the style is the same. The blonde laughing the loudest catches me looking and I toss my hair over my shoulder as a shield. I know her, and I don’t want her to remember me.
“Gwen’s still staring,” Lacy says. “It might HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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take a few days for the hamster wheel
turning her brain to make the full circle, but she’ll figure you out soon enough.”
I might appreciate her sarcasm if I wasn’t distracted by the blonde. Gwen Gardner. The summer before kindergarten, Lacy’s mom
suggested to Scott that I go with Lacy to Vacation Bible School. I put on my favorite dress, one of two that I owned, pinned as many ribbons as I could in my hair, and skipped into the room. A group of girls in beautiful fluffy dresses surrounded me as I introduced myself.
To the tune of giggles and whispers from the other girls, Gwen proceeded to point out every hole and stain on my beloved dress.
That was the high point in my relationship with Gwen. From there, it went downhill.
“She still a bitch?” I ask.
“Worse.” Lacy’s tone drops. “Yet everyone believes she’s a saint.”
“And I thought third grade sucked.”
Lacy snorts. “Imagine what middle school
and training bras were like with her. I swear the girl blossomed into a C-cup between fifth and sixth grade. Thank God Ryan finally broke up with her last spring. I couldn’t stand being HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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within a foot of her a moment longer.”
Of course Ryan dated Gwen. I’m sure the
break-up is temporary and they’ll marry soon and create tons of other little perfect spawns of Satan in order to torture further generations of people like me.
We lapse into an awkward silence. It’s
strange talking to Lacy. It used to be the two of us against the world. Then I left. I assumed, in my absence, she’d become one of them—the
girls who were perfect. She had the potential to be one. Her parents had money. Her mom
would have bought her the clothes. Lacy was pretty and fun. For some insane reason, she stuck with me—the girl who had two outfits and lived in the trailer park.
I scratch off the remaining paint. Yesterday Allison bought me nail polish in the annoying shade of mauve. How can anyone look at me and think mauve? “What did your dad tell
you?”
Lacy’s pinkie taps the table repeatedly.
“That he was called to your home and that you later moved to another city.”
Surprised, I glance up to catch sincerity in her dark eyes. “That’s it?”
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“Everyone thinks Scott swooped in and
saved you. Daddy and the other guys that
responded that night let that rumor stand.” Her forehead crinkles. “It’s what happened, right?
You’ve been living with Scott?”
I scratch my cheek, trying to hide whatever reaction she might see. I could lie and tell her yes, but that would be like I’m embarrassed about Mom. And I’m not embarrassed. I love her. I owe her. Yet there are times…
“I cried for three months when you left,”
Lacy continues. “You were my best friend.”
I cried too. A lot. Thanks to me and my
stupid decisions, I cost my mom everything and I lost my best friend. Typical me—a
hurricane that leaves nothing but destruction.
“Go sit with your friends, Lacy. I’m bad
news.”
“In this classroom, those two guys sitting over there are the only real friends I have.”
Lacy drums her fingers once more. “And you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Your life must suck
then.”
She laughs. “Not really. It’s a good life.”
The teacher calls the class to order and I inch my seat away from Lacy’s. An unseen, HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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uncomfortable vise tightens my chest.
Normal people don’t like me. They don’t want to be my friend, and here is someone offering friendship willingly.
As the teacher calls attendance, Ryan’s name is read and he answers with a deep, soothing,
“Here.”
Taking a chance, I peek in his direction and find him staring at me again. No smile. No anger. No cockiness. Just a thoughtful
expression mixed with confusion. He scratches the back of his head and I’m drawn to his biceps. My traitorous stomach flutters. God, the boy may be an ass, but he sure is built.
And guys like him don’t go for girls like me.
They only use me.
I force my eyes to the front of class, pull my knees to my chest, and wrap my arms around them. Lacy invades my space and whispers to me, “I’m glad you’re back, Beth.”
A sliver of hope sneaks past my walls and I slam every opening shut. Emotion is evil.
People who make me feel are worse. I take comfort in the stone inside of me. If I don’t feel, I don’t hurt.
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Ryan
WAITING ON SUNDAY DINNER, I can observe a lot from my seat on the couch in the living room of the mayor’s house. For instance, the serious set of Dad’s mouth and the angle of his body toward Mr. Crane suggests that Dad’s talking business. Serious business. Mom, on the other hand, is laughter and giggles as she stands next to the mayor’s wife and the
pastor’s wife, but the way she fingers her pearls tells me she’s anxious. That means someone asked a question about Mark.
Mom misses him. So do I.
The power of observation. It’s a skill I need to play ball. Is the runner on base going to chance a steal? Is the batter going to hit the ball out of the park or is he going to hit a sacrifice fly in order to score the runner on third? Is Skater Girl the hard-nosed chick I HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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believe her to be?
