Motocross Me (17 page)

“And that’s why I’m 336. It was Connor’s favorite number. As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a professional rider. Motocross is my life.” He glances at the track behind us and then adds, “I can’t do anything else.”

A thick silence ensues as I absorb the weight of his story.

“And your parents were cool with letting you ride?” I ask. He nods, “My parents and his parents were close friends.”

“That sounds like a very good reason to be on the track right now.” I hold out the clipboard hoping he will sign it. The sound of tires on gravel signal another rider entering the track. Ash glances back and then rushes to stand up, shaking the grass off his jeans with the same haste. He offers a hand to me and I let him pull me up though I’m not ready to end our conversation.

“Sorry.” He frowns. “I have to get back to work.” A quick hug is all I get for a goodbye and then he’s gone.

I search the ground for my fallen pen and when I find it, the new arrival reaches me. The truck stops and the driver jumps to the ground. I stand and fight the wind, struggling to push the hair out of my face.

“Carter? Seriously?”

I meet his sneer with a forced smile. “Hello to you too, Ryan.”

Chapter 15

“What did I
tell
you about him?” Ryan takes the clipboard out of my hands. He signs only his first name, but I’m not about to say anything. What I used to see in Ryan as confidence is now just arrogance.

“Your old man said I no longer had to pay… lucky me.” He smiles while looking into my eyes. I can almost feel a piece of my soul being sucked out through my pupils. Why does he have to be so cute?

I reach for the clipboard and he moves it behind his back, slow enough for me to grab it if I wanted to, but I don’t fall for it. He wraps his right arm around my shoulders and pulls me to him. I feel a kiss on my hair. My cheek presses to his chest. His shirt smells of laundry detergent mixed with cologne, a deadly combination of deliciousness.

 “I’ve been thinking about you,” he says in a sing song voice.

My body goes warm. I am hypnotized yet again. His smell, his muscles and his raspy voice are the watch swinging in front of my eyes. I repeat the alphabet in my head to regain enough control to pull away from the embrace.

The logical part of my brain, which has been beaten to the size of a pea in the last five minutes, nags at me. I know there is something I want to say to Ryan, but I’ve completely forgotten, thanks to the butterflies in my stomach and warm fuzzies clouding my vision. I watch the ground, trying to remember. Ryan talks, something about the race and his new sponsors and – finally, I remember.

“I happen to like Ash.” I rest a hand on my hip. He laughs. My feeble attempt at defiance goes unnoticed.

“No you don’t.” He lets the last word have several more O’s in it than usual, as if he were taunting me with a secret he isn’t going to tell. I clench my teeth together and nod to disagree with him.

“Ash is trash. See? It rhymes,” he shakes his head to congratulate himself on being so clever. “Which means it must be correct.”

“Your logic is stupid.”

Laughing, he puts the clipboard in my hand and ruffles my hair. “I’ll catch you later, kid.”

So I’m a kid now? Does he kiss every
kid
he knows? Anger rises to a boil inside my ribcage as he drives away. Every guttural instinct I have tells me Ryan would be a bad boyfriend and Ash would be perfect. But Ash doesn’t have moves like Ryan; he doesn’t have the blunt confidence Ryan has. But both of them make me weak in the knees. I grip the clipboard harder, wishing I had the strength to forget Ryan forever.

A gust of warm wind blows sand in my eyes. They fill with tears as I try to blink away the sharp pain. A tear runs down my face in perfect irony, as all I want to do right now is cry.

“I’m sure you’ll have no problem with the new changes,” Dad reassures someone in the garage as I approach the side door from my walk back home. I was the last one to leave the track today because I decided to organize the photos on Dad’s computer in the tower. There were over a thousand photos taken within the last month, and I thought it would be great to organize them by bike number so people could look at all their photos at once. Three hours after the track closed, I had a folder for every bike number and folders for each class along with a separate folder of candid spectator photos.

My body is exhausted from standing all day. A fine layer of dirt coats my skin. All I want to do is shower until the supply of hot water disappears, regardless of how many times Dad has asked me to stop wasting energy.

