by Amy Sparling
My phone rings and the number is unfamiliar, although I recognize the area code as being from California.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Hi, is this Liam Mosely?”
I hate calls like this. They could be bad news or good news, or maybe just some nosey reporter trying to get some quotes from me about my new Instagram photo. I could hang up on him, but then I’d have to dig through these dusty boxes in the hot attic. So I guess it’s fine if I kill some time.
I sit on the edge of the attic roof, letting my feet hang down in the hole that the latter fits into.
“This is Liam,” I say.
“Hi there, it’s nice to meet you,” the male voice says on the other line. “I’m Marcus Fisher. I’m the manager of Team Loco.”
My heart skips a beat. Team Loco is just as good if not better than Team FRZ Frame.
I swallow. “Hi… what can I do for you?”
He chuckles. “Well, son, I’d like to offer you a spot on my team.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. “Really?” I blurt out, like an idiot.
“Yes, sir, I’m serious. I’ve been watching you for years while you took on the Texas racing circuit and showed you were capable of becoming pro. Then FRZ Frame snatched you up and I figured you were gone but now you’re a free agent.”
“I’m also disgraced,” I say. But of course he knows that.
“I wouldn’t say disgraced. I’d say redeemed.”
“You think so?” I say.
“Like I said, I’ve been watching you. I know you’ve got the talent, but you’re young. You made some mistakes. We don’t tolerate fighting, drugs, or anything unsportsmanlike on our team, but I think you can rise above all of that.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I really appreciate that. And what I did—it’s not me. It was extenuating circumstances. I shouldn’t have lost my temper and it won’t happen again.”
“I believe you, son. Of course, if you accept a position on my team, it would be probationary for one season. And that’s not just for you—that’s what I do to all of my racers. You get one season to prove you’re Team Loco material before we sign you on for good. What do you think?”
I think of Bella. I can’t believe it, either. This is my dream. This is what I want. What I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. I should be jumping up and down and yelling YES! as loud as I can. I should accept his offer right away.
But I think of Bella.
And how she’s become more than just some girl in this small town. She’s a friend. She’s beautiful and talented and amazing. I want her to be more than a friend even if it is a pathetic want that will never work out. It’s a dream at best – not a long-term goal. Being a professional racer is a goal I can achieve. Dating Bella will only end in heartbreak.
So I should say yes to Marcus. I know that.
But the words that fall out of my mouth are a betrayal. “Can I have a few days to think about it?”
“Of course,” Marcus says. “I’ll give you a call back later in the week. Think it over, and talk with your family. We’d sure love to have you on the team.”
“Thank you sir, I really appreciate it.”
It takes everything I have not to call Bella about my Team Loco offer, but I want to tell her in person. I keep texting her about normal stuff, as if everything is the same so I can share the good news with her when we meet up at the track later. I keep imagining what she’ll say, and how she’ll react. Will she be happy for me? Will she be sad?
Because deep down we’ll both know that if I accept this position on the team, I’ll move away. Professional racing means being in a new town every week. I’d go back home to Houston where all my stuff is, where my room is, and I’d live there a few days a week and travel for the rest of the week. There would be no time for a relationship.
But it’s not like we have a relationship now, I tell myself. She’s just a friend. Just a crush. So she’ll be happy for me. She is the one who turned down my date after all. She doesn’t like me in that way.
Maybe I should just call Marcus right now and tell him I accept.
I exhale a long, slow sigh as I drive into the track for another day of riding practice. I hate that I’m having such a hard time reconciling my feelings for Bella with the fact that we’ll never be together. It just won’t work. Sure, there’s still two months left of summer, but then it’s over.
Then I’ll be on Team Loco.
There’s another truck parked in Bella’s spot when I arrive, and it immediately annoys me. It would be rude to ask this dude to leave but I’m tempted to because this oak tree on the edge of the property is our spot. Not anyone else’s.
Then I notice Bella’s bike, the blue Yamaha with the purple graphics and no racing number, parked in the back of this new truck. Weird.
I park next to it and then I see the other bike in the bed of the truck and it all makes sense. Bella told me last night over text that her brother came home from college for a visit. I get a little nervous as I park. I’m about to meet her brother. I better make a good impression. I know Bella can’t ever be my girlfriend, but I still want him to like me. Bella adores him, even though she hasn’t told me much about him except that he used to ride.
I get out and see her, looking like an angel in a white tank top and purple riding pants. She’s sitting on a fold-out chair while she puts her boots on.
“Hey,” I say, unable to hide my goofy smile.
“Hey,” she says, grinning up at me.
“Want some help unloading your bike?” I ask. I know she hates doing it, and her metal ramp is attached to the tailgate of the truck but both bikes are still loaded.
She shakes her head. “Nah. My brother is here. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
“Cool,” I say, turning toward my truck so I can unload my own bike. I glance over at the bike next to Bella’s. A shiver runs up my spine when I see her brother’s bike number. 888.
I’ve only known one person to have that same number. But it can’t be. It must be a coincidence. I rack my brain trying to remember all of my conversations with Bella. She’s always just called him her brother—she never said his name. It can’t be, though. It can’t.
