Double Clutch

by Liz Reinhardt

  Just looking at it made me feel light and bubbly. I put it in my book as a bookmark, not wanting to leave it out in case Mom or Thorsten came in for something. There were a lot of reasons I didn’t want to talk to them about Jake, but a really major one was I simply didn’t know how they’d feel about me having a boyfriend at all. So I took the path of least resistance and didn’t mention him.

  Mom and I ate a small dinner in the living room, our plates on the coffee table. We watched some detective show Mom had gotten addicted to, but I could never follow. Then she stretched and yawned and told me she had a good book and was heading to bed.

  “Love you.” She kissed me. I told her I loved her too, and waited a minute before I switched off the TV and put the plates in the dishwasher. Then I went to my room, trying not to hurry too much because I wanted to savor this time before I called him. It was almost torturous. I washed up and got my pajamas on, and sat on my bed, staring at my phone until I couldn’t wait one more second.

  “Brenna.” His voice sounded sleepy already.

  “Hey Jake.” I snuggled down in my bed. “How are you?”

  “Pretty great. I got this amazing girl to agree to date me today.”

  “Really? Was she super desperate?” I teased.

  “Oh, yeah. She couldn’t keep her hands off of me during the whole date. Poor thing. I think she’s obsessed.”

  I liked the fact that we could joke about being together. I was dreading the idea that it might get too serious or too sappy. I really didn’t know anything about dating or having a boyfriend. Every single thing was new for me. “You sound tired, Jake.”

  “Not too tired to talk to you,” he said and yawned.

  “I think you’re too tired to be awake at all.” I flipped open my book and traced the picture of him smiling at me in black and white.

  “You took too long to call me,” he accused, his voice sweet.

  “I wanted to savor it,” I said quietly, now embarrassed.

  “You’re pretty seriously adorable.” The need for sleep made him suddenly punchy.

  “You’re quite deliciously irresistible yourself,” I whispered. “Bedtime, Jake.”

  “Tell me you can’t live without me,” he insisted.

  “I’m having trouble pulling in a breath unless I’m looking at your picture,” I lied, but it wasn‘t a huge lie.

  “You have a picture of me?” he asked, surprised.

  “The one from today. From the movie theater lobby.”

  “The one with my big ol’ chipped tooth?” His voice was slurred with drowsiness.

  “That’s the one.”

  “You like that picture?” He sounded astonished.

  “You look good.”

  “Brenna.” My name was a sigh on his lips. “How do you see good when you see me?”

  “Because you’re good,” I said simply. “And that’s it. Good night Jake.”

  “If I’m good, you’re a thousand times better than the best,” he said sleepily.

  “Good night, Jake,” I repeated, thinking about his head on a pillow, the phone loose in his hand.

  “Good night, Brenna. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Me too. Sleep.” I clicked my phone off.

  Chapter 8

  And just like that, my world started to spin slowly around Jake Kelly. He was my boyfriend, but more than I’d ever thought a boyfriend could be. Because it wasn’t all about being physical, even though I loved that aspect, and Jake was always respectful of my lack of experience and my wariness to go farther, to the places he’d been so many times without really thinking about it much at all. School centered around looking forward to Jake and avoiding Saxon.

  After the weekend at the movies, Saxon was completely quiet and cold to me in school. We didn’t walk to class together anymore, and the only reason I still sat at his lunch table was that it was too awkward to try to find other friends to sit with. I didn’t know that many people in the school, and since most of the kids had already clumped together in their strangely unbreakable clans as soon as the year began, they weren’t very willing to change.

  The best part of my day was just after lunch when I got on my bike and headed to Tech, even though the weather was increasingly colder and the wind bit angrily through all of my layers. I pushed my feet against the pedals, willing my body closer to Jake. Unlike Saxon, Jake was someone I could work with easily. I loved when the two of us sat across from each other in companionable silence, grinning whenever our eyes met across the rough shop tables. Sometimes he would catch my leg under the table with the top of his boot and rub the rounded top of the boot along the bottom of my calf, up and down. He never looked at me when he did it, which made it even more adorable. I liked the feel of his slightly hard boot sliding up and down the soft curve of my leg.

  He walked me out to my bike on a freezing Thursday afternoon. “It’s cold.” His teeth chattered a little.

  “It’s not bad once you get going.” I tied my scarf firmly around my mouth and nose and pulled my hat down over my ears.

  “You look like a snowman.” He reached out to tuck loose hairs back under my hat.

