Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2)

by Ginger Scott

  “Uh, that’s still littering, you know?” she says.

  I stare at her trying to decide if she’s fucking with me again, but after a few seconds, I decide she’s serious. I swallow hard and look back to the four-way stop I’ve been sitting at for a solid twenty seconds. “I’m pretty sure I will never spit my gum out again,” I say, thoroughly scolded by the girl who is in no way going to kiss me tonight now that I’m a litterer.

  “You can spit it out, just not where people step. It’s gross,” she says, her voice growing a little softer.

  “No…you’re right,” I say, glancing at her again.

  “I…I didn’t mean to sound bossy. I’m bossy sometimes, but I don’t mean…” She’s shaking her head while she’s babbling, and it’s adorable. I reach over and touch her knee with the back of my hand, which has the effect of electroshock therapy on both of us. We straighten in our seats. She tugs at her seatbelt and slides closer to her door as I pick my hand up and promptly put it on the two of the ten and two of the steering wheel.

  A few long seconds pass in silence, and ironically I wish like hell I had my gum back in my mouth to give it something to do. “You’re not bossy,” I say, smiling as I glance at her sideways. “You were right. It’s gross.”

  “Delaware,” she blurts out, and I shrug my shoulders, shaking my head as I squeeze the back of my neck with my left hand.

  “Yeah, you lost me. I think I missed the transition,” I chuckle.

  “Sorry,” she says. “That’s where I moved here from. I’m from Delaware.”

  “Delaware.” I repeat the state, loving that she’s just as damned uncomfortable and awkward as I am now. “That’s my favorite colony.”

  I can feel her looking at me, and I notice her start to laugh lightly out of the corner of my eye as I pull into the parking lot of the Ice Palace.

  “You’re strange, Andrew Harper. Very strange,” she says through the end of her laugh as we both step from the car.

  I move to the trunk, open it, and lift out my skates. “I’m not quite sure what makes me strange, but…I’ll take strange from you.” I grin as I motion toward the front doors to the rink, urging her to walk next to me.

  There’s a peewee team on the ice when we enter; a group of maybe fifteen kids puffed up with hockey gear and pads and barely balancing on their skates. I nod to Chad, the guy coaching them. He plays with me on the weekends, and he’s been coaching here for years.

  “Oh my god, they’re so cute,” Emma says, stepping close enough to put her hand flat along the glass. She watches as each kid takes a turn skating toward the goal, the only mission stopping before running into the metal. It’s harder than it looks, especially when you’re six. “Was that you when you were little? One of those little round kids wobbling on the ice?”

  “No,” I say with a shake of my head. I lead her over to the skate rental counter. “My brothers taught me how to skate by throwing me out on a frozen lake. And we played our own brand of hockey, I guess. Or, they hit me hard and laughed when I fell on my ass…”

  “That’s so mean!” Her eyes show genuine sympathy, and it’s sweet as hell.

  “Yeah…and no. I mean, they were my older brothers. It’s like…a thing, ya know? And I was the little runt. I loved it as much as I hated it. Size?” I look down at her feet.

  “Oh, uhm, sevens probably,” she responds.

  “Sevens,” I say to Gary. He pulls out a pair of white blades and slides them along the counter to me, quirking one eyebrow up, his subtle way of giving me shit for being on a date. Am I on a date? I think this is a date.

  We both sit on a nearby bench and unlace our shoes, then slip our feet into our skates. I get mine on quickly, then kneel in front of her to help her tie hers tight. Our fingers tangle for a brief second in the laces, and it makes my lip curve up on one side. I keep my gaze low, hiding it.

  “So you just played with your brothers. No team or anything?” she says, leaning back and letting me finish working out the knot on her skates.

  “Just my brothers,” I say as I take her hand and help her to her feet. She lets go of me as soon as she finds her balance, and I exhale my disappointment. With one step, though, she loses her center and grabs hold of my arm, clutching it with both hands.

  “I got you,” I say, careful as I slide one arm around her back, noticing the feel of the curve of her body on my way. Her fingers dig into the fabric of my shirt on my shoulder, and her grip hurts a little, but I don’t care.

