by Lila Felix
How it Rolls
A Love and Skate Novel
Lila Felix
Copyright @Lila Felix 2013
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Cover Art by: Georgia Cates
To the bloggers. The ones who work tirelessly and without pay for the love of books, authors and readers everywhere. Your passion speaks volumes. From the bottom of my heart, I wouldn’t be here without y’all and there aren’t enough words to express my appreciation. Here are a few of my faves, but in no way does it include all who have supported me. Thank you.
Mandy (MandyIreadIndie), Heather (Into the Night Reviews), Amanda (Globug and Hootie Need A Book), Mary (Booknerds Across America), Maggie (Alternative Kyptonite), Britt (Britt Reads Indie), Tee (DiaryofABookAddict) and so many more.
To my husband and kids who I love without end.
And to my bestie, Turtle: I heart you to the moon and back.
To Rachel, Georgia, and Annie, your support will never be forgotten.
Here I am
There you are
Just inches away
But still too far
Look in my eyes
You’ll see the reflection of you
In me, On me, my eyes
I have nothing left to prove
-The Reflection Of You, Bear In Heaven
Prologue
Falcon
Rice sweeper was the lamest job ever. Mom made a huge spectacle of giving me the broom and nearly yelled a hand-flaring soliloquy about our responsibility to God’s creatures. Then she went on and on about how the birds eat the rice and then it blows up in their stomach and ‘poof’, dead bird. You gotta love her.
Owen and Nellie were long gone on their honeymoon. Finally, my brother came to his senses and realized what a jerk he had been. And Nellie? I loved that girl like she was my own sister. In my book, Owen couldn’t have married a better girl. Maddox was inside bussing tables and helping Dad clear the dining area. And I was here, outside, with a broom, on freakin’ rice duty.
And talking to yourself while sweeping up rice? Yeah, I am so bad ass.
I finished with rice duty and helped Mom clean up the kitchen and pack up the leftovers. I also needed to get in the office and pay the bills for the month. That was my contribution in the family business. I did the accounting. Again, I was such a bad ass. It wasn’t exactly a job with a lot of rewards but I was good at it and it kept everything running. I sat down at the desk and ran my palms up the length of my Mohawk. I trimmed it down for the wedding and feeling it so short still weirded me out.
I could hear Maddox telling his date goodbye and then made some other noises I didn’t want to hear. I was the only one without a date at the wedding today. I had planned to take Kate, but she broke it off with me a couple of weeks ago. She said I was too serious. She said I acted like an old man. She said that one day I would find a girl that needed a guy like me to be her rock. I agreed with most of it, because she was spot freakin’ on. I didn’t like to party. I didn’t enjoy painting my face and cheering like a rabid baboon at football games. I liked my family. I liked spending actual quality time getting to know a girl. Apparently, I liked sitting here, hunched over my desk like Ebenezer Scrooge crunching numbers and beating myself up about who she wanted me to be.
But I couldn’t do anything about it. I was pathetic. A 30 year old man in a 16 year old body, wearing a suit. Stellar.
Chapter 1
Four Years Later
Falcon
Talking on the phone with Nellie was like talking to Alice from the Wonderland, flighty and whimsical. One day I was going to give her a petit-four and see if she shrunk so Owen could put her in his pocket.
“You’re gonna hate me. And then you’re gonna kill me,” Nellie said over the phone.
“Come on Hellie. I could never hate you and if I killed you, my mom would kill me. And then there would be a line of ladies weeping and mourning over their loss.”
She laughed over the phone and I had to pull the phone away from my ear. My sister-in-law was hella loud.
“Oh my stars Falcon, you’re right. What was I thinking? We must think of the welfare of all the single women—not. Ok, so are you game for one more job?”
“For you?” I really didn’t want to take on any more work, but for Nellie, I would do just about anything.
“Yeah, well, me and the team.” Her voice rose at the end of that statement, an indication that she felt bad about asking.
“You want me to manage the team’s money?” I didn’t realize it was that big of an issue.
“Yeah, we’ve got more team members and we’re thinking of making our own league instead of just one team. So there will be fees and then there’re t shirt sales, signed posters and you know I hate the suit crap. No offense.”
“Hmmm, ok, for you, I will. And I’m going to ignore the suit comment lady.” I was the suit to which she referred. I was an accounting major at Tulane with a minor in business administration. Which was funny considering my torso and arms were completely covered with tattoos and I still had my Mohawk. Nellie called it edgy. I called it ‘Here I am. If you don’t like it, I have a special finger gesture just for you.’
“Lunch?” She asked.
“Yeah, noon at the Union?”
“Ok, be there or be…wait, you already are square.” She caused herself to giggle.
“Ha ha ha. Bye dork.” I hung up the phone and went into my Econ class making sure to turn down the volume on the ringer. Dr. Glusman was notorious for taking students’ phones if they rang during a lecture. The classroom was built as a theatre but classes were held here. I assumed they probably meant for large classes to meet here but instead this class was only about thirty students on a good day. Today was not a good day. There were maybe a dozen in attendance and Dr. Glusman paid meticulous attention. You couldn’t be a skipper on his watch. Plus, he loved to test on lectures only. Screw the books, your grade depended on listening to his nasaly voice. Plus, he looked just like Bones from Star Trek. You had to watch to see if he said ‘green blooded hobgoblin.’
