by C. A. Harms
“Everything,” Luke said with a wink and I quickly looked away from him.
My father pushed up off his four-wheeler and tossed me his key. “Looks like you have time to go have some fun, little lady,” he said, taking my momma’s hand and dragging her off toward the house. Although I sensed Luke staring at my side, I continued to watch my parents as they disappeared inside the house.
“You did this on purpose,” I said, still not looking at him, “didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “But in my defense, I did warn ya that I’d be making things right with you one way or the other.”
“And showing up here and doing my work for me is your way of making things right?” I asked as I finally turned back to face him.
“No.” He shrugged. “But it’ll take away the chance of you shooting me down when I ask you to go for a ride. I figured if your work was done, you’d have to go.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” I challenged him. Although he was pissing me of, the fun, flirty feeling from last night returned, making me feel carefree and relaxed again.
“Will you go for a ride with me, Maddy?” he asked as he tilted his head to the side, grinning. It was a good look on him, unlike Deacon’s grin when he tried to play the charm card. “Please,” he added, “or are you scared you won’t be able to keep up?”
“Oh I can keep up just fine,” I assured him as I moved toward the ATV. “I think you were the one always making up excuses as to why a girl beat you. I’ve never had a problem beating your ass, Lucas Rivers, and I won’t have a problem now.”
I was well aware he’d just played me. He knew I couldn’t back down from a challenge. But for once, I felt like I was able to let go of the anger I’d been harboring for far too long. Smiling felt good, and so did giving in and just being me for a change.
I climbed up on the four-wheeler, placed the key in the ignition, and fired it up, then gripped the handles, looking over at him tauntingly. “Don’t cry when you can’t keep up,” I told him just before I took off, kicking up gravel and dust. I didn’t look back, but I heard him coming.
I drove straight for the valley, and once I was there, I went full throttle. I could hear him switch gears, doing his best to pass me. Lucas had no idea about the alterations my father had made to his ATV. Dad treated this jewel like most racers treated their cars, and he was always looking for ways to make it faster and better.
Lewis Rivers, Luke’s father, didn’t care much for that type of thing. He preferred to enhance his trucks instead, so I knew going in that Lucas had no hope of beating me.
I loved the way the wind blew through my hair as I continued in a straight line toward the hills hidden just beyond the lines of trees. My daddy didn’t let the fact I’m a girl stop him from taking me out in the fields each day, and I was thankful. This was who I was and what I loved to do. I was tough as nails and I wasn’t afraid of a little dirt—or a lot of it, for that matter.
The moment we hit the hills, we both went for it.
My memories of the times we rode together years ago flooded back. Finally, I admitted to myself that I truly missed the boy I’d loved for longer than I could remember. I missed the times we let go of everything around us and simply enjoyed being free.
We lost track of time as we rode through the hills and tall grass, laughing and smiling at one another when we would outdo the other. I couldn’t remember the last time I allowed myself to just have fun without thinking of all the things I still had to do. Times like these ended just before we hit high school, and I missed them more than anything else. Up until that point, Luke and I had been inseparable.
I slowed to a stop just atop the hill that overlooked the lake we’d swum in almost daily as kids. The setting sun cast a yellowish-orange glow across the water.
It was beautiful.
The sound of Lucas pulling up at my side didn’t take my attention away from the lake. He turned off his four-wheeler and we sat in silence overlooking the water. It was always strange how I didn’t have to talk with Luke at times like these; just being in his presence gave me peace.
“To this day, this is still one of my favorite places,” he said and I smiled. It was mine too. This place held years of childhood memories, and I escaped to it often just to think and allow myself the chance to feel without anyone watching or questioning the tears I’d shed.
Sitting in silence with him as we looked out over the water gave me too much time to think of what could have been. Too much time to regret the way things turned out between us.
“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself. The word could be taken in so many different ways, but I knew he’d know just how I meant it. He’d always known me better than anyone else.
“Do you remember when we came out here the summer before we started high school?” he asked, and I closed my eyes, remembering it like it was yesterday. “We sat almost in this very spot and talked about how great it would be. We swore we’d always be friends and that even though we’d be busy, we’d always find time for each other.”
I nodded. Things were so easy back then.
“I remember you sitting in the stands cheering me on when I tried out for football,” Luke continued, his voice hoarse and much quieter. “You were so excited when they announced that I’d made the team, I could pick your voice out over everyone else as they cheered and clapped. You were always on my side, always in my corner.”
“I was, and I was so proud of you,” I said without hesitation.
“Then we did what we said we wouldn’t,” he added, and I looked over at him to find he was now staring at me. “We let high school change us. Me more than you, I know, but Maddy, you changed too. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but I’m saying we both went our separate ways.”
I couldn’t argue, because I had also changed while growing up. But even though I changed when becoming a teenager, never once did I think changing would cost me Lucas.
“I know I did a whole lot of wrong, but I never meant to push you away. I think we both just stopped trying, and eventually that wedge between us made us grow apart.” His eyes glimmered with tears in the falling darkness, and the sight pulled heavily at something inside me.