For the last two weeks, I’ve watched Beth roam the school. She’s interesting. Nothing like the girls I know. She sits by herself at lunch and eats a full meal. Not salad. Not an apple. A full meal. Like an entrée, two sides, and a dessert. Even Lacy doesn’t do that.
Beth sits in the back of every class, except for Health/Gym, where Lacy patiently makes small talk even though Beth stays quiet.
Sometimes Lacy can get Beth to crack a smile, but it’s rare. I like it when she smiles.
Not that I care if she’s happy or anything.
What I find the most interesting is that even though she’s Ms. Antisocial, she doesn’t avoid people. Yeah, plenty of kids hide in plain sight.
They duck into the library before school or during lunch. They evade eye contact and walk in the shadows as if they can go to school and never be detected. Not Beth. She stands her ground. Owns the space around her and smirks if someone comes too close, as if she’s daring them to take her on. A smirk that dares turns me on.
“Are you ready for the quiz tomorrow?”
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the arm of the couch. She also happens to be the mayor’s daughter. While everyone else wears suit pants, ties, or conservative dresses, Mrs. Rowe wears a daisy-print hippie dress.
Today, her hair is purple.
Considering the fights my family has had
over Mark, I’m curious about the brawls that happen behind closed doors at this house. Or maybe other families find a way to accept one another.
“Yes, ma’am.” To discourage small talk, I shove a bacon-wrapped shrimp into my mouth.
Dad likes me to be at these occasional Sunday gatherings. I come in handy when the men
discuss sports. I used to come in handier when I dated Gwen. Her dad is the police chief, plus my mother’s friends thought we were “cute together.”
“I hated these things when I was your age,”
Mrs. Rowe continues. I pop in another shrimp and nod. If she hated them, I would think she’d remember that useless conversation is
physically painful. “My dad made me attend every dinner he threw.”
I swallow and realize that not once in my four years of being old enough to represent the HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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family have I seen Mrs. Rowe attend one of these functions. I consider asking why she’s here tonight, then remember I don’t care. In goes a meatball.
“I read your paper,” she says.
I shrug. Reading my paper is her job.
“It’s good. In fact, it’s very good.”
My eyes dart to hers and I curse internally when she smiles. Dammit, it shouldn’t matter if it was good. I want to play ball, not write. I make a show of staring in the opposite
direction.
“Have you thought about expanding it into a short story?”
This I have an answer for. “No.”
“You should,” she says.
I shrug again and begin to search the room for a viable reason to escape—like the curtains catching on fire.
A sly smile spreads across her face. “Listen, I received good news and I’m so glad I don’t have to wait until tomorrow to share. Do you remember the writing project we worked on last year?”
It’d be tough to forget. We spent the year devouring books and movies. Then we tore
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them apart as if they were machines so we could see how the parts worked together to create the story. After that, Mrs. Rowe snapped the whip and made us write something of our own. Hardest damn class I ever took and I loved every second. Hated it too. When I
became too interested or too eager in class, the guys from the team rode me hard.
“Do you remember how I entered everyone
into the state writing competition?”
I nod a yes, but the answer is no. Just
because I loved the class didn’t mean I listened to everything she said. “Why? Did Lacy win?”
She had a hell of a short story.
“No…”
In goes another meatball. That sucks. Lacy would have been excited if she won.
“You finaled, Ryan.”
The meatball slips into my throat whole and I choke.
DITCHING THE FORMAL CLOTHES for a pair of athletic pants and a Reds T-shirt, I lean back in the chair at my desk and stare at the homework assignment I turned in to Mrs. Rowe. In four pages, poor George woke up to discover he had become a zombie. My favorite sentence is the HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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paper’s last:
Staring down at his hands,
hands that someday would likely
kill, George swallowed the
sickening knowledge that he had
become absolutely powerless.
Why it’s my favorite, I don’t know. But
every time I read it something stirs inside me, some sort of sense of justification.
I run a hand over my hair, unable to
comprehend that I finaled in a writing
competition. Maybe later tonight hell will freeze over and donkeys will start flying out of my ass. It all seems possible at this point.
I swivel the chair and survey my room.
Trophies and medals and accolades for playing ball are scattered on the wall, the shelves, my dresser. A Reds pennant hangs over my bed. I know baseball. I’m good at it. I should be. It’s been my entire life.
I’m Ryan Stone—ballplayer, jock, leader of the team. But Ryan Stone—writer? I chuckle to myself as I pick the paperwork up off the desk.
All of it describes in detail how to continue to the next phase of the writing competition, how to win. Not once in my life have I backed HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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down from a challenge.
But this…this is beyond what I am. I toss the papers down again. I need to stay focused on what’s important and writing isn’t it.
