Wild Reckless

by Ginger Scott

  “You’re afraid he’s going to try to push you too fast?” she asks, and I feel silly just hearing it out loud.

  “Oh wow. I’m seriously living an after-school special, huh? Uhhhhhhg!” I say, throwing my face in my hands. I feel a little ridiculous, and presumptuous that I’m even thinking about things like Owen and sex at all. But I am. I’m thinking about it, about a me and Owen, down the road, when sex might enter into the picture. And when I think of that, I start to think that for him—a guy like Owen—sex is probably already in the picture. And then I replay that thing he said, the night at the party, when he accused me of having a problem with people having sex. I’m such a fucking prude!

  “I just like him, Will. I like him a lot, and I’ve never…” All of my attention goes to my lap, to my fingers that I’m picking at, to my knee bouncing up and down.

  “This summer,” she says, and I stop breathing, waiting for the rest. “Jess and me, our first time was this summer. I wanted to wait. And really?” She pauses, looking to the left at our school while we wait at the light, Jess’s car parked in its usual spot. “I wanted to wait more. I mean…I don’t regret it. But I wasn’t really ready.”

  “Oh,” I say, sucking in my lip hard, not sure what to say next.

  “It got better. And we’re careful, and we…we’re, I don’t know, active? Boy, that sounds really fucking clinical, doesn’t it? We do it, sometimes? And I’m glad it was Jess, that he was my first,” she says, her lips curving into a smile when we see him standing at the curb, waiting for her to pull in. “But you don’t have to, you know?”

  “But there have been so many. Haven’t there? I mean, Owen and girls…” I say as she puts the car in park.

  “Probably. But, really, what do I know? Maybe he just makes out and kisses, and that’s it,” she says, pausing in the quiet of her car for a few seconds before we both break into hysterical laughter. “Yeah, probably not!”

  We both laugh hard while we gather our things, but my laughter dies down quickly, my thoughts going right back to that kiss, how it felt, and how different a boy like Owen is from the safety of group dates and school functions I was used to before.

  I trail behind Willow and Jess along the walkway, and am about to step into the band room, when I notice someone sitting on the tables nearby. Owen’s hands are wrapped around a paper cup steaming with coffee, his fingers poking through black cut-off gloves; a beanie is pulled over his dark hair.

  “Kinda early today, aren’t you?” I ask, my fingers instinctively moving to my hair, tucking it behind my ear—a nervous tick in his company, and my face is blushing at the sight of him. He looks up, his lips puckered while he blows over the top of the hot liquid in his cup, the steam making small swirls in front of his lips. The way they slide so naturally into a smile erases every tiny worry I let in during my car ride with Willow. The way his face lights up when he sees me—when he sees me—that’s enough.

  Right now, the way he looks right now, is enough.

  “It was weird, I had these awful stomach pains, like someone…poisoned me,” he teases, his eyebrows lowered while he stares at me, his legs stretching out slowly as he stands.

  “Damn. You’re on to us. My mother and I are black widows, with a trail of high school boys and men buried in yards all over Illinois,” I say, finishing my last word just before Owen’s arm sweeps me into his chest, the softness of his coat backed by the hardness of his body, every single inch of him warm.

  “Kens, trust me, you buried me a long time ago,” he says, his lips kissing the top of my head, his arm holding me tight to him. This is where I want to be for the rest of the morning. And I am his just a little more.

  “I have to go to band,” I groan, and he squeezes one last time before letting me go, the cool air wrapping around me the second his arm leaves my body. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s cool. I figured I’d just come early, see if I could see you,” he says, and his cheeks—they actually blush. “I had to drop Andrew off early. He’s doing this robotics thing.”

  “Oh,” I say, my smile caught in my teeth, my tummy fluttering. “Will I be seeing you in class today, Mr. Harper?”

