by Bria Quinlan
“And what have they ever done to you?”
“One nipped me once when I was five. I have a scar on my shoulder. My dad said she was just looking to chew at my hair.”
“Well, there you have it.” He turned the radio on and lowered the volume so it played quietly under the purr of the engine. “They're innocent hair-chewers. But we all have bad habits. You can't really blame them for it.”
I laughed again, a little surprised to hear the sound. I couldn't believe that fifteen minutes after seeing Tanner with Leah something could make me not want to throw-up, let alone make me laugh.
“And,” I added, “contrary to earlier accusations, I've never cheated on a test.”
I thought about that, suddenly suspicious about who had sent the letter. The options had narrowed down from I have no idea to Which one was it.
Jake glanced at the clock on the dash and over at me.
“Where do you live?”
I could see the lit-up dot of town growing closer. “Just drop me off in Greenville.”
We drove another few minutes, the only sound an old Tim McGraw song playing like a background soundtrack to my misery. I shifted on the seat, trying to pull the hem of my dress down over my knees. What had seemed cute and just a little daring when I'd put it on seemed too short now that I knew Leah had picked it out and that Leah was a Junior League Home Wrecker.
“You should do something.” Jake took his attention off the road and shot a look my way, his words catching me off-guard.
“What?”
He moved his gaze back to the road, a line creasing between his eyes like he’d said something shocking.
“I could help you, you know. Do something.” He cleared his throat. “I could help you do something.”
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant.
“You know. Check things off.”
I turned on the bench to face him, more than a little lost.
“Check off what things?”
“Those things. The things on that imaginary list of teen activities you seem to think we're all out doing without you.”
Why would he do that? Was I so boring even strangers felt the need to step in? Too many beliefs were getting shifted too quickly. There was no way I was sitting in this truck with a super hot guy who was offering to up my Exciting Quotient.
Pity excitement. Who knew that even existed?
“Why?” I might have been throwing a little bit of caution to the wind, but I couldn't help but worry about a stranger—a guy stranger—offering gifts. Look what happened to those Trojans.
“I've got some time to kill before I can meet up with my friends. You can help me kill it.”
I thought about going home—of not taking a risk, like usual—and my stomach dropped. Being cautious hadn't kept me safe. It hadn't made life simple. It just made me…well, boring. And now, even I was bored with being boring.
“Okay,” I said before I could change my mind.
I mean, I was already off to a good start riding in a truck with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Unknown. Might as well go all in.
It was time to ante up.
Chapter Four
Jake looked more than a little surprised I'd agreed. Apparently even strangers knew not to expect anything like a spontaneous action from me. Of course, I'd been extremely clear about my thrill level.
While Jakes gaze bored into mine, the truck flew down the road guided by only his lack of attention to the yellow line cutting the road down the middle. Not to mention the speed limit. I struggled not to mention how dangerous driving without having your eyes on the road was.
“Well, damn,” he finally said as he downshifted and threw the truck across the yellow line to pull the fastest U-turn I'd ever seen. “Alright, darlin’. We're going to teach you to have a little fun.”
It wasn't the fact that I'd agreed to who knew what that had me worried. Or that we'd probably broken at least three rules of the road in less than thirty seconds.
It was that grin.
Jake Moore had one of those grins that promised the proverbial “They” weren’t lying when they said his middle name was Trouble.
If I were smart—and I had been thirty minutes ago—I'd tell him I was kidding or the moment of insanity had passed or any other thing that would get him to turn the truck around—more slowly and definitely in a legal-fashion this time—and take me home.
Apparently, my IQ was dropping faster than the price of corn. Because instead of doing any of those things, I rolled my window down, laid my head back, and let the air whipping through the cab drown out everything but Mr. McGraw.
We passed by the Dawsons', the sky still bright in the distance from all the flashing neon lights. Part of me was annoyed again.
But only part.
Part of me was stacking grievances on top of suspicions. I was finally sixteen. Things had been looking good. I'd had a boyfriend and was going to the county fair as a couple for the first time. I hadn’t been worrying about the might-have-beens, only looking forward to what-could-bes. This was so not the way this night was supposed to go.
“I'd been expecting a stuffed bear.”
Jake glanced at me for the first time since throwing the truck in the opposite direction. “What?”
“I'd been expecting a stuffed bear. You know those really cheap pressed felt things they give you if you knock all the cans over or shoot all the moving ducks? I was expecting Tanner to win me a stuffed bear, not feel up my best friend.”
Jake shook his head, that grin back again as if what I'd said wasn't a heartbreak, just a funny story.
He gave me a once-over. Not interest, just blatant curiosity. “How'd you end up with that guy, anyway?”
Of course a hot guy would wonder what another hot guy was doing with me. It obviously wasn't for my previously discussed lack of thrill-ability.
I'd asked myself that question a few times over the last few months. But there comes a point when you don't question your blessings—you just count them blindly.
