Beautiful Tragedy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (8 page)

“It will be fun, and it’ll be cold so you can snuggle
up against one of his muscled-up tattooed arms.”

“It will be what?”

 
Poor Megan. I
wasn’t listening to her.

“Fun and cold! I said use it, snuggle time!”

I couldn’t help it, I had to ask. “You wouldn’t like
to date him, would you,
Meggs
?” She threw me a look and
her pillow. I think the pillow was supposed to hit me in the side of my head,
but I caught it. I knew Megan too well. I was expecting it.

If I was going to date someone, it would definitely be
someone like Brock. He was funny, and obviously good-looking. He was smart,
although I don’t think he realizes it most of the time. He’s always making
comments when we do homework about how smart I am. He can do his math when he
applies himself, he just doesn’t usually want to.

I will say this though, the boy can sing. I went to
the club with Megan and Jake last weekend to hear him and his new band play. He
can belt out a song let me tell you. His voice kind of sounds like a cross
between Justin Timberlake and Bob Dylan. I know it sounds weird but you’d have
to hear him for yourself to understand. He’s incredible. And then there’s the
guitar playing. I watch his fingers sometimes when he plays, and it amazes me
how it just looks like they’re moving up and down on the strings. When I try to
do it, it sounds something like, “Dum,
dum
, dumb, and
dumb.” When he does it…well, let’s just say I think even the angels who play
those pretty harps might be jealous.

I know that sappy stuff sounds like I’m talking about
a guy that I’m dating. It’s exactly why I don’t say any of it out loud. People,
and by people I mean Megan and Jake, would take it the wrong way. Thinking it
in my head just means that I think he’s a really cool guy. Saying it out loud
would make me sound like I was in love. Which I am not. Absolutely, positively,
not.
 

“You spend more time at their apartment than I do.
Jake says he sees you more than he does me.”

“I’m tutoring him in math,” I said. It was true. I
have always been good at math, and he was struggling. We’re friends and that’s
what friends do for each other. If Megan or Jake needed to be tutored, I would
tutor them as well. It’s not like we’re in one of those silly teenage movies where
we gaze at each other across the table over the math book and realize we’re
made for each other. We do his math, we cook and we talk. Sometimes we play
video games or watch movies. We do lots of things that people who are just
hanging out do. He’s easy to talk to. Sometimes I find myself almost saying too
much. Last week we started talking about our childhoods and I told him about my
grandmother and how grateful I was for everything she’s done for me. I was so
comfortable talking to him that I almost said the “C” word. Whew!

“Are you guys taking the bike?” Megan asked.

“Yes, we’ll be taking Suzie.” Suzie, now that’s the
real love of Brock’s life.

Megan laughed, “Do you call it that in front of him
with a straight face?”

“Yes,” I said, “And don’t call her an “it”. He hates
that.”

“
Ohh
,” she said, “We
wouldn’t want to say anything that upsets Molly’s boyfriend.”

“Megan.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up,” I told her as I pulled my warm sweater over
my long-sleeved shirt. As we have already established the night of the football
game last month, I hate to be cold. At least when we ride Suzie, Brock’s body
blocks most of the wind. He tells me to put my hands around his waist and hide
my face down behind him. Some people, and again I mean Megan and Jake, might
think that we looked like we were dating, but it’s just about staying warm. And
since I’m not saying this out loud, he always smells really good.

“Are you and Jake going tonight?” I asked Megan,
hoping to distract her from worrying about me and my “not a date” tonight.

“Yeah, but he has a study group until nine, so don’t
worry, we won’t interrupt your date.”

“Megan, you are incorrigible!”

“Is that a fancy word for pretty?” She said it with a
smile. I just shook my head at her. Sometimes no words will do.

I was saved by a text message from Brock. I grabbed my
jacket and told Megan, “See you later!”

As I was going out the door she said, “He really
should come to the door and pick you up.”

I told her, “He would, if it was a date.” I think I
heard her pillow hit the door as I closed it behind me.

Brock was sitting on the circular brick walk in front
of the dorm on Suzie. Suzie looked great, and so did he. He grinned and said,
“Hey, you look nice.” I think I blushed, or at least my face felt hot.

“Thanks, so do you,” I said. He handed me my helmet. I
called it my helmet because lately I’d been using it a lot. But if the truth
was told, I was pretty sure it wasn’t my helmet. I mean I would be willing to
bet it was the one he had bought for all of the girls that he’s taken out to
wear. For tonight it was mine, so I slipped it on and climbed onto the back of
Suzie. He started her up and told me to hold on. I put my hands around his
waist as we took off and rested my face down low behind his back. Suzie had
really grown on me.

The haunted train ride was at a tree farm about forty
miles from the school. I had never been there but I had looked it up online. It
said that besides selling Christmas trees and fresh fruits and corn grown on
the farm, they used it for Halloween with a haunted train and a haunted hay
ride through a corn field. The whole place was decorated with scary things and
there were people who jumped out at you as you wondered through. They had
pumpkin patches and pumpkins for sale, face painting booths and food booths. At
Christmas time, it said they have a pajama train ride with a live band and
Santa Claus and Christmas trees. It sounded like a lot of fun, and I was
looking forward to tonight a lot.

It was a pretty ride out there too, with a lot of
curvy roads and pretty scenery. I liked that Brock wasn’t one of those guys
that thought he had to drive fast or like a complete idiot to be cool. He took
it slow and easy around the steep curves, and I wasn’t even scared.

The sun had just gone down when we got there. We parked
in the lot and it was a little hike down a dirt hill to where the festivities
were. I slipped a little bit as we were going down the hill and Brock grabbed
my hand to help me down the rest of the way. When we hit level ground, he was
still holding onto it, and I wasn’t pulling it away. Hmm…now we’re holding
hands. Megan would analyze this to death. I decided to be cool; it comes
naturally to me…really.