I should have realized Dad is obviously talking to one of the pro riders. I also should have noticed Ash’s truck wasn’t in the driveway and Ryan’s was. If my mind wasn’t dancing with thoughts of warm showers and soft comfortable bed sheets, then maybe I would have been smart enough to avoid the garage and go inside through the kitchen door.

But none of that happens as I shuffle into the garage and walk straight into the conversation between Dad and the most annoying and gorgeous guy I have ever received a kiss from. They hover around a small television watching the latest professional supercross race on ESPN.

“Look who’s here,” Ryan says as they turned to me. Dad look at me with concern.

“Honey I thought you were already home. Did you just get here?”

I nod, not wanting to speak so I won’t be pulled into a longer conversation with them. Ryan is the last person I want to see right now.

“You’re workin‘ her too hard, Jim.” Ryan says.

“She brought this upon herself,” Dad explains, turning to me. “You organized the race photos, right? I didn’t make her do that.”

Ryan asks Dad about the photos and when they would be on the website. I take this opportunity to dash out of there. I turn the handle to the kitchen door and have one foot across the threshold into the safety inside when Ryan calls out for me to wait. Reluctantly, I turn, raising one eyebrow in reply.

“You free tomorrow night?”

I look at him and then to Dad. There is no chance this was a hypothetical question. If I tell him I’m busy, Dad will ask why he doesn’t know about my so-called plans and ruin it. If I say I’m free…

“A bunch of us are having a little barbeque party down by the lake,” Ryan says. “If Jim is okay with it, I’d love for you to join me.” Without hesitating, Dad says it’s absolutely no problem. I make a mental note to punch him in the face at a later date because right now I’m busy thinking up a way to decline the invitation.

“Um, I don’t know,” I say, wishing for a good enough lie to get me out of a night with Ryan the Intimidator.

“Oh come on.” Ryan steps closer. “It’ll be fun, and you can meet people our age.”

Dad seems to think this is a fabulous idea. “Hana, you do need to get out of the house some more. Go and have fun. I trust Ryan will bring you back at a reasonable time.” He winks at Ryan who is suddenly an astute gentleman and not the sort of guy who kisses on tailgates and then doesn’t call for a week.

“Of course I will, sir.”

Chapter 16

What started as an hour-long morning beautification ritual has, in recent weeks, morphed into a sloppy ten-minute shuffle around my room to get ready for work. The days of high heels and manicured toenails are long gone; I’m lucky if I bother to shave three times a week. I no longer care what I look like at the track, as Ash doesn’t seem to notice if I wear designer labels or old sweats and I very much admire that about him. I find a pair of shorts and a Fallen Rider’s Association T-shirt on the floor and wriggle into them while feeling under the bed for my other shoe.

I am also accustomed to the smell of coffee rising from the kitchen, up the stairs and creeping in under my door every morning. It no longer makes me nauseous, but I still refuse to drink the stuff. The scent this morning is mixed with another more delicious one…syrup? Surely Molly isn’t putting syrup into the breakfast burritos. I skip down the stairs while pulling my hair into a messy, wadded bun and take pride in my sense of balance as I only slam into the railing twice.

Although it is thirty minutes past four in the morning, I hear Dad talking in the kitchen so I can’t be reprimanded for being late if he hasn’t left either. Sometimes I wonder if he told me I had to report to the track earlier than needed since I am almost guaranteed to be late every day.

My parents, brother, Marty and Dorothy are all in the kitchen talking enthusiastically as I saunter in, still in a zombie-like state from having just crawled out of bed. It doesn’t take me long to register the abnormal amount of excitement in the room. And that’s not just because of the stack of pancakes and bacon Molly cooks on the stove. I know the National races are a big deal for my dad’s track, but I had no idea everyone would be this excited about it.

I take a seat next to Teig and remember what Ash had told me a few days ago.

“The Nationals are the biggest thing that could happen to a motocross track. It would be like the Boston Red Sox asking to play a game at the local high school baseball field. Your dad is envied by every track owner in Texas.”

We gather in the dining room for breakfast. Talk at the table goes in my left ear and out the right one without a second thought from me. I’m busy drowning my pancakes in syrup and daydreaming about Ash. I probably won’t see him today since the track is closed to riders. Shelby and I have plans to meet at the local McDonald’s for lunch. I’m tempted to ask her to bring Ash, but the angel on my shoulder keeps shouting a warning at me.
“Friends don’t use each other for their hot brothers.”