  “Yes, Miss Worth. I will be attending class this week. In fact, I should be here every day, from now on,” he says. “Sort of quit the job that tried to arrest me for paying for something,” he says, his eyes gliding down my body, to my wrist, where my gift still circles my arm. I haven’t taken it off since he gave it to me, even when my mom raised an eyebrow when I told her it was a gift from Owen.

  “Is that going to mess things up for you? I mean, you said you needed the money,” I say, worried about him.

  “Yeah, we do,” he says through a deep breath, cupping the back of my head and kissing my forehead before he begins to slide away from me. “But my mom’s taking a break from school, so she’s picking up a second job. I don’t like it, but she wants me to focus on the rest of my year.”

  I’m hanging on the open door, Willow just out of view, watching my every move from inside, ready to make fun of me the second I close the door. “So I’ll see you in a couple hours,” I say, my fingers, my lips, my toes—every part of me tingling just watching Owen’s eyes rake over me. His lip quirks on the side, the small dimple, the one I used to think seemed so arrogant, punctuating everything about him that makes me weak. Then he blows me a kiss before pulling his ear buds from his pocket and tucking them into ears and going back to his coffee.

  “You…are in trouble, missy,” Willow says, her head shaking at me, not quite in disapproval, as I close the door and move to my instrument.

  “Yeah, I’m in pretty big trouble,” I admit, enjoying every second of it.

  We spend our morning band practice marching. Most of my time is spent practicing chords and new sheet music on the xylophone—wheeling it to the field to watch the rest of the band march, wheeling it back when we’re done. My shoes are caked with wet, dead grass, so I spend my independent hour—the time I’m supposed to be practicing the piano—digging away the grass and mud. It’s an excuse not to play. I don’t even pretend it’s anything but.

  When Owen’s feet are waiting on my desk, his pencil eraser pressed in-between his lips, his cocky smile underscoring the intensity of his eyes as they watch me move through the desks between the door and our row, I melt.

  I melt.

  I melt every time.

  I don’t bother to move his feet, instead sitting in my seat, resting my arm along the top of his ankle, enjoying the nearness of any part of him. I catch the stares from the others in the class. Most people take us in, dismiss us, and then move on. Others, girls who I’ve seen in the rotation, whisper and stare a little longer than most. But Owen never moves from our touch, and neither do I.

  Every class is the same. And when it’s time for lunch, Owen actually waits for me by the classroom door, walking by my side to the cafeteria. Just before I reach to open the door, his pinky grabs mine. I stop to notice, my eyes looking at the way our hands look together, my fingers shaking with nerves, until eventually Owen weaves his entire hand through mine, his grip leaving no doubt that this touch—it’s intentional, and it isn’t fleeting.

  “You wanna skip lunch and head outside to make out in front of Willow and Jess?” I joke, really just a mask for how nervous I still am with him. Owen smiles and laughs once, but then he shakes his head, leans in, and kisses my cheek.

  “Nah. I’d rather just be with you,” he says, his eyes meeting mine, but looking down quickly as he pushes the brim of his hat lower. He’s nervous, too.

  We both pick out a few small things for lunch, and Owen follows me to the table, my friends all watching him sit next to me, take my tray for me, then open the tab on his soda.

  After several long awkward silent seconds, Owen puts his soda back down on the table and wipes his hands along his jeans, drying them from the moisture from the can. He reaches across the table to Jess, his hand out for a shake.

  “Hi. I’m O
wen,” he says, his eyes daring Jess to break, for the table to break and everyone to finally get over whatever it is they all seem to find weird. Jess takes over eventually, smiling back and shaking Owen’s hand, laughing at himself.

  “Sorry, we’re band geeks. We lack social skills,” Jess says, and Willow ribs him.

  “Speak for yourself,” she says.

  “Especially this one. She’s like head band geek, so…ya know,” he says, grimacing and earning an even harder jab from Willow.

  “Owwwww! Hey,” he says, rubbing the spot she poked, looking up as Ryan slides behind him to his seat next to Elise.

