by Claire Adams
Still, I don’t want to be rude, so I skate over to him to say hello.
“Ian Zavala,” Mike says over the head of a short, teenage girl for whom he’s signing an autograph. Seriously, where does this guy get his PR? “Glad you could make it,” he says. “It never feels like a real street x when you’re not around.”
“Hey, somebody’s got to come and knock you off the top of the mountain,” I tell him. “I’m just doing my public duty.”
He smiles and combs his hair back with his fingers before taking another photo from a fan and signing it.
“Heard you started competing in vert,” he says. “Think it’s going to be enough?”
“You heard about that, huh?” I ask.
I might be out of this thing before it even starts.
“Yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry about it. When I did my first vert competition, they could barely fit me at the bottom of the scoreboard I did so badly.”
He doesn’t bother mentioning that was when he was twelve.
I’ve always wondered why it’s taken Mike so long to go pro. For a while, we were skating in different places, different competitions. I knew who he was, though I doubt he could say the same about me.
Everyone told me he was the guy to beat in the park.
Ha, ha.
“Any tips to help me wipe the floor with you?” I ask.
“Just keep low on the drop in and the ride up,” he says. “You’re fine standing on the flat, but even there, I’d recommend at least a little knee-flex.”
“You were there,” I say, simply stating the obvious.
“Yeah,” he says. “I wanted to see how worried I need to be about today. I knew you were going to be here, but I’d never seen you on the ramp.”
“Got to be feeling pretty confident right about now, huh?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and I’m sure he’s about to offer me some sort of consolation, but a new group of teenage girls spots Mike and descends upon him.
“I should probably leave you to your adoring fans,” I tell him.
“Zavala,” Mike says before I go.
“Yeah?”
“Just relax,” he says. “If there’s one big difference between what I’ve seen you do in the park and what I saw you do on the ramp, it was that you’re more relaxed in the park. On the ramp, you were fine and everything, but you just need to loosen up, man,” he says. “Do that, and I’m sure I’ll be competing with you for number one.”
“Yeah,” I respond. “Thanks.”
I push off and start heading back toward where I last saw Rob and them, but just as soon as I’ve caught sight of Nick’s bright pink t-shirt, my board stops beneath me and inertia throws me off the front.
I’m on my feet when I land, but I’m really not in the mood, as I look back to find that someone had kicked a board in front of mine.
“What the fuck?!” I shout, turning around and startling most everybody in the general area.
“Hey, Ian,” a familiar voice says, though I can’t place it until I see Mia’s friend Abby—Abs, whatever—lift a hand and wave at me.
“Oh,” I say with a sheepish laugh. “Sorry about that. What’s up?”
“Have you seen Mia?” she asks.
“No,” I tell her. “She’s here?”
“I know she was going back and forth on it,” Abby says. “I don’t know what she ended up deciding.”
“Got ya,” I tell her. “I haven’t seen her. It’s still pretty early, though.”
“Yeah,” Abby says and starts twirling a finger through her hair. “Anyway,” she says, “I was really sad to hear about what happened with the two of you. It’s really very tragic.”
“Yeah,” I respond, looking past her. “Thanks.”
“Mia’s kind of like that, though,” she says. “She never really knows what she wants, so she goes for whatever she thinks she can’t get. Unfortunately,” Abby says, letting her hand fall back to her side, “once she gets something, she doesn’t want it anymore.”
“There might have been a bit of that,” I tell Abby, “but this last thing was my fault. I really screwed up.”
“Yeah,” Abby says, sighing. “I just hate seeing good guys get hurt, but with her, that’s what always seems to happen.”
“Aren’t the two of you friends?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “It almost seems like you’re… never mind.”
“I just don’t think she really appreciates a good man when she’s found one,” Abby says, adjusting her bra while I try to pretend this isn’t just about the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been talking to someone. “Some women never do.”
“Look, Abby,” I start, “I think I see where this is going, and I don’t think it would be right.”
“What are you talking about?” she asks, blinking at a prodigious rate and placing her open hand over the top of her shirt. “I just saw you and wanted to say hi.”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Well, it’s good to see you. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other—”
Abby grabs the back of my head and kisses me hard. It happens so fast I don’t even process what’s happening for a few seconds, but when I do, I manage to pull back and escape her grip.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
She’s not looking at me, though.
Abby’s looking past me on my right side with half a smile on her face, and she lifts her chin in a reverse-nod.
I turn around and there, about twenty feet away, but facing in this direction like she was walking over here, is Mia.
“Wait!” I shout, but she’s already turned around and she’s walking away.
There still aren’t all that many people hanging around up here near the building, but those who are all seem to be between Mia and me as I try to catch up with her, to explain what happened.
