by Ginger Scott
I pucker my lips to hold in my own unamused laugh.
“I know, Tommy. She’s family. That’s all,” I say.
He locks onto my eyes, studying them for a few breathless seconds.
“Is it?” he asks.
“Pffft,” I spit out, not interested in indulging him further. I get out of the car and slam the door on him and this conversation. Unfortunately, he’s persistent and has already gotten out of his side before I have a chance to put distance between us.
“What was that whole birthday gift thing about? You make that?” He’s pushing me, and my patience wears thinner by the breath.
“Yup,” I respond, lengthening my strides toward Earl and his crew of numb nuts.
“So, you took time to make, what, some piece of art or something? For my sister. For her birthday. Because . . . she’s like family, right?”
Okay. This has to stop.
With an abrupt stop, I spin on my heels and shove my hands into my jeans pockets so I can form fists without Tommy commenting on them.
“Yeah, Tommy. She’s like family. And she deserved something special from one of her oldest friends for her birthday. Hell, girl deserves diamond earrings and designer clothes and all that shit, but I can’t give that to her. I got nothin’, Tommy. I barely got this car. So yeah, I grabbed a bunch of metal at the scrap yard during work one night and made something out of it, because I literally couldn’t give one of my oldest friends anything else. But thanks, Tommy. Thanks for shitting on it. Can we go sell this thing now so I can pay for a windshield?”
I grab the part from his hands and meet his eyes before leaving him several steps behind on my way into Earl’s. If I looked at him any longer, he would have called my bluff. That’s what Tommy does. He reads people. Reads situations and options and always makes the right choices. He’d see through my bullshit if I gave him the chance. Thing is, though, I’ve been buying into my own bullshit too. I spent weeks making that wind chime. And if we weren’t dancing in a driveway in front of her brother, maybe—maybe—things would have gotten carried away. I’ve thought about it. But I always remind myself that Hannah Judge is family, and nothing else. And me? I’m Colt Bridges’ bloodline. Nothing good could ever come from that.
3
“My brother can be a real asshole.”
I swear my face still burns from his little show of power out in the driveway. At least Bailey’s used to it. She gets a front row seat to most of the shit my brother pulls at home. When Tommy tries to put me in my place and play “big brother” in front of a group of people, like at school or a party, it stings a whole lot more.
I don’t like the way he’s gotten about me and Dustin hanging out. I feel as if he’s trying to drive a wedge between us, and despite the feelings I’ve kept locked up in my chest for years, Dustin and I have always been incredibly close. Friends. There are truths that boy says to me that he cannot say to Tommy, or rather would not say. I know which bruises are from fights he starts and which are the result of sucker punches from Colt. And I know how much those lashes hurt inside.
“Tell me this, though.” My friend collapses on her back into the billowing pile of comforters I never make on my bed. “Why is Dustin Bridges so goddamn sexy?”
I breathe out a laugh and turn my attention to my closet so I can strip out of my T-shirt and shorts and crawl into the soft joggers and oversized hoodie I’m more comfortable in. I can get away with agreeing with Bailey when she says stuff like that because there isn’t a single person in a hundred-mile radius who would argue with it. I’m careful to always throw in the occasional “yeah, but he’s like a brother to me” comment when it feels as if she suspects anything more is going on in my heart and head.
“You think they’ll get that windshield fixed in time for the Straights on Friday?” Bailey asks.
I shrug, but I know there’s no way they’ll skip a race. Dustin would hotwire someone’s ride to “borrow” for the night if he had to, just to show up and defend his streak.
Bailey loves tagging along with us when the boys drag race. She comes from a pretty strict family that doesn’t believe girls should be exposed to the wonders of the world. She’s been wearing makeup for the last year, but only because she puts mine on in my car every morning then scrubs her face clean before I take her home in the late afternoon. She’s never spent the night at my house, at least according to her parents. She’s gotten good at breaking out of her bedroom window after midnight and riding her bike to my house. It sucks that we have to sneak her back in before the sun rises. Her mom is always up by six, and she inspects every inch of that house as if waiting to bust her daughter. If only Bailey’s family knew the shit she gets to see when she sneaks out with me.