  “Hey, O. What’s up?” Ryan says, his eyes setting on Owen’s left arm, which is now around my shoulders, his fingers slowly scratching at my shoulder, possessively. “Ahhhh, never mind,” Ryan adds, a quick wink before giving the rest of his attention to his lunch.

  “You coming to practice today?” Ryan says, his mouth mumbling through a giant bite of his sandwich.

  “Yeah, I should make them all now. Quit the job. Mom’s getting a second, at least, for a while,” Owen says, and I reach down and slide my hand over his knee, just wanting to let him know I know the depth of it all—how much his mom working, him working, is integral to his family.

  “Cool. Hey, you should come watch, Kens,” Ryan says, his eyes smirking when he mentions the invitation.

  “Oh, no. She’d get bored,” Owen says, and I can feel him stiffen next to me.

  “No, I wouldn’t. I love watching you play,” I say, a little too quickly, the admission that I’ve watched him before, ever at all, falling out in front of everyone.

  “You love watching me, huh?” he teases, his mouth slowly taking in a chip, crunching leisurely, while his smile slips back into place.

  All I can do is stare back into his eyes, his eyes that are daring me to say anything different, to pretend and lie, and try to convince the rest of the table that I don’t watch him. His eyebrows raise, and my face burns from the redness.

  “Practice is at four,” he says, his head falling to the side, and his look growing more adoring.

  I melt. Every time.

  “I’ll take you home,” he says. “And maybe tonight you can have dinner at my house.”

  “Okay,” I say, smiling while my lips hug the straw for my juice drink, my body still burning from everyone’s attention.

  Willow doesn’t ask any questions on our way to class, and after school, she only sends me a quick text, reminding me to have fun but be careful, and some picture of a basketball and a heart. She follows it up with a graphic of a condom, which mortifies me—so I spend the next five minutes looking for a picture of a middle finger to send to her.

  My mom is working her night shift, so I don’t even bother to text her, knowing she won’t see it for the next several hours anyhow. I wander the empty halls, looking around for Owen or Ryan or even House, but everyone’s gone. I give my backpack one final check, then slide it up over my shoulders and exit the main building.

  I can hear the squeak of shoes as I near the gym, and when I open the door, I recognize Owen quickly. I slip through the front hallway to the side entrance and take a seat in one of the bleachers, near the end. A few parents are watching too, one of the dads standing at the front of the bleachers, yelling out things every now and then. It makes me chuckle to myself. It’s not so different from my father standing behind me, watching my hands move along the piano keys. He used to shout things too.

  Owen hasn’t seen me yet, and I’m glad. He’s being himself, his confidence something I envy. He’s leading the other guys through drills, the ball always a little sharper, more controlled, when it’s with him. It’s strange to see him like this, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves torn away. His arms are more defined than I thought, probably because the last time I watched him play in my driveway, his shirt was off, and the only thing I could stare at was his stomach and chest.

  He has a tight, black brace wrapped around one of his knees, and I remember him telling me he had surgery once. It doesn’t seem to bother him as he glides effortlessly up and down the court, stopping on a dime, switching direction, moving the ball from one hand to the next and rolling it off his fingers near the rim. His touch is flawless.

  The coach whistles, and all of the guys jog over for a water break. Ryan sees me first, and I smile, lifting my hand and waving close to my body, not wanting to be a distraction. He elbows Owen, and he looks over and winks, but his focus goes right back to his team.

  For two hours, Owen runs. He never stops running. His body never once looks tired. I could watch him for hours, days maybe. He’s clearly the best on the team, Ryan a close second, and the way he controls everything is mesmerizing. He shouts things, pushes other players in their chests, smacks their asses when they do something right and scolds them when they’re wrong. And nobody ever questions him. They all want to please him—even the coach.

  It’s almost like they’re afraid…

  When practice is over, Ryan runs out from the locker room first, sitting next to me on the front step of the bleacher while he slips on his other shoes.