  I knew he was worried about me, but that seemed so ridiculous. He was the one with the threadbare coat and holey hat. His boots were scuffed and the laces were fraying, and the denim of his pants was so soft it felt silky. I had no idea how he got to work or home, and I had no idea what his house was like once he got home. I didn’t know where he slept or if he even had his own room. Or bed. For all I knew he might be camped on his couch. Or worse.

  I blinked those thoughts away, forcing a laugh at his joke. I was glad he couldn’t see much of my face with my entire anti-cold outfit on. “This snowman had better get going before Mama Snowman brings out the icy fury.”

  “I can’t believe your mom is still cool with you riding to school,” Jake stalled.

  I sighed. “C’mon, not you, too. I like it. It makes me feel very independent.”

  “This winter is one of the coldest we’ve had in years, Brenna. You should hear the Zinga brothers bitching about the crops that got frosted. I can’t wait until I can drive you home.” He squinted at the sky. “It looks like snow. It smells like it too.” He gave me a worried look.

  “Mom forbids biking in the snow. If it snows tomorrow, I take the bus,” I promised.

  “It’s going to snow now,” he said, his legs spread over the front wheel of my bike, his hands gripping the handlebars. “Go home now.” He pulled the scarf down and kissed me, lightly, then with a little more hunger.

  I leaned into him, trying to find the balance between quietly savoring the kiss and pressing in, tapping into the rush of feelings I had to keep bound inside. If I let go, went where my body begged me to, it was like a switch tripped in Jake’s head, and he backed off entirely. I had to play it just right, leading him in and making him forget what we were doing.

  We were tangled around the cold metal frame of my bike, our arms and chests pressed together, our mouths and lips licking and sucking urgently. Then I shivered.

  Just the tiniest imaginable shiver.

  “Get going,” Jake barked. He pulled away and left me panting for more of him. Even as I sulked and snapped back that he wasn’t my keeper, I checked him out from under my eyelashes.

  I knew why every girl we ever came within ten feet of pressed her breasts into his face and batted her eyelashes like she was having a facial spasm. He was the perfect mixture of pure angelic good boy and hot dangerous bad boy. He was sweet and mannered and romantic, but there was an edge to him that made me bristle and swoon at the same time. Swoon, just like Scarlett O’Hara. It was like I could imagine him carrying an old lady’s groceries to her car, but I could also picture him in a fist fight. And I wasn’t sure which image intrigued me more.

  Sick, sick, sick. But I couldn’t lie about him. I felt my chest get hot and tight every time I thought of him. I was falling head over heels in love with Jake Kelly, and the feeling was better
than anything I’d ever felt before.

  “Bye,” I snapped, narrowed my eyes at him, and then I pretended I was going to pedal away even as I waited for the pull of his hand on my bike.

  “Can’t let you go mad.” He pulled my bike back, just like I knew he would. Then he kissed my lips again gently. He fixed my scarf over my mouth and nose. “Brenna, you know you’re crazy, right?” His smile was so wide it crinkled his eyes, eyes as gray as this sky before the snow.

  “I thought that was part of what drove you to me.” I was unable to resist him for even a minute. When Jake turned on his charm, I was defenseless.

  “I want you to be safe.” He rubbed his red, chapped hand over my mittened one. “Look where you’re going and don’t make any stops.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Jake,” I said through my scarf.

  “I never said that,” Jake returned calmly. “Even pretty, smart girls can get caught in storms. Go.”

  I dropped my hands from the bike and let it balance between my legs, threw him a hard hug, and darted away. I didn’t like to look back, because I knew exactly where Jake would be standing, watching me race away from him as he stood there, shivering until I was out of sight. Just because it happened every afternoon didn’t mean I wanted to see it.

  Jake was right about the weather. As soon as I crested the hill beyond the school, snowflakes started to flurry and swirl. I felt a prickle of irritation. It wasn’t even winter yet. New Jersey was always cold, but this was just crazy. It was like even the weather was conspiring to keep me from riding to school.

  I rode as hard I could and kept my eyes on the road without exception. I was just past Frankford when a car rambled too close to my side. I didn’t even have to look to know who it was.

  I waved a hand to my side, flagging him away, but he crept dangerously close, refusing to back off. Finally I had to stop or risk being run into a deep, leaf-filled ditch on the side of the road.

  I smacked my hand hard on the warm hood of his car in frustration, and Saxon gave me an amused grin from the interior. The smoke from his cigarette mixed with the swirling snowflakes and struck me as a weird combination of something so clean and cold and fresh with something so smoldering and dirty and choking.

  “I’ll give you a ride.” It wasn’t a suggestion. As usual. Typical Saxon.

  “No thanks. It’s getting worse, so why don’t you stop trying to drive me off of the road and let me go home?”