“I just felt like I didn’t belong in your world anymore,” I confessed, suddenly feeling raw and vulnerable, feelings I hated and had done everything to avoid over the last few years. But with Luke it was inevitable.
“And I felt like there was no longer a place for me in yours.”
We stared at one another in silence.
The realization that we’d both done wrong settled over us. Finally I allowed myself to accept that fact that our distance wasn’t only Lucas’s fault. I could have done more to be involved in his life. I could have reached out over the years, but instead I just accepted that we would never again have what we did then.
My throat burned and my chest ached as I tried to hold back the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to the way we were,” Lucas said, and I had to look away. Not only because the longing in his voice made it hard to hold back my tears, but because looking at him made it harder. “I know we grew apart and we’ve already lost years of time together, but this last hour has been one of the best hours I’ve had in years. I know that’s because I spent it with you. It’s always been that way with us.”
“Not always,” I said.
“Before we let everything get in the way it was,” he said quickly. “We could try to be like that again.”
Part of me wanted to say that time had passed and our opportunity had faded, but a bigger part of me was hopeful for a future with Lucas in it. I couldn’t say if we would be at all like we were before, but I could no longer deny my heart what it wanted.
“I want you back in my life. I just don’t want to regret admitting that,” I confessed as I continued to stare ahead.
Excitement rushed through me as his fingertips skimmed my hand before he laced
his fingers with mine. “No regrets, Maddy,” he whispered and firmly squeezed it. “I promise.”
Chapter 11
LUCAS
“Where are you going all decked out?” I turned in a hurry and felt the ache in my leg. Hobbling a bit, I braced myself on the countertop and looked up at my asshole brother, who looked back at me with a smirk. Arching his eyebrow, he scanned over my outfit and his smile grew wider.
“This getup of yours wouldn’t be an attempt to impress a certain blonde, now would it?” he added, and I grabbed an apple from the bowl only a few feet away and threw it across the room at him.
He caught it just before our ma walked in and gave us both that narrowed-eyed motherly look of disapproval. “You boys better behave,” she said as she moved across the kitchen. “And why are you all dressed up?” she asked me, and Liam chuckled as he lifted the apple to his mouth and took a big bite.
I flipped him the bird behind my mother’s back, and he offered a wink in return. “I’m not dressed up,” I told her as I stretched out my leg and pushed away the ache. I was growing real tired of the aches and pains my injury gave me daily. Working long hours, walking up and down stairs, and carrying heavy equipment was taking a toll on me. I would always live with the restrictions my injury had placed on me and would sometimes have to take it easy or do extra stretching in order to work out the kinks.
“If you say so,” my mother said with her back to me, “but every day for the last few weeks you’ve worn loose pants, or even those shorts you boys like. You know, the baggy ones.”
“Basketball shorts, Ma,” Liam said as he chomped away on his apple.
Now would be the perfect time to peg him on the side of the head with another one, but Momma would kick my ass. Plus, Liam was a damn baby and she’d take his side. He was such a momma’s boy.
“Yes, those,” she said as she waved her hand nonchalantly. “Now today you got on a nice pair of jeans, and when I say nice, I mean they have less holes than the old bath towels I now use for cleaning rags. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear that shirt, and it hasn’t been buried in a suitcase because it isn’t wrinkled in the slightest.”
“Don’t forget the fancy boots, Ma,” Liam said, and I scowled as I stared at my mother. Had I looked his way, I wouldn’t be able to control the need to throw the whole damn bowl of fruit at him. “He needs to lose the hat, though,” he added. “Sorta kills the fancy look he has going on.”
“I’m not trying to look fancy,” I said as I pushed off the counter and moved toward the back door.
I liked my baseball hat. After a lot of months of breaking it in, it was now worn and frayed and just how I liked it. The fact Maddy liked me in a hat—which I may or may not have read in her journal the summer between our seventh and eighth grade year—may have encouraged me to wear it. I smiled to myself, remembering the other things I’d read there, though I never let on that I knew what she’d written.
“Tell Madelyn I said hi,” my mother hollered out as I pushed open the back door. “Okay Ma,” I hollered back as a smile crept over my lips.
I hurried across the yard toward my truck, excited about going over to Maddy’s to surprise her. She’d mentioned a few days ago that she had tonight off from the diner, and I’d planned to show up at her place with dinner.
She wouldn’t actually turn me away if I was bearing food.
At least I hoped she wouldn’t. She did say she wanted me back in her life, so this was me making sure I was intertwined in it.
After a quick stop at Rocco’s Pizza to pick up my order, I swung into the liquor store to pick up a six-pack of beer, then traveled across town to the old hardware store. It was funny how she lived in the apartment above the same store she and I got caught egging when we were twelve. Mr. Walsh chased us halfway down the road, swinging a broom, and later we were forced to wash every window of the place along with the siding each weekend for a month.
It was crazy how now that I was back in Alvord, those memories of my childhood came back to me so readily. I think I just chose to ignore them before because it was too hard to remember what I’d given up so easily.
