“Here they go!” Sam’s voice blurted right before the starting horn. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “GO, NORTH!”
The gate the bikers were waiting behind dropped to the ground and the group of them took to the course, which was riddled with mounds and ripples of dirt and sand obstacles. Twenty of them raced over the rough and dangerous terrain. They were so crammed up that on the first turn almost half of them collided and were down. As the fallen riders scrambled to get back on their bikes, the ones who had made it through broke away and competed fiercely, racing over the snaking, twisting route.
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed. Will was like a freaking hawk! His bike would scale a mound, and a moment later he’d be in the air, soaring, flying, seemingly without gravity. He made it appear effortless.
But it was rough; some of the riders who’d collided had the medical crews carrying them away.
Sam said the riders really had to feel and know their bikes and ride aggressively to succeed. After a particularly harrowing vault through the air, it was so questionable that Will would land safely that I gasped and covered my mouth with my hands.
Sam laughed at my response. “You should see it when he competes at the X Games on the freestyle whips,” he said. “It’s un-fucking-believable! I thought our mom was going to die the first time she watched him.”
I could believe that.
By the end of the race, Will had come in second place.
“So this is Professor Jolie.” Will smiled but it almost had a hint of malice in it.
“Did I do something?” I asked, unsure if there was inside info I hadn’t been debriefed on.
Sam slugged Will hard in the shoulder.
“I don’t mean anything by it.” Will rubbed his upper arm. “It’s just that Sammy-boy here is going to have to pay the piper.”
“Oh, shit,” Sam grumbled and rolled his eyes like he’d just remembered something important.
Will nodded knowingly. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“I’m completely missing something.”
“It really isn’t important at all.” Sam changed the subject. “Great riding today.”
“Thanks. That track was just gnarly. The sand was the worst, and everything was just way too soft. Hey, are you heading home for Turkey Day?” Will asked.
“No, the university calendar may say I have the holiday off, but my workload is way too backed up to go anywhere.”
“Well at least you have a beautiful built-in tutor to assist you.” Will gazed back over toward me. “You wouldn’t happen to have a sister would you?” He smiled and I had to shake myself. I couldn’t believe there were two of them!
“No sisters.” I shrugged.
“Now that’s way too bad.”
Will was funny like Sam. I found my intellectual side trying to find a difference between the two twins.
“I still can’t believe you opted to go into the master’s program. It wasn’t really like you, man. I was the one who loved school; you were the one who loved to screw off.” Will shook his head in disbelief.
“Things change,” Sam said a little sadly, then quickly tried to hide it. “Lucas is doing really good. He’s not you and he’s definitely no John Bonham, but he’s holding his own.”
“So when are you guys getting into KeyArena?”
“Still no word,” Sam answered. “Are you still playing with us tomorrow night?”
“Bet your ass I am. I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Will assured. “Would the two of you mind if I was rude and sacked out? I’m beat.”
“Not at all,” I said.
Will stood up from the table. “’Night, bro, goodnight, Kate, see you in the morning.”
Sam and I got ready for the night and lay in his bed. He was quiet. Way too quiet.
“What’s going on in your head?” I swept my fingers down the tattoos on his arm.
“I don’t know. Logan is riding my ass, so is Jimmy in charge of my racing schedule. I can’t please everybody.”
“You please me,” I flirted lightly.
He smiled at that and fit his hand around mine. “I thought … I don’t know, that the sports were hobbies and the music was the goal. I’d never planned on working a career without Will. We did freaking everything together. Don’t get me wrong, I’m completely cool that he wants his own gig, I’m happy for him. I understand that dreams change and life goals can alter with time.” He sighed. “I just didn’t plan on him being so absent from my life, like a traveling stranger. It’s fucking juvenile, I know, but I can’t seem to help it. We’ve shared a bedroom since we were born, went to the same schools, were in all the same classes, went for the same bachelor’s degree at the same university, played in the same rock band since middle school. Only difference was he liked motocross and I liked racing cars. It’s so stupid of me. I feel like an asshat ...”
I waited, knowing there was more to that thought.
Sam finally said, “I feel like he abandoned me. How ridiculous is that? Guy just wants to do his own thing. I really need to get over myself.”
“I get it, Sam. I think what you’re going through is natural.”
“Right, naturally stupid.”
“No, I meant a natural process,” I corrected. “And it can’t be comfortable. It must hurt … feeling like the other half of you is ripping itself away.”
He thought for a minute then answered quietly. “It’s exactly like that, but I’m the only half hurting over it.”
As close as they were, Sam felt like he was the only one struggling with their separation. And just from seeing the two of them together this once, I could see that either Will was playing a wicked game of hiding his emotions, or he just didn’t feel that way, which wounded Sam that much more.
