There was hardly anyone in front or behind them.
Maggie gripped the wheel tighter, “Do high speeds bother you?”
Out of her peripherals she saw Ryder turn his head to view her.
He didn't respond.
“I'm only asking because I want to go faster and not everybody appreciates it,” she didn’t understand those who didn't appreciate speed.
“I don't mind,” his subdued voice answered, still watching her.
At first his eyes made her self-conscious, but then the driving took over and everything melted away. It was just her, a car, and the road. It was the only time life ever made sense for her; when the world and all its chaos were nothing except blurred images out the windows.
She was free, of everything.
For the first time since she was behind the wheel, something caught her attention that didn't involve noticing a potential danger. It was the smile Ryder had on his face as he eased back into his seat, eyes straight ahead on the road. He was experiencing everything she felt when she drove this way, letting everything melt away. She knew it, she could feel it.
Her foot put more pressure on the accelerator, hoping that for this brief moment she might be able to help him shed away some of his layers and be free.
They drove that way until they met their first destination.
“This isn’t the exit,” Ryder sat up in his seat, grabbing the map.
“I know,” Maggie explained, a playful grin on her face. “You ever see the ocean?”
“No,” he answered, perking up as they got closer.
She found an empty space in a crowded lot, “Come on. It’ll make having to babysit me be worth it.”
Watching her drive had made it worth it. He had always wondered what she looked like. She always seemed so euphoric when she got out and it made him want to see what made her that way.
Now he knew. It was the freedom, the rush, the control.
The sea breeze hit him first, filling his lungs. He took it all in, closing his eyes while he slammed the door shut. The sun shined brightly above them, warming him to the core.
Maggie ushered him with her hand, “Come on.”
Ryder followed behind her, his senses going wild.
They took off their shoes when they hit the sand.
He wiggled his toes in the grains, a small smile forming.
In the distance the waves lapped lazily along the shore. Surfers happily awaited the next wave. Children made sand castles. Women were tanning. Men played Frisbee. Everybody was happy.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Maggie asked, finding a place to sit closer to the water.
“Yeah,” his hoarse voice was able to get out, overcome with emotion at the sight before him.
She smiled just as bright as the sun, “Nothing beats the view and feel of the ocean.”
Ryder stared back at her.
He could think of one thing: Maggie Baxter and her smile that could light up the darkest of places.
They ended up sitting there for over an hour, silently watching the waves play.
Ryder was sad to leave, glancing over his shoulder all the way back to the car.
Maggie and Ryder unlocked their adjoining rooms at the same time. She watched him glide in, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
She rolled in her own suitcase, immediately going to open the curtains to let the sun in, not knowing Ryder was doing the exact same thing next door. They both took in a deep breath at the same time, needing the light and sunshine. It kept Maggie bright and happy feeling. It reassured Ryder that there was brightness and happiness.
Maggie surveyed the room, deciding if she was hungry or if she wanted to do some channel surfing. She wasn’t due at the tracks until the morning.
A knock on the door distracted her.
No one was there when she opened it.
The noise came again and she realized it was coming from the door that connected their rooms.
Ryder stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking past her shoulder, his brown hair falling forward over his eyes, “Everything okay in here for you?”
She cheerfully smiled, “It’s great!”
A faint hint of a smile tilted the outer corners of his mouth, “Good.”
They both stood there for a beat, Maggie not knowing if she should say something more. She wasn’t used to how uncertain Ryder made her.
When he didn’t make a move to leave, she spoke up, “Are you hungry yet? I thought it might be fun to order room service and veg out on the bed watching a movie or something?”
“No, I’m good,” he cleared his throat, still not looking directly at her. “Do you think you could keep this door unlocked?”
“Uh, sure. Why?”
“Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case you need me.”
Maggie laughed, thinking he was joking.
He didn’t laugh with her (not that she had ever seen him do so).
He was serious.
“Oh. Okay.”
“Maybe we should just keep the doors open between the two rooms.”
Maggie couldn’t help but laugh again, “Wow, you’re taking this job seriously. I don’t think my dad would care if we kept the doors shut.” In fact, she was pretty sure he would prefer it that way.
Ryder blushed, clearing his throat, “It’s probably best if we don’t mention it. I would just feel better if I could hear if something bad happened.”
Maggie didn’t know how to respond when he talked to her like he actually cared; it was very confusing compared to the man who ignored her.
“Okay,” she answered in a hushed tone, wondering what could possibly happen to her.
“Thanks,” he replied while he stuck down the doorjamb to keep his side open.
Maggie copied.
She gnawed on her thumbnail in the doorway.
Would he even be able to defend her?
She could tell by the way his clothes fit him that he kept in shape. Personality wise, he seemed like someone who would run instead of fight. Normally she would joke around and mention it, but things were different with Ryder. She kept her mouth shut.
The rest of the night it was bizarre for her to hear her own television and his playing. She had to bite her tongue to keep from asking him to join her.