I don’t give a shit, though. I’m not giving up.
Chapter Seventeen
Crescendo
Mia
I can hear Ian trying to make his way through the growing crowd behind me, but I don’t stop walking.
Abs had been acting funny for a little while now, but I never thought she’d do something like that. Not to me.
My hands are shaking as I pull the keys out of my pocket and unlock the door. I don’t get in, though.
Really, I shouldn’t be mad at Ian: I saw what happened, and he didn’t seem to have anything to do with it, except to pull away. It’s not even like we’re still together or anything.
Not that we’ve had that talk.
Still, he should have known she’d try something like that at some point from the way she went after him at that party. I should have known.
How did I not know?
“Mia!” Ian shouts as he jogs toward me, his skateboard nowhere in sight.
That breaks the back and forth, and I get in my car and lock the doors.
My phone’s ringing, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to talk to whoever’s on the other end. I just need to get out of here.
I throw the car in reverse and go to pull out, but Ian steps behind me.
Cracking the window, I’m telling him to get out of the way.
“Just let me talk to you for a second,” he says. “That wasn’t what it looked like. I mean, yeah, she kissed me, but I didn’t—”
I close my window and just wait for him to move. At some point, he’s going to come up to my window, and when he does that, I can back out.
I think he’s figured out what I’m thinking, though, because he’s hesitating at the back of the car. Finally, though, he starts coming around the driver’s side and I start to pull out.
He presses himself against the car next to me to avoid my mirror, and I’m out of the parking spot. Just as I’ve gotten the car into drive and am starting to move forward, though, Ian jumps in front of me, rather melodramatically and I stop.
“Move,” I tell him through the windshield.
I roll down my window and repeat, “Move!”
“No,” he says. “Not until you talk to me.”
I roll the window back up and throw the car in reverse, but apparently I’m not speed demon enough because Ian’s made his way around the car and is now blocking me from the back.
“Rookie move,” I mutter, putting the car in drive and hitting the gas.
I try not to look in the rearview mirror. I try, but I fail, and as soon as I see his shoulders slump as he watches me drive off, suddenly, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing.
The fact of the matter is, whether I listen to his explanation or not, I can’t just up and leave.
I pull into a parking spot toward the edge of the lot, and I just sit for a minute, my hands on the steering wheel, head against the headrest.
What am I supposed to do now? Any move I make feels like a bad decision.
I know what happened was Abby’s fault, and that Ian and I split up, but that doesn’t change the sick feeling in my stomach after seeing it. It’s jealousy, stupid jealousy, but knowing that doesn’t magically make it go away.
There’s no way this won’t look pretty stupid, but I pull back out of my new parking spot and drive back to the old one, putting the car in park and my head back once more, my eyes closed.
There’s a knock on my window and, even though I was expecting it, I still jump a little.
I roll down the window.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say back.
“Listen,” he says, “what happened back there—I didn’t want that. I’m not attracted to her, and as soon as I realized what was happening, I—”
“Just save it,” I tell him. “It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like we’re a thing.”
“I know,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like that.”
“Like what?” I ask stupidly.
“For us to be a thing,” he answers. “I know I’m the one that screwed this up, but what happened today, that wasn’t my fault. She kicked a board in front of me as I was going past, and I thought she was just kidding around, wanting to talk to me because you’re her friend and you and I used to date, but—”
“I think I told you to save it,” I tell him.
“Will you just get out and talk to me?” he asks. “You’re obviously not leaving.”
He’s baiting me. I know he’s baiting me. It doesn’t matter.
I throw my door open, the car still idling, and I get out of the car and up in his face as people file past us as they make their way through the parking lot.
“You’ve got excuses for everything,” I tell him. “That’s why we’re not together anymore. Rather than realize that you were on a vert ramp for the first time ever and just chalk it up to experience, you had to take it out on me, and I had nothing to do with your crappy performance! I didn’t even think it was crappy. I didn’t care that you came in last on vert, I was just proud of you for having the courage to do it. Why do you think I came today?”
“Why did you come today?” he asks.
“I just told you,” I tell him.
“Because you’re proud of me?” he asks.
“No,” I answer. “Well, yeah, that’s what I said, but—”
“Then what is it?” he asks. “If you were just going to come and storm off, what’s the point?”
“Well, I didn’t expect to see you standing there with my best friend on your face,” I retort.
“You know what your problem is?” he asks and doesn’t even take a breath before continuing. “You want things to go just the way you expect them to, and at the first indication that something might not be going according to plan, you just bail on it. I may be the reason we split up this last time, but how many times did you go back and forth about us before we were even together?”
“That just shows that I should have listened to my intuition in the first place,” I tell him.