“He wanted a tutor to make math easier this year. We got together right before school started so he could get a jump on it and make sure he didn’t dip toward a grade that would disqualify him from football.”
“Are you new?”
I pulled my knees under me and turned to lean against the door so I could watch him drive. It was less nerve-wracking than watching the road as he sped down it—but only marginally. I considered trying to super-glue his head to the headrest. Facing forward, of course.
“New?”
“Did you just move here?”
“Um, no.” I had no idea where this was going.
“How is it you’ve just met him this year?”
“Well, I guess I knew who he was because of football. He knew who I was. But we'd never been friends or hung out or anything.”
“Uh huh, so how did he know who you were?”
“What?”
“You said you knew him because of football. How did he know you?”
He knew me like everyone knew me. Christy. There came a point when you wished people didn't know who you were. That not everything was tied to being Christy's sister Bridget.
It had become like a title: Christy's Sister Bridget. Or usually, since people never liked to truly name things for what they were, The Other Larson Girl.
The look of pity and uncomfortableness was still on almost every face I saw. Even after three years.
“Oh, you know. Small town.”
Jake nodded. Greenville made “small town” look like a thriving metropolis. “Oh yeah. You guys aren’t a district school, right?”
“Right.”
The CD ended and flipped back to the beginning. The quiet took over the cab for just a moment.
“You hadn’t hung out before?” he asked as the music kicked back in.
“What?”
“You and the jackass. You hadn’t hung out or anything until you started tutoring him?”
“No. I’m not really che
erleader material.”
Jake nodded. It was like a slap in the face. It was one thing to know you weren’t hot, but another thing for a guy to agree with you. I don’t know why I was insulted when it was true. I guess I’d gotten too used to people tip-toeing around me.
But then he glanced my way and I realized he was taking me in, judging and weighing. That the nod had just been an I’m listening motion.
“So you only got to know him because you were tutoring him.”
I nodded.
“In this tiny, small town that you didn’t just move to.”
I nodded again, starting to get a little nervous where this was headed.
“And you’d never hung out or known any of his friends or anything like that.”
My nodding might have gotten slower.
“And you didn’t know him from being in class together?”
If I’d thought Jake was a little slow on the uptake, I’d started reconsidering my assumption. I wouldn’t have guessed he was one of those guys who dug in and didn’t let things go.
But apparently he was.
“Not really.” It was the truth. We hadn’t had classes together until this year. A very awkward truth.
“Bridget, why don’t you just tell me whatever it is you’re talking around?”
I wasn’t up for this. I didn’t know how to manage such direct demands. To manage someone who wasn’t handling me or letting me off the hook for no reason.
I didn’t have the defenses for this, or for where questions like Jake’s might lead.
And so I did the scariest thing I could think of: I answered him.
“I’ve been homeschooled for the past three years.”
He let it sit out there, that odd little statement. I knew other kids were homeschooled. I’d taken enough online classes with them to understand there were a bunch of us. But here in Greenville, it wasn’t something people did.
The school had a good academic standing. The town was conservative. The church was a common social base for almost the entire community. All the reasons I’d heard of from my online classmates of why they were being homeschooled weren’t there. There were only the other reasons. The reasons that people typically didn’t think of.
“Were you…are you sick?”
I glanced over at Jake. Both his hands were wrapped around the steering wheel now, his grip tight. No one had ever asked me that before. No one had ever asked why. Between everyone knowing and there being some unwritten law about it on the online homeschooling forums, no one asked.
“No. I’m not sick.” I rushed on before he could ask. “I wasn’t sick then, either.”
I didn’t want to lie. But I also had no interest in talking about it.
“So anyway.” I kept going before the questions could get more complicated. “I hadn’t really known him. Hadn’t seen him except at football games since we were kids. You know, back when boys had cooties.”
Jake laughed like I’d hoped he would. A warm tingle settled over me at the fact I’d done that. I’d talked to a boy, turned a conversation away from something I didn’t want to discuss, and made him laugh.
Too bad none of that was worth checking off.
Slowly, one of his hands dropped away from the wheel only to be propped up on the sill of the open window. His body eased back into his seat again, and that tight-locked look around his jaw loosened.
I set my head back and listened to the chirping of the peeper frogs working to drown out the engine and the broken-hearted song playing on the radio.
We turned off the paved route and onto another dirt road. This one was at least better taken care of than the pitted mess we’d taken out to the fair.
“Where are we going?”
“You'll see.” Jake didn't take his gaze off the road this time. “Watch for deer.”
Great. We were heading farther into the darkness and my biggest concern—forget the strange boy driving the truck or the ultimate betrayal still playing out back at the fair—was supposed to be watch for deer.
We pulled up to a fairly new farmhouse. You could tell it had been built in the seventies by the weird little sloped roof along the edge of the porch.
Jake pulled the truck around back to the door and cut the engine before glancing toward me. He looked me over again and shook his head before hopping out of the truck.
