by Amy Sparling
Then I’d driven her home and kissed her goodbye on the front porch. It was the best night of my life. We didn’t hook up. We even kept our clothes on. This is a first for me.
Dating a girl without sex, without taking it farther just because I want to.
And trust me, I want to. But Bree is special. I don’t mind just spending time with her, in fact I crave it. All we’ve done this weekend is hold hands and kiss and talk about our lives. And yet somehow, this time with Bree is better than any time I’ve ever spent hooking up with some girl.
I sit up in bed with a big ass grin on my face, and I’m pretty sure you could offer me a million dollars to stop smiling, and I wouldn’t be able to. This girl has a hold on me. This girl is beautiful and sweet and I think she’s falling for me the way I’m falling for her.
Thoughts I don’t want to think about invade my subconscious. Like how she’s too good for me. How I’m in no place to start dating a girl. How this will only end in a fucked up heartache because I don’t even know how to date a girl. I just know how to hook up with girls I’ll never have to see again.
I shove the thoughts away. Maybe I’m just a shit person, too selfish for my own good, but I want to keep seeing her. I need to keep seeing her. Even though the end of the summer will mean the end of us.
Fuck it, I don’t care.
This girl gives me life. Happiness. Maybe I didn’t need to come back to Hopewell to get back in shape for racing. Maybe I was destined to meet her. Maybe I just needed someone to ground me back to earth and show me what it feels like to be loyal to someone.
After all, being loyal is one skill I need to practice. Not strength training, or agility, or endurance on a dirt bike. I’m already great at that. I need loyalty. To my bike, to my team, to my sport. I need to stop the party life and settle down and focus on the one thing that matters: motocross.
I pull on a T-shirt as I try to rationalize my feelings for Bree. Maybe it’ll all work out. Maybe she’ll have fun hanging with me this summer and then we’ll just go our separate ways and it’ll be fine.
Mom is cooking something that smells amazing when I leave my bedroom. “What are you cooking?” I ask. “I’m starving.”
“Pulled pork sandwiches,” Mom says. She lifts the lid of her crockpot and reaches for a fork.
“For breakfast?” I ask.
She snorts. “It’s after noon.”
“Shit.” I look at the clock on the microwave and she’s right. I slept half the day away. I should have already done a few hours of exercise by now.
Oh well. It was worth it.
I grab a soda and sit at the kitchen table. I can feel my mom’s gaze burning into me, so I look up at her. “Yes?”
She shreds the pork with two forks but keeps her eyes trained on me. “You’ve been out with Bree the last three nights in a row.”
I nod and sip from the soda can. “Yeah.”
Her lips flatten into a thin line. “You better not break that girl’s heart.”
“Mom, I’m your son. You should be saying she better not break my heart.”
Mom rolls her eyes. “That’s not happening.”
I go to protest, but she cuts me off with a single look. “Honey, I love you and I’ve looked the other way at your partying lifestyle, and I try to stay out of your business, but this is different. She’s not some random fangirl. She’s a local. She lives and works at the track.”
“You think I don’t know this?” I say.
Mom sighs. “She’s a good girl. She’s smart and sweet. She’s not like the other girls.”
“Again,” I say, unable to hide a smile when I think about Bree. “You think I don’t know this? That’s what makes her special.”
Mom empties a jar of BBQ sauce into the crockpot. “Just don’t hurt her, Zach.”
“We’re just friends,” I say, even though I know that’s a lie. I just can’t stand my mom looking at me like I’m some horrible dick who treats women like shit.
“And I’m just asking you to be careful,” Mom says. “Don’t hurt her.”
“I won’t,” I say just to end the conversation. But deep down I don’t know if it’s true. Of course I’ll never purposely hurt her, but what’s going to happen at the end of summer?
Guess I have all summer to figure it out.
Me: What’s up?
Bree: House cleaning :(
Me: Want to hang out when you’re done?
Bree: maybe…
I grin as I read her text. I wish Bree didn’t work so damn much. I want to spend all of my time with her. Luckily she does work. I’m forced to spend the time she’s at work focusing on working out and getting some laps in at the track. Left to my own devices, I’d curl up with Bree in my twin sized bed and never leave. It’s probably a lot healthier that we spend some time apart each day.
Still, my chest aches for her while I’m waiting for her to get off work.
Tommy calls me right after my workout, asking if I want to head to Skeeter’s to grab a bite. Bree will be a while, so I figure I might as well go.
I meet Tommy in the restaurant and he’s already ordered a giant appetizer of cheese fries.
“Damn dude,” I say, grabbing one. “Trying to make me fat?”
He chuckles. “I’m trying to make myself fat. You’re supposed to have self-control.”
Tommy doesn’t know about my sudden infatuation with Bree, and I’d like to keep it that way. I can only imagine what he’d say, how he’d act just like my mom and tell me to stop messing around with her. As far as he knows, I’ve been spending all my time training and sticking to my goals.
We’re almost done eating our meals when I get a phone call from Marcus, my Team Loco manager. Seeing his name on the screen makes me instantly nervous. I haven’t heard from Marcus since I moved out of my old apartment. He knows I’ll be training hard in the hopes that I’ll qualify in the fall.