  “I don’t think I can do this.” Her words come out in a quiet, nervous laugh.

  “Sure you can,” I smile. “Look…it’s just ice. And it doesn’t hurt any more than falling on the ground. I promise. We won’t go fast, and I’ll hold you the entire time.”

  I will hold you. Please don’t find your balance ever, because I will hold you. This is my job, holding you.

  I lead Emma to the edge of the ice, and we pause while the group of young hockey players race up and off the ice, a few of them stumbling onto the carpet, others showing off how comfortable they are on their skates, sliding in sideways just before the wall. Chad nods at me as he follows behind the group of kids.

  “See you tomorrow, Drew?” he asks, glancing quickly to Emma.

  “Yup,” I nod. “Hey, you think maybe you let me score this time?”

  Chad glances back to Emma, whose only focus is on her quivering ankles, then he looks back to me. “Only if you earn it, big man. Only if you earn it,” he chuckles as he glides past me.

  Chad’s the same age my father would have been if he were still alive. I have a feeling that he and my father knew each other. I’ve never asked, and he’s never said anything, but there’s just this vibe I get from him. I can’t explain it, only that when most people know my family’s story, they start to treat me with either pity or fear. Chad does neither.

  “Okay, are you ready?” I ask, tightening my hold on Emma, bringing her closer to my side. I tell myself it’s to give her confidence, but it’s really just so I can feel her close to me.

  “Ready,” she stutters, her eyes still down on her feet.

  “Okay, that’s good; look at your feet, and keep your weight forward. You get into trouble when the skates move ahead of you. Falling back—that’s what sucks,” I instruct.

  Emma bites her lip and nods quickly.

  “Got it, backward sucks,” she says. I laugh.

  “Not quite what I said, but that’s okay,” I chuckle. “Okay, you’re just going to glide between me and the wall. No steps, just get used to the feeling of this.”

  I push her, but stay at her side, and we move around one end of the rink inches at a time. After a few minutes, I convince her to bend her knees, and when she finally moves one leg, her feet slide around in a panic as she collapses on the ice, taking me with her.

  “Damn, I’m sorry. I’m going to end up hurting you. It’s okay. I don’t need to learn this,” she says, looking around for a way to get up, her face painted with disappointment and frustration.

  “Stop it. You can’t hurt me,” I say, pulling myself up and holding the wall so I can lift her back to her feet. “The average number of falls for a first timer is something like eight,” I say, completely making up a statistic. “That was just number one, so we’ve got a long way to go.”

  When I raise her to her feet, I circle my arms around her, and her eyes are only inches from mine. Her pupils flare with a short-lived rush. If I were Owen, I’d kiss her—right now.

  Instead, I look down, dust off some of the ice crystals from her sleeves, and link my fingers through hers. “Come on, let’s finish our lap,” I say, still wishing I had the guts to kiss her.

  I lead her a few more feet at a time around the rink, and we fall, me falling with her, at least a dozen more times. By the time we finish one full lap, though, she’s grown steadier, her ankles finding their strength, and when she feels brave, she lets go of my hand and glides a few feet at a time on her own.

  This is w
hen her smile takes over ruling every single thing I do.

  “Oh my god, Andrew…” she says, a little breathless and excited. “Oh my god! Look!” She moves one foot slowly, and her steps are choppy and awkward, but with me within an arm’s reach, she manages to scoot her way around a quarter of the rink, leaning forward when we finally make it to the entrance, clutching the gate and collapsing over the side, exhausted.

  “Well?” she asks, twisting her body around to face me. “How’d I do?” she asks.

  “Better than average,” I smirk, my eyes flitting to her hand, wanting to hold it again. She reaches up and smacks my chest once, but quickly grips the wall again when she feels her balance start to give out.

  “You said average was eight falls. I’m pretty sure I fell way more than eight times,” she laughs, holding herself along the railing until she finds a bench to sit at.