Around two in the morning Maggie was startled awake from someone crying out.
It was coming from Ryder’s room. She quickly jumped out of bed and dashed into his.
She found him tossing and turning. Only a fitted sheet remained on the bed, all the sheets and blankets stacked neatly on the floor. Sweat covered his body, seeping through his clothes.
His eyes were still shut as he moaned, mumbling things that were hard to understand.
She went to him, sitting at the edge of the bed closer to the head and gently placed a hand on his clammy cheek.
Ryder’s eyes snapped open at the exact same time his hand took a death grip around her wrist.
“Maggie,” he breathed out, dropping his hand that had left a mark around the skin. He covered an arm over his face. “I thought you were somebody else. What are you doing in here?”
“Sorry,” she apologized in a whisper. “You were having a nightmare.”
He was still breathing heavy, “It’s nothing. Go back to bed.”
Maggie did what she was told even though she wanted nothing more than to comfort him.
The noises he had made sounded like a wounded animal. It had her heart breaking for him.
The next couple weeks all happened rather routinely. Maggie and Ryder got out of bed, dressed, ate breakfast in their separate rooms, then went to the tracks to meet other drivers, who she either raced or tagged along with on runs to see how they drove and worked their vehicle. Ryder remained the quiet observer. Some days she would even forget he was there, he stayed so far back and secluded from everyone.
On the way to the hotel one night, Maggie was too amped up from an amazing d
ay of driving and she wasn’t ready to be cooped up in a room.
“Want to go out for dinner?” She asked Ryder. Usually they got takeout, room service, or fast food.
“No thanks,” Ryder replied, looking out the passenger side window.
“I know of a great hamburger place. They make the world’s best milkshakes. I swear. It even says so on their window, so it must be true,” she joked, pleased that one side of his mouth slightly lifted.
“I’m not that hungry.”
Maggie tried not to pout. She couldn’t handle another night cooped up in that room, “They have outdoor seating that faces the ocean?”
His body perked up a bit in his seat.
It encouraged her to carry on, “I bet we’d time it just right and get to see the sunset…”
He actually glanced over at her.
She did something she wasn’t proud of, and used the lost girl face that usually got people to agree, “Please?”
Ryder let out a heavy sigh, dragging a hand along his face, mumbling, “fine.”
She wanted to fist pump the air. Instead, she kept her cool, trying to hold back a smile. She failed. A big, fat one emerged. She was just too excited to get out. Maggie turned up the radio, blasting the song, singing along at the top of her lungs, her body wiggling around in her seat in excitement.
Dinner went exactly how she expected it: her doing all the talking. One thing she liked about Ryder was that he listened so intently, as though every word she said was fascinating to him. She would blush every time his eyes watched her lips move.
She kept quiet when the sun set, watching Ryder’s face more than the view. His eyes sparkled with happiness, and his dark, handsome features turned almost childlike from it. It was the first time Maggie knew that the real Ryder was inside him somewhere, wanting to be free.
“You were right,” Ryder told her as they got back into the car. “That was the best milkshake.”
He grinned at her and she smiled back, “Told ya.”
He laughed.
It was a beautiful sound.
It felt like a victory, but the kind where there were no winners.
She still wanted to do something but she didn’t want to push her luck. Two nights later she tried again, this time using frozen yogurt to get him out. The following Saturday when the race track was busy with an event, she dragged Ryder to the movies. A comedy. He needed to laugh more.
They started going out every other night to dinner. Some nights Ryder even talked, usually asking her about how her family was doing, or to give her a compliment on her driving. The compliments always lit her up from the inside out.
Ryder had somehow wiggled into her heart; a place that she wasn’t ready for, so she ignored it as best she could.
Chapter 41
40 Oz. To Freedom
Wesley was good and drunk.
Why hadn’t he done this sooner?
Ava who?
His heart still constricted and his chest compressed at the mere thought of her.
He went to find another beer, wobbling through the crowd of partiers.
Students greeted him, clapping him on the back. Everyone was excited for the season to begin.
Wes could care less, but then again there wasn’t much he cared about these days.
He refilled his cup with a clear liquid. It had no taste as he shot it back.
He was glad Violet hadn’t come.
She wouldn’t have liked seeing him drink this much. She wouldn’t have stopped him, but he would have had to see her disapproving glare all night.
She had a date.
A pretty decent guy.
Chemistry was his major, so he was smart too. He treated her with respect, the kind that Wes couldn’t find a reason to intervene over.
Good for her.
She could do better than Parker-fucking-Stone.
Anyway, Wes was a free man, a college man. He should be boozing it up, celebrating with everyone that another season was about to begin.
A cute girl (or at least he thought she might have been – it was hard to tell with the caked on makeup and beer goggles hazing his eyes) leaned into him, her breasts nicely displayed for him to admire, which he blatantly did.
He laid on the charm, flirting for the first time in his life with someone that wasn’t Ava.
She eventually led him to a room in the back.