“That’s cute,” Bailey says. I turn to find her pointing to the chime Dustin made me that I’ve hung from the curtain rod over my window. I temper my grin as I react.
“It is, isn’t it? Dustin made it for me,” I say, moving toward my window. I slide the glass open to let in a breeze and the chimes make a soft jingle, like tiny spoons tapping against glass.
“Think he’d make me one?” Bailey asks. I bristle and keep my back to her.
“I don’t know, maybe.” I close my window. I don’t think he would, but that’s because I think I’m special. The thought of him making her something he made for me turns my insides into a boiling, gooey sludge. My childish jealous side rarely rears its head, and I never let people see it.
“You should ask.” Heat courses down my chest and swells my belly. I can’t believe I said that out loud. What’s worse is I know the reason I did. I want to test him, and I’m already internalizing all possible outcomes, including the crushing feeling of not being special at all to Dustin Bridges.
My friend and I spend the next few hours crash-studying for our biology mid-term that’s coming up. Actually, for the first half hour, I’m lost in my thoughts, self-diagnosing my behavior and talking myself back into the neat little box I keep my feelings in. Even if my wildest fantasies came true and Dustin kissed me and told me he saw me as more than a friend, too, we would have to hide all of it from Tommy. My brother is barely supportive of me hanging out in public places with the guys in my grade. If he found out I had major feelings for our best friend, he might drive Dustin up north to the Grand Canyon and boot him from the passenger side while taking a tight curve.
With the dinner hour growing close, Bailey and I close our books and hope we’ve crammed enough into our brains to pull out B’s on Mr. Ormand’s test. He doesn’t believe in giving A’s, which is awesome for students like us who are trying to earn academic scholarships. And by awesome I mean a seriously dick move.
“You want to see if you can stay for dinner?” I ask, knowing Bailey won’t even want to ask. She’s already tucking in her T-shirt to make sure she looks presentable and up to her parents’ standards when she walks in her front door. Her makeup came off the minute we hit my room. She doesn’t even bother to answer, instead tilting her head to the side and leveling me with a straight mouth and heavy eyes.
“Your mom knows she doesn’t get to go to college with us, right?” I help to pull back her bright blonde hair into a perfectly smooth ponytail at the base of her neck, the style she left the house with this morning. She laughs at my joke then glances over her shoulder. Our eyes meet briefly and widen; both of us are a little unnerved by that thought.
The house smells of garlic and oregano, my mom’s pot of sauce already boiling on the burner in the kitchen. It’s a rule in our house: we make time for family dinner at least twice a week. Weekends are so busy for the boys we usually shoot for weekdays. My mom loves to cook, and we all love to eat, so nobody messes with this unspoken law.
“Say hello to your parents for me, Bailey,” my mom says as we pass through the kitchen.
“And tell them I said to lighten up,” my dad jokes, earning a semi-swift right hook from my mom. “Ow! Kidding!” he adds.
My dad can’t stand Bailey’
s parents. Not so much because of the way they raise their only child, but more because Bailey’s dad went up against my dad in court a couple of years back and won. My dad says he’s crooked, but I think that’s probably just him being a sore loser. Mr. and Mrs. Tingle are by-the-book on everything, even their church attendance. They never miss a Sunday.
My family? We’d be burned to a crisp by a swift bolt of lightning even stepping foot on the church campus. Not that that’s why we don’t go. We don’t go because we’d rather be out at the track, and while we’re all at the races, my mom is in her office doing mayor business. Someone has to run things in this town with a population of eleven hundred and four.
“You walking Bailey home?” Dustin cranes his neck, looking at me over his shoulder as I pass behind the sofa. He’s in the middle of a video game with my brother, and he must be the one in control because the screen is paused and my brother just sighed.
“Yeah, I’ll be right back.” I slightly pinch my brow, wondering why he cares.