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Beth
GYM IS AN ABOMINATION to self-esteem. While changing out of the white ruffled shirt into the required gym attire of a pink Bullitt County High T-shirt and matching shorts, I take stock of the other girls. They gossip as they change.
Most brush their hair. Some fix their makeup.
All thin. All fit. All beautiful. Not me, though.
I’m thin enough, but I’m not pretty.
The girls who really irritate me are the ones God gave everything to: money, looks, and a C-cup chest. Gwen is the worst. The moment she enters the locker room, she strips her shirt and walks around freely in her lace bra. Her nonverbal reminder that us B-cups are inferior.
Busting out of the locker room, I relax when I see the gym is empty. Most of the school is a no-cell zone, but not the gym. I desperately need to speak to Mom. It’s been two weeks HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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since the last time I talked to her and her last words to me were that pathetic
“please…probation” in the parking lot. Trent wouldn’t permit her to say goodbye to me at the police station. God, I hate him.
I duck under the bleachers, pull the phone out of my shorts pocket, and dial Mom’s
number. I’ve called several times over the last two weeks, but she’s never answered. Anytime after four she’d be at the bar. Mom told me once that you’re only an alcoholic if you drink before noon. Good thing for Mom she never wakes before three.
The phone rings once then three loud beeps answer. A calm, annoying voice states a
message of doom: “Sorry, the number you
have dialed has been disconnected.”
Regret becomes a weight in my stomach.
Last month, I could pay the electricity bill with Mom’s disability check or I could pay the phone bill. The electricity company sent a disconnect notice. I thought I had more time on the phone. I picked the electricity bill.
My throat becomes thick and my eyes burn.
Crap—my mom. I messed up. Again. Imagine
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have found a way. I could have taken on
more hours stocking at the Dollar Store. I could have sucked up my pride and asked
Noah or Isaiah for money. I could have done so many things and I didn’t. Why am I such a screwup?
I suddenly wish it was ten at night. Isaiah and I talk then—every night. Usually, it’s not for long. Just a few seconds or so. He’s not a phone talker by nature, but the first time I called he asked me to check in nightly and I do. His voice is the only thing keeping me sane.
I slip the phone into my pocket as everyone files into the gym. They chatter and laugh, oblivious to the real problems of the real world. I need to find a ride into Louisville and I need to find one fast. A sharp pain slices through my head and threatens to form into a headache when Lacy breaks away from Chris and Ryan to join me. I’m not in the mood for this—not today.
“You changed quickly,” Lacy says. “Are you okay? You look upset.”
“I’m fine.” But I itch to wipe my eyes.
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touch them around Lacy or anyone else. I
never cry and I’ll never let anyone believe that I’m capable of the moronic act.
“Five-minute round up!” Mr. Knox, our
health teacher, calls.
He wears a shiny whistle around his neck.
“On the bulletin board is every exercise you are required to perform in order to receive credit for this class. We will be spending three days in the gym and two in the classroom.
Some exercises you can do on your own.
Others require teamwork. You have two
opportunities to impress me, so I suggest that you use your time wisely and do not come to me for credit unless you have practiced the item to perfection.”
We stare at him in silence. Mr. Knox jerks his thumb behind him. “Get to work.”
I lag behind the others, praying that most of the exercises can be done on my own. My
insides twist as I watch people pair off into twos and threes to complete their assignments.
Left alone, I sidle up to the board and sigh so heavily that the posted paper moves. Surely I can convince Mr. Knox that I am, within
myself, a four-layered pyramid.
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“You can work with me.”
My heart stutters at the sound of Ryan’s
voice. Damn, why do I have to find everything about this boy attractive? His voice, his face, his biceps, his abs… stop it! I cross my arms over my chest and turn to face him. “I thought we had an agreement.”
“No. You threw a hissy fit on the first day of school. That doesn’t constitute an agreement.”
Ryan isn’t wearing his baseball cap and I love it. His sandy-blond hair has a golden tone.
It’s styled-yet-not-styled into the disarray of not quite curls that kick out in various
directions. Get a grip, Beth. Hot guys don’t go for loser girls. “Leave me alone.”
I walk away from Ryan because he shows no sign of leaving me. Stacks of equipment line the wall on the other side of the gym. One of the four items that can be completed on my own is jumping rope. I can do that. I think. I used to jump rope when I was a kid.
I grasp one of the ropes and twenty others tumble out of the box along with it. All of them knotted and intertwined. Gwen and a group of girls giggle as they gawk at me. I wonder if they’ll still be giggling when I turn and beat HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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them with the jump-rope knot from hell.
“Trust fall.” Lacy magically teleports in front of me.
Still holding the train of ropes, I glance up at her. “What?”
“Trust fall. Me and the boys are doing it and you’re going to do it with us.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Requirements say that we
have to have at least two girls in the group.”