“There you are!” Bella says. “Come here, you have to meet Liam. He’s the one who taught me my skills.”
My breath catches in my throat. I turn around to face her brother as I hear his heavy footsteps approaching us.
It occurs to me in this very second that I never learned Bella’s last name. That’s why I had left it blank on her race registration form. Maybe if I had learned it, I would have made the connection much sooner. Soon enough to run away and avoid this moment.
But I didn’t. And now Brent Castro is standing right in front of me. A muscle twitches in his jaw.
“Absolutely not,” he says, his jaw tightening as he turns to look at his sister. Somehow, he’s gotten even stronger looking than I remember.
“What?” she says, looking ten kinds of confused. “Do you know him?”
“Yeah, I know him,” Brent says.
“Hey, man,” I say, trying to diffuse the situation before he says something that will ruin my reputation in front of Bella. “The past is the past. Let’s just forget about it and start over.”
Brent’s hands clench to fists at his side. “Stay away from my sister,” he says. Anger twists up his features. “Stay the hell away from her.”
“Brent! Oh my god,” Bella says, grabbing his arm. “Dude, calm down. He’s my friend.”
“He’s not your friend,” Brent says. Then he levels a death glare at me, and honestly, I guess I can’t blame him. If I were in his position, I wouldn’t want me hanging out with his sister either.
“If you so much as look at my sister again, I’ll make you regret it.”
Maybe I should argue. Maybe I should stand up for myself. Tell him the past is the past. But I don’t. And maybe it’s because deep down I know he’s right. I don’t deserve
Bella. I probably don’t deserve forgiveness for what I did to him all those years ago. And maybe it’s for the best, after all. A clean break from Bella is what I need.
“Understood,” I say. I turn around and get in my truck. I’m still going to ride today, but I’ll park far away from Brent Castro.
He’s here to hang out with his sister, after all. The last thing he needs is to be parked next to the guy who once stole his girlfriend.
Chapter Fifteen
“What the hell was that?” I yell at my brother after Liam’s truck drives away. Then I smack him on the arm for good measure. “What’s gotten into you?”
“He’s not a good person,” Brent snaps. He’s all fired up and angry and I’ve never, ever seen him like this before. “I can’t believe you’ve been hanging out with this dude.”
“He’s my friend,” I say, even though deep down, I know that I want him to be more than a friend. I think my brother can tell that, too.
“He’s a terrible person,” Brent says, turning away from me as if he deserves the last word. He hops into the bed of his truck and begins untying his dirt bike. I stand here, fuming mad, while Brent rolls his bike down the ramp and puts it on the stand. Then he goes for my bike and unloads it too.
“I don’t care that he got in trouble at some professional race,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. “This isn’t a professional race. This is a small track and he’s my friend.”
“He’s a bad guy,” Brent says, not even looking at me.
“He changed. He’s not like that anymore.”
Brent drops his gear bag on the ground and a cloud of dirt puffs up around it. He turns to me and levels me with a glare that makes me shrink back.
“He has not changed. He’s not a good guy. He’s lucky I didn’t beat him to a pulp.”
I cross my arms. “You’re being a little insane right now, Brent. Liam has always been nice to me. He’s been giving me lessons and he’s cool.”
“Cool?” Brent snaps. There’s a vein pulsing in his forehead, that’s how pissed off he is. “Was it cool when I walked in on him making out with my girlfriend?”
My eyes widen. Brent’s jaw clenches and he turns back to his dirt bike.
“Wait,” I say, reaching out for him. I touch his arm. “Which girlfriend?”
But I don’t need to ask. Brent has only had one girlfriend that meant anything to him. Samantha. They were high school sweethearts. They did everything together. She went to all of his races and was always by his side. Until one day when she wasn’t. Brent never wanted to talk about it. He just drowned his sorrows by dating tons of girls he had no feelings for.
“You know who,” he says softly. He squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Liam and I were friends for a while. I’d see him at Oakcrest MX Park all the time and we’d ride together. One day Samantha was mad at me for—I don’t even remember now—but she stormed off at the races and when I finally found her, she was making out with that prick in the backseat of his truck.”
His nostrils flare at the memory and he gazes out at the motocross track in front of us. “I’m glad he ruined his professional racing career. He doesn’t deserve success. And he really doesn’t deserve any of my little sister’s time, do you hear me? You’re better than that.”
“I’m sorry, Brent,” I say. He’s still staring out at the track, but I walk up and lean my head against his chest. “I’m sorry she did that to you.”
He doesn’t say anything, but he does lightly wrap an arm around me, returning my hug. His body is rigid, as angry and taut as his face. I pull back and look up at him.
“I think you’re angry at the wrong person, Brent. Samantha is the one who cheated on you. She was upset and stupid and it seems like she would have hooked up with anyone that day. It just happened to be Liam.”
“Don’t make excuses,” he says. “Liam knew she was my girl. He knew exactly what he was doing. And you think he’s changed?” He snorts. “He hasn’t. You’re just one of the dozens of girls he’s probably hooking up with.”
“I’m not hooking up with him,” I say, taking offense at my brother’s crude words. “We are literally just friends.”