“I’m— I’ll go with you. I gotta check something.” Dustin tosses his controller on the sofa in the spot he vacates.
“Psshh, we’re in the middle of a game!” My brother points to the screen, the scene some jungle area lit up with special night-vision goggles.
“Hey, Dad! Take my controller,” Dustin yells. He’s been calling our dad by that name since the day his own dad showed up at the Tucson track and made him crash. At first, I think it was simply a way to rebel and make Colt angry. Now, though, it’s habit.
“On it,” my dad says, abandoning my mom in the kitchen and hopping over the back of the sofa to join Tommy in the game.
My brother’s stare lingers on Dustin as he heads through the front door, only shifting focus because I walk into the path of his gaze. He blinks away, and my stomach tightens like it does when I’m on the crest of a roller coaster’s big drop. I shake the feeling off and shut the door behind us, noting the shine coming off of the new piece of glass on Dustin’s car. He jogs ahead and works off the tape holding it in place, forming it into a ball that he tosses in his hands a few times before throwing it at me.
“Hey!” I squeal, jumping out of the way. Bailey picks it up and chucks it at Dustin to get him back for me as we walk down the center of the road toward her house. My friend has even less athletic talent than I do, though, so the makeshift ball sails off course, landing in the brush to the side of the road.
We keep the game going for the quarter-mile walk, Dustin finally shoving the tape ball into the back pocket of his jeans as he hangs back a few steps and lets me walk Bailey up the driveway.
“I hate that he thinks my parents don’t like him,” she says under her breath. Dustin knows his reputation, one he’s labeled with mostly because of his family. But he hasn’t helped it along with his string of suspensions and run-ins with the sheriff’s department for fighting all over town.
“I’ll remind him that your parents don’t like anybody,” I joke. My friend laughs, but it’s a token one and I feel bad for picking on a reputation she doesn’t deserve to be labeled with, either. “Hey, you know what I mean.” I suck at apologies.
“Yeah, I know,” she says. “It’s just, if they see me with him, they will put cameras up in my room and probably hire a drone to follow me everywhere I go.”
She gives me a sideways smile and we hug before she dips inside and refuses her mom a chance to greet her in the doorway. I skip back down her driveway and find Dustin leaning on one of the neighbor’s many cars, hands in his pockets and ankles crossed.
“You thinking of buying that next?” I nod toward the rough-looking Crown Vic. Dustin’s bought a few parts from the older man who lives at this house. The guy used to be a mechanic but now it seems he just collects automobile ghosts—shells of vehicles that were once great but have lost their verve and soul from either a wreck or major owner neglect.
Dustin pushes off from the car and rests his hand on the roof, patting it twice before letting his finger trace one of the rusted spots worn bare in the paint.
“Nah, not unless I want to enter a derby one day.” His slight smile inches into his cheeks, making faint dimples that catch my eyes. My own smile itches at my lips. The only way I can make the feeling stop is to look away and even then, it takes a few seconds before I’m sure I won’t turn bright pink.
“Thanks for walking with me,” I say, timing my steps to line up with his. I falter purposely and brush into his side. He fakes a stumble and does it right back. This is how we flirt. It’s been a year of this, maybe more. I live for it.
Our pace back to my house is half of what it was to Bailey’s. We’re stalling. Well, I’m stalling. Dustin isn’t urging me to speed up, though. After a few silent, amazing seconds, he reaches over and lifts a lock of my hair, holding it out and letting it slip through his fingers until it falls back to my shoulder.
“You curled your hair today,” he remarks, his eyes still on the wavy strand.
“Braids, actually. I slept in them.”
“Ah.” He nods.
I flit my gaze to the other side of the street so I can suck in my bottom lip and soak in the attention. It’s cool enough outside that I’m glad I wore joggers and a sweatshirt, but I also wish I still had on the shorts I cut up last night. I liked the reaction I got from Dustin while wearing them. Not sure the cotton Hanes collection is going to earn me the same response. In fact, I can almost guarantee it won’t. Still, this quiet attention . . . it’s nice too.