I blink twice. “Go ask one of the girls
grooming each other like monkeys.”
“Those aren’t girls. They’re vultures.”
Ryan and Chris watch us. The other one
studies the five-foot platform we’re supposed to “fall” from. I ask, “What’s the guy with black hair doing in this class?” He wasn’t last week, but he is in my English class and had the balls to tease me on my first day. Platform guy is lucky to be alive.
Lacy waves him off. “That’s Logan. He
tested out of his math and they switched his schedule and the rest is totally not important.
Let’s go.” She snatches my hand and the rope drags with me until I remember to drop it.
She releases me when we reach the
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platform. Ryan gives me a condescending
smile. “Changed your mind? Don’t worry,
most girls do when it comes to me.”
I wish I had a jacket that I could pull around myself and hide in. I don’t, so I do the next best thing. “Did you have to bribe those girls with tacos or was that reserved for me?”
Chris and Logan chuckle and Ryan angles
his shoulders away from me. On the other side of the gym, Lacy kicks at a huge foam mat.
The boys rescue her by lifting the gigantic mat into the air like it weighs nothing, then tossing it in front of the platform. A spark of panic hurts my lungs. “What’s that for?”
“In case we drop you,” says Logan.
“In case you what?” Frantically, I eyeball the wooden platform that reminds me of a
diving board at a public pool. I can’t swim and I don’t jump.
“Drop you,” he repeats.
Lacy smacks the back of Logan’s head.
“Stop it. We won’t drop you.”
Of course they won’t, because I’m not
jumping. I step backward.
“What’s the plan, Boss Man?” asks Logan as he looks at Ryan. I snort and Ryan glances at HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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me. Of course, they see perfect Ryan as
their fearless leader.
Ryan rearranges the mat to center it with the platform. “Each of us takes one practice run.
We perfect our technique and then we show Coach. Logan, you’re first. That way if we have the wrong technique, we drop a guy, not a girl.”
Chris, Ryan, and Lacy gather around the
mat. I stay planted in my spot. “If you’re the boss, then why don’t you go first?”
“Because Logan’s crazy and would go first even if I didn’t ask. At least now someone’s here to catch him.”
“It’s true,” adds Lacy. “Logan’s too smart for common sense.”
“Fear.” Logan sits on the platform. His legs dangle over the side. “Too smart for fear.”
Lacy shrugs. “Potayto, potahto. Same
thing.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Shut it down,” says Ryan. “Come on, Beth.
You and Lacy take the area toward his feet.
Chris and I will handle his back.”
“Why, so we can get kicked in the head?
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That’s real gallant.”
“No,” says Ryan with forced patience.
“Logan’s all upper body. Chris and I are going to take the heavier part.”
Logan pumps his chest with his fist. “Solid wall, baby.”
“Less talking, more jumping,” says Chris.
“Let’s go, dawg.”
I take my place across from Lacy. Without giving me much of a choice, Lacy grabs hold of my hands and seconds later we grip each other tighter when heavy legs plop onto our arms.
“Son-of-a-bitch, Junior,” swears Chris. “You were supposed to count down before you
jumped. Drop his sorry ass.”
Okay. Lacy and I let go and Logan falls the remaining way onto the mat. He laughs as he scrambles up. “You caught me just fine.”
“My turn!” Lacy hops over the mat and
climbs the platform.
Ryan takes Lacy’s place across from me and offers me his hands. I stare down at them. I don’t touch people and they don’t touch me. I mean, Lacy has, but it’s different. We used to be friends, even if was a long time ago. Sweat HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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forms on my palms and I rub them against
my shorts and place my hands over Ryan’s. His fingers clutch mine. His skin is the right mixture of strength and warmth, and his touch sends shivers through my body. I’ve gone two torturous weeks without a cigarette and I really crave one right now.
“All right, Lace,” Ryan says in that deep, soothing voice. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Ryan and I have been holding hands for five seconds.
“It’s kind of high.” Lacy stands on the edge of the platform. A bit of the fire that constantly lives in her eyes diminishes.
Ryan gives me that glorious smile—the cute one with a hint of dimples. A curling heat spreads in my bloodstream. Damn, I like that smile.
“You can do this, baby,” says Chris.
Ryan’s thumb moves across the top of my
hands and every single cell of my being
becomes a live electrical socket. We’ve been holding hands for ten seconds.
“I know.” Lacy doesn’t look like she knows.
She looks as unsure as I feel about catching her. “Maybe one of you guys should go.”
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“Turn around, Lace, and fall backwards.”
Ryan uses a gentle yet commanding tone. Even though he speaks to Lacy, he keeps those
brilliant light brown eyes locked on me. His thumb does another heart-skipping sweep
across my hand. “You’ve got this and you
know we got you.”
I wonder what it would be like if he held me in his arms? Would I feel as alive as I do now?