Why is he calling? This can’t possibly be good.
I leave Tommy my debit card so he can pay for my meal and I slip outside to answer the call. I haven’t felt this nervous in a long ass time.
“Hello?”
“My man,” Marcus says. He sounds happy. I relax a little.
“What’s going on?”
“You have been granted a lifeline.”
I have no idea what that means. “Huh?”
“Aiden crashed last night, broke his wrist. The doctor said it won’t need surgery but he’s out for at least eight weeks. Bad news for him, good news for you. You can take over his spot for Team Loco this weekend.”
I don’t even know what to say. For a split second, I’m overcome with happiness. I mean, I feel bad for Aiden but this is like finding the golden ticket for me. A free spot on the team, no qualification necessary. I won’t get the race points since I’m filling in for someone else, but I’ll still be on the team and still earn money from it.
But then I picture that beautiful girl I’ve been spending all my time with.
“Wow,” I say because it’s been too long since I’ve said anything.
“I hope you’ve been training hard,” Marcus says.
“Yes sir, I have.”
“Great. I’ll send a car to pick you up on Friday morning. Your address is still the one in Hopewell, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. My throat goes dry. I don’t have a choice here. I have to go.
We end the call and I stand here in the parking lot of the diner as a surreal feeling rises in my chest. It’s overwhelming how terribly excited and horrified I am at the same time. I need this. I need Team Loco and I’m dying to get back on a real professional motocross track, not a small town one for amateurs.
This is my career. My life. The one thing I’ve worked so hard for so that I can make something of myself and give my mom the happy retirement she deserves.
I can’t risk losing my spot on Team Loco, and telling Marcus no right now would be the end of me. When my team needs me, I have to be there. I signed a contrac
t that says as much.
I have four days until I have to leave.
How the hell am I supposed to break the news to Bree?
Chapter 14
My mom can definitely tell something is going on with me. That’s the big flaw with spending your days in close proximity while cleaning houses. She knows I’m acting differently. Happy. Yesterday, she walked in on me humming while I was cleaning a client’s kitchen countertops and she gave me the weirdest look. Then it occurred to me that I never hum songs while cleaning. I flushed from head to toe and tried to act normal.
Now it’s Tuesday and I had to go all day yesterday without seeing Zach. He said he had some family stuff come up and couldn’t hang out yesterday, so now that I’ve had a whole day away from him, I feel slightly less enamored and slightly more in control of myself.
But I’m still thinking of him all day, every day. I’m like a lovestruck idiot who has been hit with Cupid’s arrow and now I can’t function as a normal human being anymore.
And I don’t even care that I’m not quite sure what we are. For now, being with Zach means I’m not stressing about finding a real job or wondering if I should go into debt to go back to school. Right now I’m just living for the moment and it feels amazing. For once in my life, I’m not planning the next step, solidly focused on the future.
Zach makes living in the present the best type of life ever. I can’t believe how different he is in real life, compared to the guy on social media. He hasn’t even updated his own Instagram since he came back to Hopewell, and of course all the #ZachPena photos from other people have slowed down. Instead of fancy parties and professional motocross photos, regular people from Hopewell are tagging him in their Insta photos while they stand next to him at the local track.
In real life, Zach doesn’t drink much, at least not around me. He doesn’t hit up the bars or the club or anything. We went to the movies and the lake and we even went shopping for new furniture for his mom’s house on Sunday. That was probably my favorite time with him. We held hands and walked the aisles of a furniture store and it all felt so real. Like a real couple. A real relationship.
But of course, that’s not what we are. I’m not stupid enough to even ask that question or bring up the subject with him. That would certify me as clingy and he’d probably run the other way.
Zach probably just wants a summer fling with me. And even though deep down in my heart, I know I want more, I’m telling myself to just be cool. I’m allowed to have a summer fling, too. I just wish he wasn’t so amazing. When I kissed him in the lake, I was hoping he’d just be some sexy guy to make out with. I never expected that he had an amazing personality, and a soft side, and problems of his own. Now it all feels a little too real.
Mama only has two houses to clean today since Tuesdays are always slow, and she tells me she can handle them herself and that I should take the day off. The bad news is that being off work means sitting at home with nothing to do but think about Zach. In the mornings, he works out, and around noon to four, he usually rides at the track. I’ve been keeping my distance while he rides because I know the practice is important to him. But sometimes, if I get home from work early enough, I’ll sit near my bedroom window and watch him ride across the part of the track I can see from here.
I clean up my house a little and organize my bedroom just to pass the time. I keep an eye on my phone but I don’t hear from Zach at all, which is unusual. Around four in the afternoon, I wonder if I should text him. We didn’t get to hang out yesterday and now I’m dying to see him again. My whole body aches to be near him. That’s how badly I’ve fallen for this guy.
I set my phone down and tell myself to chill out. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s still just some guy. So what if I make out with him on occasion? I refuse to be the girl who texts first.
The whole night goes by without a single word from him.