  “Yeah, but you fell…like…way better than most people,” I joke. She tosses her hair over her shoulder as she raises one leg to unlace her skate, and I get a little lost in watching her move. She leans forward to catch the line of my eyesight to bring me back.

  “Show me what you can do,” she says. I bunch my brow, not sure what she means. “Out there. Just…I don’t know. Skate a lap or something? I want to see if my teacher is all talk.”

  I laugh and shake my head, a little embarrassed by her attention, maybe a little nervous about flirting, too. When my eyes meet hers, she raises her eyebrows in expectation.

  “Yeah?” I ask, not sure if showing off is a good thing.

  “Please? Just one lap,” she says, and I’m struck by the word please. I’m pretty sure that’s all it would take for me to do anything for her—anything at all…ever.

  “A’right,” I say, bending forward and pulling my laces a little tighter. A few girls have entered the rink, and they’re spinning in the middle, tracing lines and working on footwork. I’ve always been more impressed with what they can do. Me—I’m just fast. Those girls—they’re full of grace and beauty. Nothing beautiful about what I do at all.

  I skate backward, watching Emma as she tiptoes to the glass to watch me more closely. My heart begins to race knowing her eyes are on me. I move to one corner and skid to a stop before shrugging my shoulders at her. This isn’t very impressive, but it’s what I’ve got, so I take off quickly to the other end of the rink, stopping fast and sprinting back to where I started, repeating the move again, then pausing at the other end. I wait a few seconds to catch my breath, then glide toward and away from her in circles, like I do when I’m playing defense, and eventually end back at the exit gate where she’s clapping.

  “Okay,” she laughs. “That…was skating. I see the difference now. I was falling. You…you were skating.”

  I laugh with her, sliding into the bench to pull off my skates. “My brothers were good teachers,” I say. There’s a simple smile spanning the space between the pink of her cheeks. It’s not fake or uncomfortable, but rather exactly the opposite—like the kind of smile you give someone who gets you and your story without even asking. I stare at it a little too long, though, and she starts to let her hands twist in her lap again, nerves creeping back in. It gets quiet when I slide my feet from my skates, and when I grab her blades to return them to the rental counter, she waits for me by the door.

  I’ve only had her for an hour, and I’m not ready to give her up yet.

  “You know, Illinois is way different from Delaware,” I say when I meet up to her again, holding the door open and fighting the instinct to put my arm around her as I did on the ice. “You should probably get the full tour of Woodstock from a local.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. I wouldn’t want to wander into the wrong woods or something like that,” she grins at me from one side of her mouth.

  “Precisely,” I mimic, holding the car door open, the muscles in my cheeks working hard to keep the excitement I feel—over the fact that she wants more time with me—from fully taking over my face. If I gave in, I’m pretty sure my feet would dance with anticipation.

  I pull out from the rink’s parking lot in the opposite direction from the one we came, and I take us to the outskirts of town first, pointing out the lake that sometimes freezes over, the homes that are older than hers, if not quite as big, and the Old Town shops around the main square. After we hit the touristy stuff, I drive through a few of the woodsy areas, along the edge of the industrial strip and past the warehouse where my father worked. I don’t tell her about him then, but when I pull up to the edge of the Wilson Apple Orchard about ten minutes later, she asks.

  “Is it true?”

  Everyone has their own way of asking about our story. Some people gossip and whisper, others are more direct—hugging me, touching my arm, offering sympathy and grief counseling even if it’s fifteen years later than I really need it. The funny thing is, though, that few people actually really ask for the story. Most assume.

  I shift the gear into park just outside the orchard driveway gates, the festival season long past and most of the trees starting to show their winter branches. My fingers grip over the top of the steering wheel as I breathe in slowly, then exhale, noticing the slight trail of fog my breath creates as it threatens to leave a steamy circle on the window. I push the heater up one level before resting my arms over the steering wheel, laying my head flat against them and looking at her next to me.

  She’s beautiful. And I want this one to be the girl—the one I remember. And my sad family history is going to ruin it. But she asked. So I’m going to tell her.