It was there that I found the major difference between the two twins. Sam’s apparent aloofness was only surface level, while his true emotions burned deeply.
“I’m sure that can’t be easy,” I sympathized, squeezing his hand a little tighter.
“Shit happens. I’ll get over it. Between you and me, Will has always functioned on the immature side of things. It just would’ve been nice at some point, as last summer went on and he was mulling over his options, if he would have been straight with me and not waited until the last fucking minute before school to tell me. And if maybe somewhere in there was an apology or at least an acknowledgement that he ditched me. Though maybe he doesn’t even see it that way.” Sam growled, “Enough of that conversation.” Quickly he rolled me onto my back as he lay on top of me. “I found a song that’s perfect for us to be naked to.”
“Really?” I grinned up at him, happy to be a distraction.
Sam reached over to his phone in the docking station. “The artist’s name is Bruno Mars … and, Kate, your sex does bring me to paradise.”
As we began our beautiful, hot and sensual dance with one another, I thought about how my post-grunge rock singer was always playing pop tunes.
“Sam, do you like pop music?” I asked.
“I like most genres of music,” he answered, his voice muffled due to my shirt being in his teeth.
“Yeah, but you don’t seem to listen to the genre you play,” I reasoned.
“Jolie, are you going to make me spell it out?”
When I didn’t answer he simply said, “The bands you said you used to listen to aren’t pop, so I thought maybe you could start listening to music if you went outside of your normal genre … which consequently took me out of mine. Plus, this song is so hot it doesn’t matter what genre it’s in.”
“I’ve liked all of them that you’ve picked out,” I admitted. “I love how you take care of me.”
“Good. Then hold on,” Sam said as he began to bring us to paradise.
Chapter Seventeen
“Carry On”
Fun
Sam
“I can’t believe you two are actually living together,” Will remarked.
“
We’re not living together,” I answered. Not officially.
“Well it’s a lot more than an overnight toothbrush in a cup on the sink.”
He was right.
“What’s your intention?” he challenged.
“What are you asking?” We were sitting in a downtown restaurant, scarfing breakfast burritos. Kate had said she was too busy with work and getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday to come with us. I’m sure that was partially true. I’m sure it was also true she wanted to give Will and me time alone.
“You’re different,” Will observed.
“Different isn’t bad.”
“It is if it breaks you like it did last time,” he stated. “And what about her? If you go out on the road how are you going to keep any relationship, much less a serious relationship, going?”
“Why are you bringing in the heavy?” I said between bites.
“Because, bro, it’s all over your face and in your body language, you have completely fallen for her. You have a career to consider … and if that isn’t enough reason to pause, what about her career? Could just be a professor-student fling for her. But, damn, that’s smokin’ hot.”
“Kate isn’t like that. She’s been through a lot of shit that has made her pretty vulnerable. She opened up to me, I respect that. But, yeah,” I had to agree, “that aspect of the relationship is smoking hot.”
We both laughed.
“Dude,” Will said sympathetically after a minute. “I just don’t want to watch you get crushed again.”
“I think I’ll bounce back just fine.”
“Do you have any idea the puppy eyed expression all over your face?” he laughed.
“Back the fuck off.” But I laughed too. “This is the first time I’ve really felt this way. Do I love her?” I admitted it. “Yeah, I do.”
“Feelings like that are going to affect your life decisions.” Will shook his head. “You should let her go now. It’d be easier.”
“What the fuck is with you? Didn’t you like her?”
“Yeah, she was great!” he exclaimed.
“She’s great and perfect and I should dump her,” I waxed sarcastically. “Stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’m just looking after your future, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well right now, you’re wasting oxygen,” I grumbled.
“Okay, play out the scenario; if you decide to go into racing or touring with the band, how are you going to maintain a long-distance relationship? Do you know how often those work out?”
“I think I can afford to fly her to wherever I am,” I said, overcompensating.
He sighed. “I do like her, and you know I care about what happens to you, Sam. You’re right, the two of you just might be able to pull it off. Have you talked it over with her?”
“She knows about what I’m pursuing, but no, we haven’t talk about those choices and how they could affect us,” I confessed.
Will nodded. “You should. At least you’ll know where her head is. I mean, you may be all gung-ho for a long-distance love affair, but she might not be.”
“Man, you suck,” I said finally, throwing my soiled napkin at his face. “You haven’t gotten any lately have you?”
“Hey, I get mine!”
“Yeah, well you sound like one shut out dick to me.” We both laughed again.
Later that night, Kate met up with us at the concert, and we rocked it! It seemed like we were right on every song! It was awesome to have my brother with me, but I was coming to accept his decisions. It was okay that he went his own separate way—we’d always be brothers and we’d always be connected.