“Wait here.” Pushing the door shut, he glanced my way one last time before climbing the porch steps.
He pounded a closed fist on the frame twice, pulled the door open and disappeared into the kitchen. In a far window another light flipped on, lighting a path toward the back of the house.
A tall, dark-haired man in a white t-shirt wandered into view, not looking the least bit surprised to find Jake in his house on a random Saturday night. I leaned over to the driver's side, watching through the window as the man threw an arm around Jake and practically lifted him off the ground. He glanced out the window at me waiting in the truck, and I got a glimpse of what Jake would look like in ten years. More chiseled. Harder. And very, very hot.
Not that Jake wasn't already hot, but here was the difference between the young version and the cut, hotter, older version. The two talked, Jake laughing and the older guy shaking his head—not in a no way, just in a way that made me think he shook his head at Jake a lot.
A moment later, Jake came out the back door with something in his hands, leaned over the bed of the truck, and tucked whatever it was back there before climbing into the cab.
“Remember what I said.” The older guy was standing on the back porch, one hand bracing the screen door open. He bent over to get a look at me, gave a small wave, and headed back into the house.
Jake waited until the door fell shut before starting the truck and backing us onto the dirt road. The house shrunk in the rearview mirror until it disappeared behind us as I waited for Jake to tell me what that was all about.
He certainly wasn’t a chatty fellow. Not that I was much of a talker either, but I knew how to listen. I knew when people didn’t want to talk about something they filled the air with something else. Most people tended toward words when they were nervous.
But Jake? I couldn’t get a read on him.
When I was with Tanner he talked about football all the time. Even though I’d assumed Jake was on the Hawks, he hadn’t mentioned football once. The flip side of that was Leah, who talked about whatever went through her head…well, I guess not everything. Not the fact that she was messing around with my boyfriend.
“Who was that?” It seemed like the obvious place to start.
“My brother.”
Yeah. Kind of guessed that. I’d just hoped it would get him headed in the right conversational direction. “What did he say?”
“Nothing your sweet ears want to hear.”
I tried waiting him out, thinking something else would be coming.
When Jake didn't volunteer information, I finally asked, “Why'd we stop there?”
Jake's lips ticked up on one side, but he didn't bother to share his thoughts with me. He obviously wasn't going to tell me anything. But on the upside, now someone knew I was with him. Even if it was his brother, it seemed like a better plan than no one knowing at all.
We drove another ten minutes, the silence stretching out as I replayed the last five weeks in my head.
Had Leah been with Tanner before he asked me out? Had she gone after him after we started dating? Had he gone after her? Were they sleeping together? Did the entire school know? How often had they lied so they could hang out together?
Even with all that rushing through my head, I still couldn't believe one of them would get me grounded so they could hook up. Grounded.
Tanner and Leah both knew how I felt about upsetting my parents. Of all the people I knew, my parents didn't deserve that type of worry.
I guess when you're a lying, cheating, backstabbing, and who knows what-else’ing you-know-what, getting me grounded is pretty low on the list of your sins.
And obviously my parents weren’t on the Do Not Worry list for the cheating cheaters. Upsetting them with that note probably hadn’t crossed Tanner or Leah’s mind.
Jake turned the truck to face a gate with a very prominent NO TRESPASSING sign on it. He eyed me and then eyed the gate again.
“Can you drive a stick?”
I rolled my eyes. I could drive anything. Not legally yet, but if it had an engine, I could drive it. My daddy’s favorite photo of me from when I was little was of us sitting on a John Deere baler.
“Great, slide over.”
He climbed out and walked toward the front of the truck, the lights hitting him right across his butt as he climbed the fence to reach the gate peg on the inside and push it open.
Once he’d walked the gate out of the way, I slid across the bench and shifted the truck into first, careful not to grind the gears. I'd seen too many boys flip out about their trucks to know it was the fastest way to get yourself left on the side of the road.
After I cleared the gate, Jake pushed it shut and threw the hook back into place. He locked the gate behind us and climbed back into the driver’s seat as I tried to scoot across the cab. When my leg got stuck on the gearshift, he tossed his arm behind me across the back of the bench.
“Don't worry, we're almost there.”
I peered through the darkness and the strip of empty land cut through by the headlights. “Where?”
He just grinned again and pulled me closer to his side so he could shift to second, a move too practiced for me not to question how often he’d had a girl practically on his lap as he drove.
Apparently seatbelts rated lower on his To Do list than they did on mine. Or anyone who didn’t have a death wish.
In a few minutes we came across a cluster of trees and Jake shut the truck down.
“Here we are.”
Again. “Where?”
He opened the door and hopped out before helping me down. “Trespassing.”
I glanced around, waiting for the bright lights of someone's truck or the distant wail of a siren to end my night on an even worse note.
But nothing came, just the quiet call of the crickets picking up where they'd left off when he'd cut the engine.