“So, your windshield.” I let the topic linger as we walk, desperate to keep talking to him about anything. The longer it takes him to respond, though, the more I regret focusing on something that probably stresses him out.
“Yeah, that’s a bummer. I had to sell the intake to replace it.” He glances to me sideways and lifts his shoulder, playing it off, but I can tell it’s a big deal.
“That sucks. Dad’s always getting nailed with rocks that the truckers kick up on the highway.”
Dustin chuckles, straightening his arms as his hands push deep into his pockets. He tilts his head to the sky as his mouth hangs open with a hint of a smile.
“Yeah, I wish it was a rock. Would have probably lived with it for a while. Can’t see through shattered glass left in the wake of one of Colt’s cheap-ass beer bottles, though.” His gaze falls back to the horizon as he puffs out a short, defeated laugh.
“Oh, Dustin, I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have brought it up.” I reach toward him and squeeze him at the elbow. His tight muscles soften under my touch, and the rigidness of his arm relaxes. I let go, but remember the way his warm skin felt on my fingertips.
“It is what it is.” He says that phrase a lot, at least to me. It’s the way he’s always summed up his circumstances, and I used to argue with him about it, or encouraged him to find a way out. But as much as he says he doesn’t care about his mom, she’s the reason he hasn’t run away completely. It breaks my heart to see him try so hard to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. Maybe that’s also what makes me love him so much.
“Hey, so, you coming Friday?” He turns to walk backward so we’re facing each other for the few hundred feet left before we reach my house. He’s managed to ward off the tension forming a divot between his brows, instead lifting them high to match his forced smile.
“You know I don’t miss a race,” I say.
His lips pull in with a tight smile, bringing back the dimples.
“Good,” he says, swinging an arm around my neck as he shifts to my side. I tuck my cheek against his chest and breathe in, memorizing my favorite smell of oil and body wash, hoping to capture enough to last me until I dream.
He pulls his hat from his head and pushes it down on mine while I walk alongside him, held to his side by his casually draped arm. If we were a thing, we would walk around like this all the time. I would demand it. His arm slips away, though, the moment our feet hit the gravel leading up to my house. I start to pull his hat fro
m my head too, wanting to erase evidence before Tommy has a chance to call us out on it. Dustin doesn’t let me, though, laying his palm over mine and gently nudging his hat back in place on my crown.
“Keep it. You look cute,” he says with a wink.
I tug the bill down and glance at him from the shadow it makes over my eyes just as he pulls the tape ball from his back pocket and throws it at my chest. I manage to bat it away and rush toward the house, but he catches me by my midsection and swoops me into a circle before setting me on my feet, a little dizzy and full of butterflies. He abandons me where I stand the second my brother steps outside, and the two of them gather around the car to inspect the new windshield before climbing inside and revving the engine a few times.
I’ve watched Dustin act the way he does with me with other girls. I could easily talk myself into believing it isn’t the same, but really . . . it kinda is. And that’s the biggest reason I don’t let myself get carried away. Pissing my brother off to be with Dustin would be one-hundred percent worth it, but only if I have a guarantee that I wouldn’t break my own heart and lose a best friend all at the same time. So instead, I’ll have to be satisfied with a cool trucker cap and a work of art that catches the breeze through my bedroom window.
4
Sometimes I crash on Tommy’s floor. Tonight, I couldn’t seem to make it off the Judges’ couch. I’m not sure when exactly I fell asleep. Last thing I remember is getting into it with Tommy over some junior high kid who was trying to blow up our compound on Combat Warrior. He threw his controller and turned the game off in the middle of play then stormed off upstairs.
Someone turned the TV off and threw a blanket over me. It was probably Tommy’s mom. When I was little, she used to tuck me in and call me her little burrito. I’d lay on the rollout in Tommy’s room in that lock-tight position all night, not wanting to undo her work. I’d never felt so safe.