He cleared his throat to get attention from the class while his slide show appeared on the screen. This week’s series of lectures was about public economics—welfare, taxation, social programs, etc. I took diligent notes but personally I thought that if everyone would just help each other, there would be no need for those programs. But thinking in Dr. Glusman’s class was frowned upon. You listen, you take notes, you study, get a good grade. That, I could do.
Class ended and we all had to go to the front and sign the attendance roster. He watched us like a hawk while I signed my name
Hawk watches Falcon sign his name? You’ve lost it, man.
I picked up my backpack and headed towards central campus, to the Union. I walked up the pebbled steps and grabbed a tray, not knowing what to get.
“Falcon!” I heard and saw her hair immediately. One thing about Nellie, you’d never lose her.
She did a couple of hand motions towards a tray in front of her. I put my tray back and headed to the table. I sat down across from her and did a ‘turn around’ motion with my finger. She had changed her hair and when she turned the top half was pink and the bottom half was purple. She had it up in some kind of bun thing so both colors could be seen.
“So, what do you think?” She asked me this every tim
e she did something to her hair and it was my job as her brother/friend to come up with a quirky response. It was our thing.
“I’m wondering where the Holograms and the Misfits are. That’s what.”
She glowed at that response. We were both 1980’s TV fanatics and she knew what I was talking about. I could tell.
“Falcon Black did you just make a Jem and the Holograms reference?”
“I did. It was a girl cartoon, but damn those Misfits were hot and truly, truly, truly outrageous.” She clapped and as if we didn’t ordinarily warrant extra attention from the other tables, we had it now.
I stood and bowed to her and then to the rest of the room while she giggled at me. “I’m so glad I bought your lunch. You deserve it for that one.”
“So where’s Owen?” I asked even though I could see my brother towering behind her, waiting for his moment.
She checked her watch and then shrugged. “He should be here any minute.”
He bent down at her ear level and whispered, “I’m here.” She almost jumped across the table.
“Good grief Owen. Stop doing that crap. And you,” she pointed to me, “stop helping him.”
We both laughed at her and she soon joined in. I finished my meal and let them finish their meals together while I went to my afternoon class and then back to the restaurant to work.
My second class of the day was easy. It was American Literature and Nellie knew all of the books like the back of her own hand. She helped me when I needed it and I loved her for it.
I got to the restaurant about three o’clock. I liked to get my work done before the dining room got busy. I couldn’t stand trying to work over the clanging of plates and the banging of pots. I already had payroll done for the week so I paid out the restaurant’s bills for the food deliveries and finalized the numbers for the day. I took the money and zipped it all up in a leather bag and ran through the bank and deposited it before going home.
I lived in a tiny apartment about a half mile from Cindi’s Indie, Nellie’s bookstore and her and Owen’s apartment upstairs from the store. I opened the creaky wooden door and put my bag on the tiny counter of the kitchenette. I lived sparsely and simply. By the window was a double bed, a futon couch thing on the other side of the room and a flat screen on the wall. It was all I needed. When Nellie and my mom first came over they called it ‘Bachelor Pitiful.’ But I could care less, anyway, who in the Hell was I going to impress?
My cell phone buzzed and I reached into my pocket to see the message.
Family dinner tonight.
We had family dinners every single Tuesday night without fail and had since Owen and Nellie got married. Mom had demanded it since we were all growing up and leaving the nest. Maddox acted like it annoyed him, but I knew he loved it.
I showered and got dressed for dinner. I put on a white t shirt, jeans and Doc Martens. I combed my hair straight back, not willing to put in the time or the effort in spiking it up. I went downstairs and got into my 1976 Ford Truck. It had tons of miles on it but ran like brand new.
I got to the restaurant and pulled around the back, wanting to enter through the backdoor. I quietly made my way in but they were waiting for me, the lot of traitors waited for me.
The whole damned restaurant started a silly rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ at once, complete with my brothers interjecting their own moronic phrases in between chorus lines.
After they finished and I was thoroughly embarrassed, we ate Mom’s lemon cheesecake and that was my only birthday wish. They gave me presents but I chose to open them later on. We sat there until Owen yawned a very loud, very fake yawn and we all knew it was his cue to get his wife home. My parents followed afterwards and I left before Maddox could beat me to it. I was usually the last one out, but not tonight.
I got into my truck and fired it up after piling the presents on the bench seat. As I drove I shrugged my shoulders to myself. I guess I am an old man after all. What guy goes home alone on his 20 birthday? Me, that’s who.
Chapter 2
Falcon
There’s nothing in the world that can make you get all riled up like a Roller Derby bout. Hot girls fighting and clawing at each other? Yeah, that’s my idea of a Saturday night.
