Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) (11 page)

“No, it isn’t that. For sure
, it isn’t that. I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen. Like, I didn’t know he was coming over last night, and I don’t know when I’ll see him again. We aren’t really dating. We’re kind of running into each other.”

“Y
ou want him to wine and dine you?”

“No
. You know I’m not like that. I mean…I don’t know what I mean.” I sighed. “The whole world might be blowing up and Boone Ramer might be into me, and—gah!—so much uncertainty all at the same time. And then I feel guilt because I know there are people dying under that dirty cloud on the satellite while I sit there totally psyched Boone is drinking out of my water bottle.”

Mia laughed
and shook off her umbrella at the door to the thrift store. “And I thought I felt conflicted sometimes. You’re a hot mess.”

She shopped here partly
due to her money situation, but also because of her eclectic tastes. She walked straight to a pair of striped bell-bottom jeans in autumn colors, something out of the 1970s. They were absolutely hideous on the hanger, and I already knew she’d rock them. She’d pair them with chunky boots and a fuzzy brown top, she said. If I tried the same thing, I’d look like I’d raided some hippie’s closet.

I
held Mia’s umbrella while she flicked through the racks. I’d bought clothes here a couple of times, but ended up with a pilled sweater the color of the inside of a hot dog and a pair of jeans with a zipper so stiffly resistant I’d nearly peed myself the first time I wore them. Now I left the hunting and gathering to the pro.

“Looks like Pucci
.” She draped a flamboyantly swirled scarf around her neck. She grabbed another scarf in sedate blues to tie it in a headband around my skull, fussing until she’d made a jaunty bow by my left ear, the tails hanging down over my wet shoulder. She turned me toward a full-length mirror. The bottom half of me looked confident, with the bright boots and bare knees, one hand stuffed in a pocket while the other held Mia’s umbrella like a walking stick. The top half? Questionable.

I smiled at Mia in the mirror
, and she smiled back.

“You know, sister-friend, you are the last person who should worry. If the world was blowing up, your parents would already be here to rescue you. And I think Boone isn’t the type to make a big deal out of things. Kin
d of like you,” she said with a nudge to my shoulder. “I mean, if you want a dozen roses or something, I can send him a text.”

“Don’t you dare,
” I said, appalled.

We
returned the scarves to the rack. “I hope I don’t get lice,” I muttered.

She laughed. “Stop worrying
. You can come to Jersey with me for the apocalypse. We’re resilient, like cockroaches. We’ll be the last living humans on earth, believe me.”

She paid seven dollars for the jeans and two tight tops. The rain had almost stopped so I unzipped my coat, letting the warm, humid air
slip under the waterproof layer. “Look at how high gas has already gone,” I said, pointing at a mini-mart.

“
Probably the hurricane. The gulf is all jacked up.”

“The news said last night some states are pulling their emergency
power crews out of the southeast to be ready for the ash, if it comes.”

“What does ash have to do with electricity?” Mia asked.

“Who knows?” I said, wishing ignorance really was bliss. It mostly felt like blindness.
 

Restlessness. I had loads of studying to do on Sunday. I had a paper to write. I had tons to read in everything except calculus. I caught myself cruising the Internet over and over, reading the same news, checking Facebook, texting Dad. Mom ran him ragged as the ash cloud nudged north and west of them, like dye poured into the jet stream. A wave of it oozed less noticeably over Nebraska and other states south and east of Yellowstone.

Text from Sara:

I stared across the room. A shiver went down my spine. My parents didn’t garden. Had they gone completely off the deep end, or were we really headed for subsistence agriculture within forty-eight hours of blast off?

The uncertainty made me crazy.
Was kale, one of those disgusting veggies Mom made for her and Dad but I’d never eaten?

I leaped off the bed to change into some
biking clothes and fill the water bladder of my small backpack. My biking shoes, with their metal clips under the balls of my feet, alternated between tap dance clicks and death skids on the vinyl stair treads. The derailleur —the thingie to move the chain to the selected sprocket—clanged with the rear wheel’s descent of each step.