Peeking at Kate as she stood off in the wings made me feel elated. I liked having her close, loved to see her beautiful face as she sang along with the songs. I loved having her attention. And with the knowledge that, within these past weeks, I’d become hers and she’d become mine, everything else felt right in the world.
At the end of the concert, Logan found me, an ecstatic if not lunatic grin covering his face. “Need to talk to you, North.”
We stepped out into the midnight air through a heavy door that led into the side alley next to the club.
“What’s going on? You look like you swallowed the canary,” I joked.
What Logan said next jolted me to my core, and I knew it would either challenge or destroy everything Kate and I had built together.
Chapter Eighteen
“If You Only Knew”
Shinedown
Kate
The week had come and gone too quickly. Sam and Will had had a good time together, but all too soon, Will was on the road again.
Sam and I had a quiet and beautiful Thanksgiving together. This was my first time celebrating the holiday since Ethan had passed on and it was Sam’s first time celebrating away from home. We enjoyed the long, leisurely four day weekend, even though we spent much of it dealing with university work, with him as a student and me as a professor. It still tickled me.
When Sunday night rolled around, Sam suddenly got up, snatched up the handouts I was making for next week and said, “Fuck this. They can wait.” He tossed them to the side.
I startled and sat back. “Why are we waiting?”
“’Cause I have a song rattling around in my head and want you to help me with it.”
I hesitated. Sam hadn’t really been himself since Will had come. He was quiet and even a bit distant, which wasn’t like him at all. I wondered if there was more to the talk we’d had about Will.
“Something fun, something light, something sexy. You like music and you like me, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you … except of course when it gets too hard for me.”
I laughed and he smiled as he set a notepad, pen and voice recorder on the table. Maybe I was reading the signals wrong?
“Okay, I was playing with the lines and it sounds like this …” He hummed out a staccato rhythm and drummed his hands against the coffee table. I loved when he was songwriting. He’d get excited as the lyrics and music came to him as if by enchantment.
“Do you know how much I want you,” he sang.
“Just look into my eyes …”
Sam picked up his pen and tapped the pen to the paper. “Can I say:
‘I love to hear you moan
When I come between your thighs?’”
I slapped him heartily in the arm. “NO!”
“Fine.” His eyes twinkled with wicked, sexy intent.
“Do you know how much I want you,” he sang.
“Just look into my eyes …
I’ve waited so long to give up my heart
But now I realize …”
“I was a fallen little bird,” I sang, following the melody he’d laid out.
“Too broken and bruised to fly …
You came up beside me and fixed my wings
And now I realize …”
I stopped and waited for him to write.
“Oh my God! How do you do that?” He stared at me with awestruck wonder.
“How do I do what?”
“Come up with perfect lyrics to match mine in less than a heartbeat?” He scrawled the notes and words on the paper.
“I don’t know? It just … you must inspire me.”
“It’s more than that, Kate, you have a natural talent.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, okay.”
“Yeah, okay,” he echoed, mimicking me. “Let me grab my guitar and we’ll keep working it.”
He reached over and took his Taylor acoustic off its stand and plucked a few chords to see if it was still in tune.
He sang:
“That every slammed door in my face
Every hurt I could not erase …”
I jumped in.
“Every doubt, every step …”
Sam came back in.
“Has led me to this place …”
I felt the song come to me like my precious waves, as if I were literally on a surfboard and if I was patient
enough, the right words would flow to me.
“Every shard of broken glass
Every shadow from my past
You were never afraid
Of what stood in our way …”
Sam finished with what seemed to be the chorus’ tag line:
“And I realize you are the one I want to stay.”
Then he continued back to the verse:
“Who knew we’d get this far
Let me hold you in my arms
Girl, you’re all I think about
I’m hoping that you will figure it out …”
I sang back:
“What I’m saying to you
Is bring your body close and feel mine move
’Cause, boy, you’re all I think about
I’m hoping that you will figure it out”
“Chorus,” Sam chimed, and I sang along:
“That every slammed door in my face
Every hurt I could not erase
Every doubt, every step
Has led me to this place …
Every shard of broken glass
Every shadow from my past
You were never afraid
Of what stood in our way …
And I realize you are the one I want to stay.”
We were silent for a moment, musing over what we’d just created. I didn’t know what was happening in his beautiful mind, but I knew what was happening in mine. The lyrics were strong and serious. ‘I realize you are the one I want to stay.’ What were we saying to each other? Why did I suddenly need to know?
Why wasn’t this moment of now enough? Why did I have to have words to bring me forward to the next one?
“You could really be a phenomenal songwriter,” Sam said softly, staring motionless at the words we’d written.
“It’s only because I’m following your lead … like a dance,” I reasoned. He had that look about him again, the internal issue he was wearing in his expression. “Are you going to talk to me about it, Sam?”
True North Book 3 - Finding Now Kate and Sam Page 18