  My lips tight, I force a smile, not wanting to make anything about this moment sad, despite the history I’m going to share. She twists in her seat to face me slightly, unbuckling her seatbelt so she can bring her knee up to her chest.

  “I’ve only ever heard the stories, too. I was one, maybe, when my dad died. He was sick. He had bipolar disorder, and his brain—it made a lot of things up. He wasn’t taking his medicine, and nobody knows exactly why he stepped from the Ferris-wheel carriage. But he wasn’t well when it happened. That’s the one truth I know for certain. My brother and mom, they don’t talk about him much,” I say, turning my head to look down at my lap. “I think what really happened is a secret that will forever be kept between my father’s ghost and a five-year-old Owen.”

  “You said brother. But before…you said you learned to skate from your brothers. So that’s…that’s also true?” Her voice breaks slightly when she asks. I lean back into my seat and stretch my arms forward to flex my muscles before letting my hands fall to my knees.

  “Yeah. That one…I have more of a memory of. But…” I stop, holding my breath.

  “But it’s not a memory you want to share,” she finishes for me.

  I nod slowly, then look up to her waiting gaze, her stormy eyes lit by the moon. If she was the ocean, I would be happy to be lost at sea. “If that’s okay, I think I’ll just let the rumors fill that one in for you,” I exhale.

  Her freckles. Her small nose. The waves of brown of her hair. Her long lashes, and the way her fingers search for something to do when she’s nervous. I watch it all; I savor it. “I’d rather just leave it blank…until you want to share,” she says, her lip curling briefly on one side. I take that small movement in too. “I don’t much care for rumors,” she says, her grin stretching just a hint wider.

  The radio is barely audible in the car, and part of me wants to turn the music louder to fill the silence taking up too much space between us. Another part of me, though, wants to leave the silence alone, because when it’s quiet like this, and she’s close, I can hear every breath she takes.

  Her phone steals away my choice, buzzing regularly in her pocket until she pulls it out and answers a call from her dad. I only hear her end of the conversation, but her answers are clipped, relegated to single words. Without asking, I shift the car into reverse and back away from the orchard and onto the road. Emma needs to go home; this much I’m sure of.

  “
Sorry, my dad doesn’t like me out late,” she says as she puts her phone into the side pocket of her purse, not adding the part where I’m sure her father said he didn’t like his daughter out late with me.

  “It’s okay. I’m getting up early to drive to Champaign with my mom and her boyfriend. I should get home too. He’ll want me to gas up the car,” I say, not wanting her to feel guilty about her parents’ opinion of me.

  It takes us twenty minutes to get back to our neighborhood, and instead of finding out more about her, I give into my insecurities and turn the music up loud enough to give both of our minds something else to play with. There are a few times, though, where I catch her lips moving with the lyrics of one of the songs, and I tell myself that visual is almost as good as finding out more of her story.

  As I sit in the car next to her in front of her ornate, giant house, I know that there’s no way I’m going to sleep tonight. There’s no guarantee that if I dream, I’ll dream of her.

  “Thank you for teaching me to skate,” she says, pausing with one leg out of the car, the other still here with me.

  “I’m not sure we can call it skating yet, but…” I tease, and she pushes my arm with a tiny grunt in dissent. Yeah, I lock that touch away, too. “I’m joking. You did great.”

  “Well…I’m no hockey phenom,” she says, her voice dragging out that last word.

  “Neither am I,” I sigh. I don’t know why it makes me uncomfortable, but I just don’t want her thinking I’m more special than I am.

  Our silence is drowned out by the ad for legal advice blaring through Dwayne’s car speakers, and I watch, helplessly, as she finally steps from my car. There are so many things that I could do right now. But just beyond her, the front door to her house has cracked open, and the porch light has flipped on, the blinds to the front window wide as well.

  “I hope this was as good as some school dance,” I say, every drum of my heart rattling my insides. I’m not sure how I’m going to drive home unable to feel my feet and fingers.

  Her feet on the curb, and her purse pulled across her body, Emma stops just before closing the car door, leaning in just enough so I can hear her, and whoever is standing at the doorway behind her can’t.