The nervous energy I felt earlier while getting dressed returned with a vengeance as I lifted my hand to knock on the door to her place. It skyrocketed when she moved aside the curtain on the door to peek out, and a look of surprise took over as her eyes locked with mine.
The deadbolt clicked and the door squeaked as she slowly opened it and looked through the crack with curiosity. “What are you doing here?”
I held up the beer and pizza and offered her the smile I’d been told has helped me get my way over the years. “This is me inviting myself over for dinner.”
She tried to hide her own smile, but the moment I cracked a silly grin, she couldn’t hold back any longer. “You’re a goof,” she said as she stepped aside, opening the door wider. “But since you brought dinner and my favorite beer”—she shrugged—”I can’t turn away Rocco’s.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said as I stepped inside and she closed the door behind me. Scanning the apartment, I was surprised to find it was actually quite nice. It was small, basically just one room with a single door that I assume led to the bathroom, but cozy. It also screamed Madelyn, with the big fluffy love seat and the huge throw pillows that covered the area around the space I’d call her living room. Considering her bed was only thirty or forty feet away, it was hard to call any specific section of the room one thing or another.
“It’s small,” she said from behind me, forcing me to turn and face her.
I towered over her, and being this close to her in such a small space reminded me of how short she truly was.
“A tiny place, fit for an elf,” I said with a grin.
She stepped closer as she looked up at me, and for a moment I was lost in her sweet scent. In one swift move she pushed her hand against my chest, making me stumble backward. Had I not been so close to the stack of pillows she’d piled on the floor, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But that wasn’t the case. Just before I landed on the pile of pillows that had gotten tangled with my feet, Maddy thankfully swiped the pizza box and beer from my hands.
Her laughter filled the room as she stood over me looking down. “I couldn’t allow you to ruin dinner,” she said with a gleam in her eyes. “Come on, twinkle toes, the pizza is getting cold,” she added as she moved toward the small kitchen that contained a table and two chairs.
I didn’t move at first, but instead watched from a distance as she skated around the small area with ease. That cold distance between us had shifted. The fun girl with a smile that could light up the night had returned.
For the first time since I arrived back in Alvord, I felt like I was home again, and that perpetual knot in my stomach had settled.
Chapter 12
MADELYN
I don’t remember the last time I laughed so much, but it felt amazing. My ribs and cheeks ached, and I couldn’t stop smiling.
“You don’t understand, Mad. I walked around campus for a week with that bald spot on the back of my head and no one told me it was there.” Lucas leaned back on the couch and propped his feet up on the small coffee table in front of him. He lifted his beer to his mouth and continued to grin as he took a sip.
I got a little lost in his smile then. Even though we’d been apart, it still affected me. The hollow feeling settled deep in my stomach, and I had to look away as the heat rose in my cheeks.
“I mean, how often do you look in the mirror and see the back of your head? As a guy I mean, because girls do shit like that all the time, apparently,” he continued, regaining my attention. “So after someone finally pointed it out to me, it had started growing back. The assholes on my team thought it was funny, but I got those responsible back real good.”
“Oh really?” I asked, fully invested in where this story was going. “Please do tell.” I waved my hand at him, indicating he should carry on.
“I shaved the eyebrows
off four of them, and the fifth guy had to end up shaving his head fully.” He grinned wide as he stared off into space for a moment, as if reliving it. “Best day ever,” he added with a chuckle.
“I bet they changed their hazing methods after that fiasco.” Or at least I would have, had my head or eyebrows been shaved as revenge.
Before he could elaborate any further, a loud, aggressive knock echoed through my small apartment. I jumped in surprise and Lucas sat forward, quickly placing his beer on the coffee table as a defensive look took over his features.
“Madelyn!” Deacon hollered, followed by more loud knocking.
By the sound of it, he’d been drinking. I started to get up off the floor, where I’d been perched on the pillows for the last hour.
“Maddy,” Luke said, stopping me in my tracks. When I looked over at him, his expression was concerned. “Maybe you should just let him think you aren’t home.”
It was sweet that he was worried, but I’d dealt with Deacon more times than I’d admit. “It’s okay, he’s just drunk.”
As I moved toward the door, I realized maybe Luke had suggested that option more for his own benefit than mine. He had always been a little territorial with those he cared for, and I was pretty sure he was feeling that way now.
“Open the damn door, Madelyn,” Deacon barked as he pounded even harder.
Irritated, I jerked it open with a little more force than I intended. Before I had a chance to speak, Deacon barreled into the apartment, his chest colliding with my face as I stumbled back.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” he asked, gesturing wildly at Lucas while glaring at me. “Is this why you took so long to answer the door? The two of you had to get your clothes on first or what?”
Things went crazy faster than I anticipated as Lucas leaped off the couch and got in Deacon’s face. “Apologize,” he seethed, and for a moment I was confused. Then he continued, “First for plowing into her, because right now what you just did to her is making it real fucking hard for me not to throw you off the balcony. And two, for disrespecting her in her home, or simply disrespecting her at all.”