I can barely sleep because I’m wondering what went wrong. We spent three days together, practically attached at the hip, and everything was amazing. He told me about his life and his racing career. I told him about college and my uncertain career future.
I thought we had clicked.
So why did he ignore me all day?
On Thursday, I throw myself into my cleaning jobs with Mama. I scrub and mop and dust and organize with precision. I keep myself busy so that I don't think about him.
There’s just no reason for a guy to be all over you and then just totally ghost you. No reason at all unless he’s over me. I guess he moved on. Found another girl.
Well, good for him. I refuse to let it hurt me. I refuse to be hurt by Zach Pena.
Our houses are cleaned in record time due to my extra dedication to my work. Mama wants to get dinner together but I tell her I’m too tired and just want to go home. She gives me a look like she’s concerned about my sudden mood change, but she doesn’t say anything, which is good. I don’t have any desire to lie to her and I’m certainly not going to tell her the truth.
After Dad gets off work, he and Mama go out for a dinner date. I sit on the couch in the living room and try to watch the most unromantic show I can find. I settle on a true crime series because there’s nothing romantic about murder.
It’s just after seven in the evening when the doorbell rings. I get up and glance out the front window before approaching the door. I see that stupid black truck parked in my driveway and my nerves all light up at once. My feelings are a mixture of anger and excitement.
I’m wearing leggings and a tank top and my hair is piled on top of my head in a messy bun, but oh well. Zach doesn’t deserve to see me dressed up for him.
I pull open the door and keep my face neutral. “Yeah?” I say instead of a hello.
Zach’s gorgeous face looks remorseful as hell. “Bree, I’m so sorry.”
I shrug. “For what?”
“For not seeing you in two days.”
Or calling, or texting, or giving me any kind of explanation, I add in my mind. Instead, I shrug again. “I don’t care.”
“Yeah, you do,” he says softly. “I had something come up, and I really am sorry. But I’m going to make it up to you tonight.”
I lift an eyebrow.
He grins. “Go pack some clothes. I got us dinner reservations and a hotel in the city.”
“You did what?” I say, unable to hide my shock.
Zack runs a hand over his hair. “I want to make it up to you. I’ve missed you like crazy these last two days and I need all the time I can get with you. Please join me?”
The way he looks up at me with those puppy eyes that sparkle blue under the porch light just about melts me. Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe his mom got sick or something and he couldn’t see me because he was taking care of her.
I fold my arms over my chest, not wanting to give in too easily. “What restaurant?”
“Perry’s.”
I swallow. That place is expensive as hell. It’s the kind of place you take a girl when you fucked up bad and want to make it up to her.
“And the hotel?” I say.
“Radisson.”
Nice. I can feel a smile tugging at my lips. A hotel can only mean one thing, and damn if I haven’t been picturing taking him to bed, making up for that first night we had together by doing all the things I’ve wanted to do to him since he came back to town.
I step back and let him inside. “I’ll go get packed,” I say, leaving him in the living room.
I throw on a purple dress for dinner and dab some makeup on. I fix my hair so that it’s in a neat bun with some curly wisps hanging down my face. Then I throw my sexiest pajamas and another outfit for tomorrow into a bag.
“Wow,” Zach says when I emerge from my room. “You look hot as hell.”
I don’t return the compliment even though Zach looks drop dead sexy in his dark jeans that hug his thigh muscles and a blue shirt that fits him in all the right places. I’m still a little peeved, and he clearly wants to make the night specia
l, so I’m going to let him do all the work.
We slip into our normal selves once we get to the restaurant. Zach doesn’t tell me what he did over the last two days, but we talk and laugh and it all feels just like it did before he ditched me. Some of my hurt feelings fade away and I tell myself that he’s probably just going through something personal and he’ll tell me when he’s ready. Maybe he was actually taking care of his mom because I know she has bad arthritis.
After dinner, we drive into the next big city to the Radisson. I get a little nervous with each passing minute. Soon, we’ll be in a hotel room together. I’ve never been in a hotel room with a guy in my life.
A thrill of excitement shoots through me and then it’s immediately followed by nervous energy.
At the hotel, I’m nervous as hell. We walk into the lobby and Zach gets the hotel key and then we’re walking hand in hand down a plush carpeted hallway to the elevators. My heart beats like crazy as we ride up to the seventh floor. Zach stops just outside of our hotel room and he turns to me.
“Bree,” he says, his voice soft as his eyes peer into mine. “I just thought we could spend time together away from our families. My childhood bedroom is—” He laughs and shakes his head. “Embarrassing, to say the least. And I missed you and wanted to hang out and since I don’t have my own apartment anymore, I thought a hotel was the next best thing.”
“Okay…” I say. “Why are you giving me a lecture in the hallway?”
“Sorry,” he says. “I just wanted you to know that I don’t…expect…anything.”
“That’s enough talking,” I say. I take the hotel key from his hand and open the door. Inside, the room is luxurious in a way I’ve never seen before from a lifetime of staying in cheap hotels. There’s one king-sized bed with satin sheets in the middle of the room. The furniture is big and fluffy and clean. It even smells nice in here, like roses and vanilla, instead of cleaning chemicals or stale musty carpet.