Cindi ran her hand over my Mohawk for the tenth time and even though she always did it, it was getting on my last nerve. I tried to shake her off,
“Cindi, come on, if you keep fondling my hair, the ladies are going to think I’m taken. Plus, aren’t you the coach? Shouldn’t you be out there?”
She retracted her hand immediately and turned red, “Sorry Falcon, I just love it. It’s just an exhibition bout. And I’m one of these coaches who lets the team coach themselves. Like a silent business partner.”
“Oh, nice,” I shrugged and smiled at her. At least she had quit rubbing my hair.
I looked to my right and Mom looked positively green like she always did at Nellie’s bouts. And she’d squeal and cover her eyes like she was at a horror movie instead of a roller derby match. It cracked the rest of us up. But she insisted on being here for Nellie.
Nellie came out first, in front of her team, and she was a stunner. Any red-blooded male came to attention when she entered the room. And I loved to watch the sweetest, most giving and kind person I knew whip every girl’s ass in the rink. It was a testament to the word ‘irony’. I was also lucky that my brother’s wife was my best friend.
Nellie smiled at the family and then stuck her tongue out at me. I stuck mine back out and got an ‘Ewww’ from a prim and proper girl standing off to the side and it set Owen off.
“I told you Falcon, those venom piercings throw the girls off. It looks like your tongue has eyeballs, like that chick on Beetlejuice.”
“Well, I’d prefer they hold judgment until they’ve experienced them instead of looking at them.”
“Yeah, but you’d actually have to go on a date to know that wouldn’t you?”
“True,” I shrugged and agreed.
He was right, of course. I’d gone on a handful of dates since Kate and even those were only first dates. One of them was a date that Maddox set me up on when I’d lost a bet to him. He set me up with some girl he knew from school and when I went to pick her up her dad informed me, at the front door, that if I was going to sleep with his daughter that he preferred I bring her back to his house and do it there. I turned around, got in my truck and sped off without even looking at the girl. That was the last attempt I made at dating.
We watched as Nellie pummeled into a girl after she elbowed her in the gut. Owen’s knuckles were turning white as he held on to the barricade. It was all he could do not to jump on the rink and throw her over his shoulder and bring her home.
“She’s cool man. Chill out.”
“I know. I just thought watching this stuff would get easier but I swear it gets worse every time.”
Nellie and her team eventually won, like they usually did. Everyone split up after the game. Nellie and Owen went home, Mom and Dad and Maddox went home and I went to the bookstore to work. My phone rang and I answered it.
“Yeah?” I balanced the phone between my face and my shoulder so I could talk and continue working.
“Why are you working?” It was Nellie and she had taken on that motherly tone. She always knew when I came in because the alarm system notified her when someone came in the back door.
“Because there’s work to be done.”
“It’s Saturday night Falcon, go home or go out or something. That stuff can wait. Come up and watch some movies with us.”
“Nah, I’m good. But thank you. And you hired someone and didn’t tell me.”
“Oh, crap—I meant to tell you yesterday but I forgot. They don’t start until Monday anyway.”
“Well, I’ll go ahead and get them into the system now so we won’t have an issue come payday.” I heard some fumbling on the other line and then Owen clearing his throat.
“Falcon, come up and stay with us tonig
ht.”
“I’m just gonna finish up here and then go see Mom, okay?”
“Yeah, ok. Meet me at the diner tomorrow for breakfast.”
“Ok. Bye.”
I hung up and entered the new payroll information for Nellie’s new employee Reed Wolfe. He sounded like a dork to me, but I really didn’t have room to talk. But if Nellie hired him, then he must be ok.
I closed out, set the alarm and went to see my mom. My mom was the absolute best. I didn’t know what I’d ever do if some girl I dated didn’t like my mom. Bullshit, I know what I’d do; the girl would be gone in a tenth of a heartbeat.
I walked into the restaurant through the back, into the kitchen. Everything had been cleaned up and my mom sat on her barstool near the prep counter, showing bunches and bunches of basil who was boss.
I pulled up my own stool across from her and grabbed a knife and a cutting board and put it on the counter. I rolled up my sleeves and washed my hands and started in on my own pile of basil. She didn’t look at me or even acknowledge that I was there. That was the thing about my mom. She let us come to her, waited for us to talk. She never pried or accused, and there had been a time or two that just being in the same room with her had cured my ails.
“I work too much,” I said never looking up from my chiffonade.
“You do.” She cleared off her board, scraping the green ribbons into a metal bowl.
“But I don’t want to quit. Everyone I work for is someone I love.”
“True.” She switched to chives and got up to get a different knife.
“I’m lonely Mom—even sitting in a room full of people. But I don’t want to be one of those guys who scours college parties and malls looking for a date. I’m not that guy.”
“No, you’re not. Owen wasn’t looking either when Nellie walked into his life. It just happens. How’re the stocks or day trading or whatever going?”
“It’s good. I put it all in savings, high interest accounts. I’m upwards of two hundred thousand dollars.”
That made her stop cutting.