And it’s not even a lie. We are friends. And yeah, I was hoping for a kiss after the race this week, but that’s it. I can hold my head high because although Brent’s girlfriend once made out with him, I certainly didn’t.
“Not anymore,” Brent says. He starts getting dressed to ride.
“You can’t tell me who my friends are,” I say. “I’m not a little kid and I don’t have to listen to you.”
“So what? You’re going to trust him over your own flesh and blood brother?” Brent says, his voice loud enough that people might overhear even though we’re parked far away from most people. “Do you know how many girls that guy has been with?”
I can’t lie; the thought of Liam being with a lot of girls makes me extremely uncomfortable. But I’m not about to admit that right now when I’m currently mad at my brother. I throw my hands up in the air. “Do you know how many girls you’ve hooked up with? Does that make you a bad guy? Should I stop trusting you because you’ve broken plenty of hearts yourself?”
His nostrils flare and his chest heaves but my brother doesn’t have a rebuttal.
“That’s what I thought,” I say, turning on my heel. I grab my phone off the tailgate and I storm away. I don’t exactly know where I’m going, but I have to get away from Brent. I’m wearing my riding boots, which are extremely heavy, my riding pants, and a tank top. I don’t have my truck with me, and my bike is still back there by Brent, so I’m not even sure where I’m going, but I just go.
Soon, I realize I’m walking toward the main road. I stop when I get to it, and I call Kylie.
“Sup?” she says brightly when she answers the phone. Guess she’s finally feeling better about her broken heart.
“I need you to come get me,” I say. My voice is all choked up.
“What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“Everything is wrong,” I say. “And I’m at the track.”
“Be there in five.”
I sit down on the side of the road, hoping Brent doesn’t come find me. I stare at my phone, wishing for a text from Liam, but I guess it’s a good thing that he never does text me. I don’t know what he’d say in a situation like this. I don’t know what I’d say. All this time I’ve been in my little bubble of happiness and flirtation with Liam but I never stopped to think about his actual reputation. He’s a bigshot motocross racer. He got in trouble for fighting a fellow racer. I don’t know why exactly he was fighting, but I think I can guess. What do guys fight about, after all? Girls.
Of course he’s a player. He could have any girl he wants. And of course he flirted with me, because I’m a girl and I happen to be right here in his vicinity. I’m nothing special to him. I was stupid to think that I could be.
Kylie arrives a few minutes later, and she slaps on the brakes when she sees me. “I didn’t realize you were going to be right here on the road,” she says when I get in her car.
I shrug. “I had to be away from Brent.”
“That’s weird,” she says. “You love your brother. Also, um, he’s gotten super hot over the last few months. Where did all those muscles come from?”
I roll my eyes. “Wherever he got the muscles, he also got a temper. He just went off on me, Kylie. Like, straight up yelling at me.”
“Uh oh,” she says. “Why?”
I take a deep breath and I tell her everything that just happened while she drives us down the back roads of our small town. We pull up to a stop sign and she looks over at me. “Whoa,” she says. “That…sucks.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I can get over Brent being mad at me. What really sucks is…” Deep breath, Bella. “…Brent’s right. I like Liam.”
I look up and meet Kylie’s surprised expression. “I like him a lot.”
“Oh girl,” she says, putting her hand on my shoulder. She
drives forward and then pulls off on the side of the road and cuts the engine. She turns toward me. “Tell me everything.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next few days are agony. I had really hoped Bella would text me, call me, anything. But my phone has been silent ever since I left the track after her brother all but banned me from seeing her again. They say blood is thicker than water, and I guess that’s true. Bella trusts her brother’s opinion over her own opinion about me. Can’t say I blame her.
Brent and I would still be friends if I hadn’t made out with his ex-girlfriend. I wish I could say it was all some misunderstanding, but it wasn’t. I knew who she was. I knew she had been dating Brent, who was my motocross friend. We weren’t super close or anything, but we’d hang out if we happened to run into each other at the same track. We raced in the same class and were always trying to beat each other. On this particular day, Brent beat me by two seconds in our race. I was fuming, and he did a little too much gloating. I realize now, it was because his girlfriend was mad at him and that’s why he was so angry on the track. But I didn’t know it at the time.
When Samantha had walked up to me at the concession stand after the race, she lied her face off. She said she and Brent were done, totally broken up. Then she laid it on pretty thick and I was sixteen years old and stupid. I knew it was wrong, but yeah, I let her lead me back to my truck. I let her climb all over me and shove her tongue down my throat. I was an up and comer race kid and had a lot of attention on me. I was still getting used to it, the mild fame in the Texas motocross circuit. I was drunk on the fame. Drunk on the fact that a beautiful girl who was two years older than me—a high school senior—wanted me.
We spent five minutes in the backseat of my truck before Brent found us. We hadn’t taken it very far, and we hadn’t done much, but he was crushed. I could see it in his eyes. And even though I was mad that he had beaten me in the race, I felt sick about what I had done.
Later I found out that they weren’t broken up at all. At least, not until I made out with her. Brent never talked to me again, and a few months later he graduated and went off to college and quit racing. I haven’t really thought about him over the years. But I bet he’s thought about me.