I
rode south, toward the open countryside. After a few miles of light traffic, I cranked along a two lane country road, maintaining the same cadence while changing gears with the rolling landscape. Initial goose bumps from the wash of cool air gave way to a sheen of sweat.

Wind whistled through the vents on my helmet
. Worries evaporated. My world narrowed to the shoulder of the road spinning out in front of me. Ragweed nodded down to touch the gravel. Fallen leaves stuck tight to the pavement. My nose wrinkled at a road-killed groundhog, a day or two aged.
Gag. Leave it behind. Ride into the wind
.

I’d ridden this route before so I knew about ten miles out
I’d rest in a farmer’s driveway. My legs felt strong right now. I might ride farther today.

Awareness of another biker pretty far back slowly penetrated. Whoever
tailed me closed a substantial gap over a couple of miles.

I thought about turning aroun
d before brick ranchers gave way to isolated farmland, but I didn’t want to shorten my ride. Before I’d left campus, I’d started the tracking app on my smartphone to ping Mia with my location. Maybe that, and the confidence and certainty pumped through my veins by the exercise, gave me a false sense of security.

I decided to keep going.

Gravel crunched
in the driveway leading to a square farmhouse house with white siding, a matching barn, and a tall blue silo. From a half mile away the homestead oozed peace, tidiness, the promise of simplicity.

The other biker pulled in right behind me. “I thought that might be you. I swear, I’m not stalking you,”
Boone said with a smile, though something in his eyes suggested he might honestly be worried I thought he watched my every move or something. As if. He took several gasping breaths. “I guess great minds think alike.”

“It’s a good day for a ride,” I agreed.
“I should study all afternoon but….”

“Me
, too. I couldn’t sit still.”

I knew how to operate on my own plan and decided I’d keep doing
my thing. I unclipped the tube from my pack—essentially a long flexible straw to suck the water through—and took a deep drink. I noticed Boone did the same from his pack. He’d sweated through his quick-dry shirt, just as I had through my favorite jersey, in deep blue with an Indiana bike shop’s logo. I’d thankfully worn my usual skort to disguise the biking short butt. I pulled a mocha energy gel out of the pocket in the back of my shirt and offered it to Boone.

His tawny eyebrows rose.
“No, thanks.”

H
e ate a protein bar retrieved from the cargo pocket of his loose shorts while I eyed his bike, a run-of-the-mill mountain bike, black with bright green artwork, hard tail, 26er. Good brand, lightweight, but nothing special. Not that it mattered, except items of curiosity about Boone germinated like the fragile sprouts in orderly rows bracketing the drive.

“Winter wheat looks good,” Boone said.

Curiouser and curiouser.

“I’m gonna keep going for a few miles,” I said
when I’d caught my breath.

He nodded
and took another drink from his pack. “Mind if I tag along?”

“Sure
.” I pushed off and clipped in, wildly aware Sir Hotness could be looking directly at my ass for the next ten to fifteen miles.

We rode, the faint whir of the chains on the sprockets and the hum of our knobby tires punctuated by the click of our changing gears. I
never forgot Boone trailed to my left, but got comfortable with the idea. He didn’t try to chat with me or change my route, and he kept up without any trouble.

We just rode.

We pushed deeper into farmland before looping back toward town. I stopped after ten miles. We would enter traffic soon.

Sweat stains darkened our shirts
. I knew I couldn’t be looking my best with my hair tucked under my helmet and my face red and shiny. I pulled out an energy bar this time while Boone scarfed down a banana.

He tossed the peel into the weeds. “You set a good pace, Biker-girl,” he said, still breathing hard.

“You can lead the rest of the way back,” I said. “I don’t want to wear you out.”

H
is eyes raked me up and down. “You don’t have enough gas in that lean little tank to wear
me
down, Biker-girl. Not this year.”

I grinned, liking the nickname
and the challenge.

W
e pushed off again. “Hey, we’re gonna ride by that park near campus, right? Do you want to cool down there for a while?” he called.

“Ok
ay,” I said, purposely forgetting about the chapters waiting to be read and the paper to be written.