I look over my left shoulder and visualize what the little metaphorical angel would look like perched on my collarbone and wagging a finger at me. She would be wearing white, obviously, and her tiny eyes would have dark circles under them from all the stress I put her through trying to keep me in line.

The chatter continues but I tune it out. Over my right shoulder, a tiny version of me dressed as a devil would reside, if in fact these intangible parts of my subconscious were real. She would probably have a motorcycle too. She’d ride donuts around my shoulder while telling me to go ahead and do the bad things that were tempting me. She and I would get along great. I smirk, chin still turned to my shoulder, and then Teig’s mouth falls open in confusion as he watches me make faces to thin air.

“Hana has a date tonight.” My father’s words rip through the thick shield my ears wear when I tune out adult conversation. I almost choke on my pancake. Dorothy and Molly burst into big grins as they launch into hyperactive mother-figure mode and bombard me with questions.

“Who is it?”

“Is it Ash?”

“Where are y’all going?”

“It’s Ash, isn’t it?”

“Have you
kissed
him yet?” That one was from Dorothy. Molly playfully elbows her when my face turns an obvious shade of red, judging by how hot my cheeks are. I struggle to hear my thoughts well enough to make them into words. Teig watches me, waiting for my answers while he shovels food into his mouth at record speed. Dad and Marty are absorbed in their own conversation about spark plugs for the tractor.

Dorothy asked if I had kissed Ash yet. It’s as if she and everyone else know about my crush on him. But I certainly haven’t kissed him yet and I haven’t even been on a date with him, so why is she asking me this? And that’s when I remember…I have a date with Ryan tonight.

Well, it isn’t really a date, more like attending a barbeque with him. No big deal. I swallow. “It’s Ryan not Ash. No, it’s not a date, and of course
no
to the kissing,” I answer in one breath that will hopefully end the topic of my pseudo-date. Teig mutters an
ewww
under his breath.

“I don’t trust that boy as far as I can throw him,” Dorothy says.

“He’s not so bad,” Molly intercedes, throwing a sincere smile my way. “He’s a nice kid.”

Dorothy’s bony finger points straight at me. “You tell him to keep his hands to himself, you hear me?”

Molly and I start hanging banners before the sun is out. These banners are three times the size of the usual ones we use for race days. All of the big name motocross brands are featured on them, from dirt bike manufacturers to clothing and accessories companies. We cover the walls of the tower and then nail some to the main entrance of the track. 

While Molly chats about some darling woman who is married to the owner of a local cycle shop, I help her nail the shop’s banner to a fence post in silence. Normally, I’d try to add to her conversation by throwing in a few “Ahhs” and “oh cool”s, but all I can think of right now is Ash and Ryan.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, I like both of them and both of them seem to like me. Ash is obviously the better choice, as Ryan tends to charm me and then ignore me. I should let Ryan fall to the wayside and concentrate on Ash; it would be the smart thing to do. But Ash hasn’t asked me out and Ryan did. Why did I agree to hang out with Ryan tonight? And more importantly, why do the butterflies still do summersaults in my stomach when Ryan smiles at me?

What if Ash finds out about my so-called date with Ryan? A large, elephant-sized portion of me wants him to find out. If he knew I was spending time, not just any time, but
flirting
time, with his worst enemy then he would have to spring into action and make me his girlfriend. He needs to know that other guys are interested in me so he can fight for my affection. My heart sinks as I reach for another nail and hammer it through the plastic banner. Somehow, I can’t picture Ash being the fighting type.

By noon, the track gets overtaken by a half dozen bulldozers. A high-pitched beep pierces the air every time one of them shifts into reverse. Unfortunately for Molly and me, that’s about every ten seconds.

We sit on the floor of the score tower, opening and organizing boxes of new T-shirts that will be on sale at the races tomorrow. They read “Mixon Motocross Nationals” with tomorrow’s date on the front, and a screened image of a racer whipping through the air on the back. I had seen Ash and Shelby wear Nationals shirts from other tracks, all with the dates of previous races on them. We have at least three hundred shirts ordered. Molly assures me we would sell all of them so if I want one I should take it now.