“That’s bullshit!” he says, his eyes narrowing. “You call it intuition, I call it fear. You never intended to give us a fair shot, so when I flew off the handle, that was your cue to leave.”
“Yeah,” I shout, “that was my cue to leave because you were acting like a world-class asshole!”
“Wow, now it actually starts coming out,” he says. “Your entire personality is based on you not wanting to really engage with anyone, not in a real way, not in a vulnerable way. You hardly ever swear because you’re afraid of offending somebody and offending people draws attention. You kept acting like you wanted something to happen with us until it started to, then you just cut and run. Yeah, Mia, we’re not together right now because of something that I did. It was fucked up, I was fucked up and I am truly, very sorry that I did that, and I have no excuse. All I’m saying is that you don’t have a good excuse for how you’re acting, either.”
“You know what your problem is?” I ask.
“Oh, this should be good.”
“Your problem is that you try to wrap every little experience up in a tiny little bow, but things are more complicated than that,” I tell him.
“You’re twenty,” he says.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I yell.
“Well,” he says in an irritatingly calm voice, “I get that life is complicated, but I mean, it’s not like you have a job or anything to worry about. Your dad takes care of all of that, so you can carry on, floating through life, avoiding anything that might just get a little too real. I don’t think it’s all that complicated.”
“Really?” I ask. “You’re going to open the dad door?”
“Hey, I freely admit that my dad’s an asshole,” he says. “Anyway, that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“The point,” he starts. “The point is…”
“Really not a strong moment for your argument, is it?” I ask.
“The point is…” he tries again, but gives up. Instead, he’s trying Abby’s move, kissing me when that’s about the last thing I expect.
I pull back and my hand is already cocked back, ready to slap him in the face.
“I’m sorry,” he stammers. “I shouldn’t have—”
My hand goes, but it’s not a slap across his face, but my arms around his shoulders as I kiss him back.
He’s surprised a moment, but his arms are around me and whatever this is, it’s leaving me short of breath already.
I’m so mad at him, so completely frustrated with his point of view. I don’t even know if he’s right or not or if that even matters right now.
We slowly pull away from each other, and I can see his Adam’s apple dip and return as he swallows.
“What was—” he starts, but I’m sick of trying to pick this apart.
He’s kissing my neck, and the cars are still going by, dropping most of their occupants off at the front.
I pull away, and I’m telling him, “Not here.”
I’m ready to give an explanation, but he just nods and we’re walking now.
“Where?” I ask as I hit the lock button on my dad’s door after taking the keys out of the ignition.
“Do you have anything?” he asks.
“I always keep a couple in my purse if that’s what you’re asking,” I tell him.
“What changed your—” he starts.
“Oh, you’d probably better shut up before I start thinking this through,” I warn and he’s smart enough not to finish the question.
“I think I know a place, but I have no idea whether we can get in or not,” he says, and he takes my hand, leading me around to the side of the building. “We need to find a way in,” he says.
I, rather cleverly, decide to just walk up to the first side door we come to and pull. To be honest, though, I wasn’t really expecting it to actually give way.
We’re through the door and we try to stay behind things as much as possible, as there are a number of peopl
e doing various work around the inside of the skate park.
I stopped him before he finished his question, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an answer.
What changed my mind is that I figured out what he was trying to say when he was stammering about what he thought the point of his argument was.
Figuring that out may or may not change things in the long run, but for now at least, I’m just walking behind him as he leads me by the hand along the inside perimeter of the building.
We pass a couple of people as we’re going, but they’re far too rushed to either notice or care that we’re in there when we shouldn’t be.
“It’s back here,” Ian says quietly as we come to the rear of the building.
When we reach the back wall, we take a right and Ian lets go of my hand a moment to try the door to a janitor’s closet, opening it easily and gesturing for me to go in.
I take a quick look around. There are plenty of people in eyeshot if any of them were looking over here.
None of them are.
I quickly make my way into the janitor’s closet and Ian comes in after me, closing the door and leaving us in near-total darkness.
“You sure?” he asks. “I know you told me not to ask questions, but—”
“I’m sure,” I tell him and as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel his lips on mine.
He may not understand why I changed my mind so quickly, but he’s not taking anything for granted. I can’t see him, but I can feel him as his hands move over my body while mine are much more direct.
I feel for the top of his pants and unbutton them while Ian’s mouth moves from my mouth, over my cheek and jaw to the curve where my shoulder meets my neck, and I think I finally understand the thrill of knowing we could get caught at any time.
Ian’s pulling up my shirt and kissing my breasts as I pull his pants halfway down, then his boxers and now I’m stroking him, feeling him flex at my touch.
I’m starting to wonder how much foreplay Ian really thinks we have time for when his hands finally settle over the top of my pants, and he undresses me from the waist down.