The sober side of him warned him he’d regret this, but the drunker side, the one that held ninety-nine percent of his consciousness, didn’t give two-shits about it.
He needed to numb his pain, if only for the night. His heartache was slowly killing him.
An hour later they were both pulling clothes back on.
She handed him her number on the way out.
He crumbled it into his back pocket, knowing he’d throw it away later.
Wes pulled out his phone, calling Violet to come bring him back to his dorm.
He slid down into his seat. He had just fucked another girl.
He felt guilty, like he had cheated. Except he hadn’t. He had just done exactly what Ava had told him to do months ago.
Wes had once been so sure he’d never be with another woman. He had never wanted to be. Ava was all he had ever wanted.
Without her he was lost.
Chapter 42
the lonely
Maggie was almost done packing, sighing over each piece that got placed in her suitcase. They were leaving tomorrow, the Southern California trip coming to an end. She would miss the friends that she had made and the freedom to drive to her heart’s content.
Thanksgiving was in a few days; the reason they chose to end the trip in November instead of staying or moving on. Wes was remaining at TU. He had made up some lame excuse about basketball training. Everyone knew it was because he wasn’t ready to be home and see Ava. Violet had decided to stay with him, not wanting Wes to be without family on a holiday. This would be the first holiday the triplets spent apart. It saddened her. She prayed it wasn’t the start of future times, only the rare exception.
Maggie missed her siblings. Their everyday phone calls and texts weren’t enough. She didn’t even have another trip to keep her distracted. She wasn’t planning on one until summer since she needed a chance to earn more money for it. She hoped to hit up Utah and Idaho, where they had more friends in the racetrack business.
It also meant no more time spent with Ryder.
Maggie knew things would go back to the way they were before they left. The closeness they had begun to share would be gone, and he’d go back to ignoring her instead of treating her like a friend. Well, maybe not a friend, but they had definitely created some sort of bond, even if it was miniscule in comparison to his closeness with the Stones and Violet. It was still more than they had before they came there.
The TV in the background caught her attention, alerting her to a movie marathon about to begin. She squealed, throwing in the rest of her belongings so they were a jumbled mess in her suitcase and zipping it closed. Maggie had already said her goodbyes to the boys at the tracks, so that meant she was free the rest of the day!
She galloped into Ryder’s room, the connecting doors still wide-open. He was packing, listening to an audio book. He had to be the biggest bookworm she had ever met.
She was mesmerized by a lock of hair that always seemed to fall over his eye.
A British voice spoke, “If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals…”
“I like that,” Maggie said, pointing to his phone that was reading the story.
Ryder jumped, not having heard her come in, “Yeah, she’s full of amazing quotes.”
“Who, the writer?”
“Yeah,” Ryder nodded his head, folding a shirt, gently placing it with the rest as though they were more than a piece of fabric and demanded respect.
“Who wrote this?”
Ryder paused, turning to face her, a gobsmacked expression on his face,
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“J.K. Rowling.”
“Oh, Harry Potter, right?”
He scoffed, “Have you ever read them?”
“No, but I’ve seen the movies.”
He shook his head in disbelief, placing a hand over his heart, “That wounds me, Maggie.”
Hearing him say her same sent a rocket off in the pit of her stomach.
She fumbled out her next words, nervous, feeling silly for it, “A Back To The Future movie marathon is next. You interested?”
“No thanks.”
“Oh, come on. Live a little,” she winked at him, jumping onto his bed, snatching the remote off the bedside table and turning to the channel she needed.
He finished packing while the movie started, “I’ve never seen these.”
“That wounds me, Ryder,” Maggie teased, looking for his room service menu. “Want to order a smorgasbord and make ourselves sick?”
He eyed the zipped up duffel bag, then her, then the space on the bed he would have to occupy. He did it three more times.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she reached for the phone, hitting the button she needed, rattling off every menu item that sounded good.
Ryder started off sitting at the end of the bed, as though any closer would give him cooties. By the end of the meal they were both so stuffed they had to lie on their backs on the bed.
“I’m in pain,” Maggie groaned.
“I never knew someone so little could eat so much. Where does it all go?” Ryder asked, poking her in the ribcage.
They both jumped from the contact, neither one expecting it.
Thirty minutes later she was ordering them sundaes, Ryder chuckling.
Somewhere during Part III they fell asleep.
Maggie didn’t wake until a thrashing of the bed jostled her.
Ryder was whimpering in bed, tossing back and forth, sweat covering his body.
It was the fourth time this had happened since the first night. The other times Maggie had stayed in her room, crying silent tears until he stopped, waking himself up.
She couldn’t be next to him and do nothing. It felt wrong.
Tentatively she reached her hand over, hovering it over his forehead before gently bringing it down. She ran her fingers through his strands of dark hair; it was the kind of naturally straight women fried their hair trying to achieve. The more she played with his hair, the more he seemed to calm down. Now the most noticeable things were the heavy beating of his heart and the air he couldn’t seem to breathe in.
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