  “Owen will be right out. He wanted me to tell you,” he says, a faint smile on his face. Ryan doesn’t show a lot of emotion, but I get the feeling he’s rooting for Owen and me.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  He nods once, finishes getting his shoes on, then starts to stand, stopping with his elbows on his knees. “You wanna know why I like Owen so much?” he says, his face slightly in my direction, his eyes looking at me from the side.

  I nod.

  Ryan looks toward the door, which is still closed, and leaves his focus there as he speaks. “Last year, my little brother tried to kill himself,” he says, my breath leaves my body. “He’s small. Like, really small—opposite of me in every way. It’s not his fault. Something he was born with, just a weird mutation of our genes. The whole family is tall, like me. Jake, he’s short. He’s in eighth grade, and he’s maybe four feet tall. Anyhow, some kids in his grade, they thought it’d be funny to nominate him for the king or whatever they call it at his junior high dance. That’s the only reason he went, because he was nominated, and thought he might win something. So he goes, and he ends up winning, and he gets to dance with the prettiest girl, have his picture taken, all that shit.”

  Ryan turns to me for the rest of his story.

  “My brother came home on cloud nine, thinking he was finally accepted. Then the next day, he found out that everyone voted for him to make that girl have to dance with him, because she had broken up with her boyfriend, the popular guy, and they wanted her to pay for it. They plastered her locker with pictures of her and Jake—with things written everywhere that said stuff like ‘that’s the best you can do now, bitch.’ The girl was mortified, and she left school for the day, too embarrassed to stay.”

  “That’s awful! Awful that someone would do that to both of them. Did they make fun of Jake, too?” I ask, my hand pressed to my cheek in disbelief.

  “Now see, that’s the thing. Nobody ever paid attention to him, said anything to him about it, teased him—nothing. It was almost as if he was invisible, just the tool for the prank. And being invisible…well, I guess that was worse. He came home from school, after a full day of being invisible, and then he swallowed a bottle of pills. My mom called me away from practice, and Owen had to drive me to the hospital.”

  “Owen stayed with me all night, brought my mom a change of clothes from his mom’s closet the next day, and when my brother finally got to come home and go back to school, Owen showed up with a few of his friends, hung out on the basketball courts outside the school, made sure nobody said anything about the pills. Then he started taking Jake to school, picking him up with Andrew every morning. He hasn’t missed a single day in over a year. Not once. Even when he has to work, and he’s running late, and when I know he’d rather give the pretty girl who moved next door a ride. He shows up, at our front door, and my brother l
oves every fucking second of attention he gives him.”

  Ryan stands finally, his eyes back on the door, where Owen is finally exiting, talking to the coach, his bag slung over his back, his body dressed in his usual black jeans, black sweatshirt, black shoes—like a superhero in disguise.

  “I like Owen so much because that dude has character—more character than any adult I’ve ever met. And the fact that he can do something like that, for a thirteen-year-old kid he doesn’t even know that well, while he’s got shit to deal with of his own…he’s not what people say he is—but I get the feeling you know that,” Ryan says, Owen now within hearing distance of us. Ryan smiles as he nods to Owen, who gives him a suspicious look. “See ya, Kens. I’ll say hi to Elise for you.”

  “Was he hitting on you? Cuz, that shit ain’t cool,” Owen jokes. I shake my head no and stand on my tippy-toes, reaching up to kiss him softly, my entire body tingling with a new feeling for Owen Harper. I’m not sure what it is, but I think it might be pride.

  I follow Owen to his truck, toss my bag in the seat between us, and buckle in. When he gets in on his side, he shakes his head and lifts my bag up, tossing it on the floor by my feet. “I love Gramps’ truck, but your seat is way too far,” he says, patting the seat next to him. I’ll have to pull my knees up to my chest because of the hump in the floor, but the ride is short—and the few minutes of discomfort are well worth having Owen inches away.

  “House said you were looking for me yesterday?” Owen mentions as he pulls us out of the school’s parking lot.

  “I was. I…I heard them out front playing basketball, thought it was you,” I say, looking down at my knees. I’m not sure why I’m embarrassed, but I am.