We walked down past one of the pumpkin patches and I
saw two of the biggest pumpkins I had ever seen in my life.

“How’d you like to make a jack ‘o lantern out of that
guy?” Brock said, pulling me over towards the bigger of the two.

“That would be so much fun!” I loved making jack o’ lanterns
on Halloween.

“I don’t think we could carry him on Suzie,” Brock was
saying. “If Megan and Jake get here before we leave tonight though, I’ll buy us
two and ask them to take them home for us. I’ll probably go a little smaller
than this guy here.”

I smiled; that was sweet of him. What other nineteen-year-old
guy wants to carve pumpkins? And, he was still holding my hand too.

“That sounds like fun.”

From there we went and walked through the corn maze.
It wasn’t really hard, although that could be because I held onto the back of
Brock’s shirt most of the way through. I know they’re fake, but those guys that
jump out at you scare the crap out of me. After we made it out of there alive,
Brock said, “Do you want to get something to eat?”

I wasn’t really hungry, and as usual I was worried
that they might not have anything here I could eat. “They make these really
good fruit cups at the corn stand,” he said. I was sold. We walked around some
more as we ate our fruit. There was a giant old eucalyptus tree that had a
swing in it, and I sat down and Brock pushed me. That was fun; I haven’t been
on a swing in a long time. The announcer from the dark somewhere announced that
the haunted train ride would be leaving the station in fifteen minutes, so we
headed over there. On the way, we had to cross this old, suspended wooden
bridge. It was cool, except there was a twelve-year-old boy on it with us that
thought it would be fun to swing it back and forth. I hope he had fun with it,
because it didn’t sit well on my stomach.

We passed a castle playhouse with a moat and an old
schoolhouse playhouse that Brock told me had a slide that went underground. I
opted to try that one next time. It’ll give me time to think of an out. We
finally found the line for the train. It was long, and the cold was horrible,
but the employees had bonfires lit and a bizarre pack of clowns that looked
like Gene Simmons were handing out hot chocolate and cookies.

We had to wait for four trains before it was our turn,
so we got to hear the faint sounds of blood-curdling screams in the distance,
and we watched a few sweaty, shaky people get off the train as well. It only
increased the excitement factor. Brock let me pick the car we would ride in.
Being a huge chicken, I picked one in the middle. These cars aren’t covered,
and I’m guessing that when things jump out, the front and the back probably get
the worst of it.

The car was small, so we were sitting really close. No
one sat opposite us, so we also had it all to ourselves. As the train began
chugging along I had to think that Megan had been right…again. This was really
romantic.

Just as I had that thought, Michael Myers and his
trusty, sister-killing bloody knife stepped out of the corn and waved at me. I
wanted to scream, but thought maybe etiquette dictated it was too soon, so I
waved instead. I did grab Brock’s jacket and I didn’t let go of it either. If
Michael was there, Jason and Freddy were sure to follow.

“You okay?” Brock asked when he felt me jump and grab
onto him.

“I’m fine,” I said with a smile. “I should have
brought dry pants though.” He cracked up at that. How did he know I was
kidding?

All in all, the ride was a blast. The best part was,
and I don’t plan on telling Megan this when I see her and having to look at the
smug smile, that it was really romantic. I liked being close to him, and I was
starting to realize more each time that I was with him, just how far things had
gotten.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

BROCK

Sometimes I look at her and think I would pay money
just to know what she’s thinking. She sits there quietly a lot and I can almost
see the wheels turning in her head. A girl who thinks is a precious animal as
far as I’m concerned. It’s one of the things that attracts me to her the most.
That, and her incredible smile, and her sense of humor, and the fact that she
always smells good, and her eyes. Okay, there’s a whole list, and the more we
hang out, the more things I find to like about her.

I haven’t asked her out on an official date since that
night at the club. I’ve discovered that she seems so much more comfortable when
we both act like we’re just hanging out. It’s been a great month. I’ve had a
lot of fun with her, and she’s actually the best math tutor I ever had. I’m not
just saying that because the last one had a booger that stuck out of his left
nostril…all the time. She’s really smart, and she’s patient with me. If I don’t
get it, she explains it again. Sometimes she has to lean across me to show me
something and then I get to smell her, and I also get a clear shot of her
nostrils…no boogers.

The problem with all of this hanging out is that now
we’ve gotten into the friend zone. It’s not a bad thing. As a matter of fact
it’s been great. I can talk to her about almost anything. I say almost, because
I haven’t told her about the cancer yet. It’s too soon for all that. But
everything else, we’ve talked about. But now we’re in this friend kind of place
and I still want to kiss her so flipping bad that sometimes it feels like
there’s this hot fire burning in my chest. The rules are pretty clear though.
When you are friends with a girl, and hanging out and not dating, kissing is
not completely acceptable.

I held her hand tonight. That was nice. I took hers,
to help her down the dirt ramp, and I thought she’d pull it back right away.
She didn’t, so I didn’t let go either. We walked through most of the tree farm,
hand in hand. For some reason when we were in the pumpkin patch, talking about
carving jack o’ lanterns, the desire to kiss her became almost overwhelming.
I’m not sure why. She had this look on her face that made me wonder so much
what she was thinking, I almost asked. I didn’t though. I just enjoyed the
look. She’s so pretty and damn, I really want to kiss her.

I considered giving it a shot on the train. We were
alone, except for the walking dead guys that kept popping out of the corn
field. It was dark and romantic and every time one of the guys popped out,
she’d grab on to my jacket. I envisioned being brave enough to throw my arm
around her protectively, and while I had her there I could cover her lips with
mine, and finally taste her kiss. I thought about it, but again I didn’t do it.