  He took a long drag then flicked the finished cigarette out the window, the cherry bright orange and still smoldering. I made a face. There was nothing I hated more than seeing the ground littered with the dull brown filters of cigarettes.

  “Mommy is going to be pissed.” He gestured with one hand to his interior. “Get in.”

  “My mother will be extra pissed if I pull up in your car. I’m not allowed to drive with idiots.” I got back on my bike.

  I heard Saxon make a noise between a yell and a snarl of frustration before he opened the driver’s side door and closed it with a bang. I was on my way, but the road was slick from the sticking snow and one of my tires wobbled and slipped from under me. Saxon caught up to me easily and grabbed my bike at the same time that I slammed my feet off of the pedals and onto the pavement.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed.” He held the handlebars in a vice grip that was the opposite of Jake’s earlier gentle hold. “Get in the car.” He saw my stony expression and his eyes softened in a way I didn’t completely trust. “I won’t put the moves on you, Blix. If I let you get killed, who would I have left to irritate the crap out of me?”

  I hated to admit how handsome he looked, how appealing he was to me, despite my resistance.

  The snow fell more rapidly now, coated the swerved tracks from my bike, and then erased them completely. It was dangerous. Mom would be frantic.

  “Fine.” I picked my bike up. “Pop your trunk.”

  He ignored my request, yanked the bike from my hands and jerked his head towards the passenger door. “Get in.”

  I saw as I slid in that he had already popped the trunk. He was totally sure I would jump in the car with him. I don’t know what made me angrier; his arrogance or the fact that I’d done exactly what he expected.

  I had my arms crossed over my chest when he got in, refusing to warm my cold hands by the vents that blew such inviting air in my direction.

  “Call your mom.”

  I didn’t want to just do what he said, but I didn’t have much of a choice. If I didn’t call her first, she would be driving to get me or sending out the National Guard. My mom had a way of frightening men in authority positions, and I just prayed she hadn’t already called the cops while the phone rang.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Brenna! Where are you?” Her voice was pure panic.

  “I’m fine, Mom. One of my classmates offered me a ride home because of the weather.”

  “Thank God.” In my mind I could see her putting a shaky hand over her heart. “Just drive slowly. Don’t rush. And tell her thank you.”

  “Uh, I will.” I chose to ignore the pronoun confusion. “Love you.”

  Saxon smirked while my mother told me she loved me.

  “Tell her I love her, too,” he said in a stage whisper.

  I gripped my phone in my hand. “Tell her yourself when you get to my house,” I dared him. He shut up.

  We rode for a little while in silence. I tried to make mine a pointed, obvious silence, but Saxon refused to acknowledge there was anything weird about my lack of conversation. He seemed perfectly comfortable with the whole thing.

  “Pretty crazy weather, eh Blix?” He knew it was ironic to bring up something as mundane as the weather when we had such strong emotions broiling between us.

  “It sucks.” Mom would say I was being petulant. So what if I sounded like a priss? That’s how I felt.

  “I think it was fate.” He leaned back in his seat. He looked good, and I knew he knew it. His jet black hair was a little too long and messy. His eyes were dark and knowing, and his shirt and pants were obviously too light for the weather, but he didn’t even have a goosebump. And even though I really didn’t want to notice it, it was hard to ignore how his sculpted muscles popped against his Sex Pistols t-shirt and his ripped-up pinstriped suit pants.

  “I don’t think fate had anything to do with this. This is just you creeping around where you knew I’d be passing,” I said a little too firmly. Because I had a huge superstitious streak and that usually made me believe firmly in fate. But I didn’t want to in this instance.

  “I think you’re a liar. Don’t be so glum, Blix. It’s not cheating to take a ride. Even if it is from me.”

  “Jake would never care,” I said hotly, all the hotter about it because I was secretly a little nervous he would care, and also a little annoyed I was even thinking that way.

  Saxon shrugged. “I thought you would be more concerned, now that your Jake’s girl.”

  “Like I said before,” I snapped, “I’m my own girl. No one else’s.” No matter how much I liked Jake, I would never think of myself as belonging to him. The very idea made me shudder a little.

  “So how about Folly?” Saxon made a stab at neutral conversation. “I heard you gave them some designs that were pretty awesome. You and me should go to the show next Saturday.” And then he brought it right back into uncomfortable territory.

  “No thanks,” I said automatically.

  His smile curled over his face like smoke curling from a burning cigarette. “You aren’t remotely interested in how your design will sell?”

  I was. And I liked Folly. I managed to ignore the fact that Saxon made the Folly mix for me and spent a few nights listening to it. I definitely got into their music. “I’m not saying I won’t go. I just don’t want to go with you.”

  Saxon leaned over and upped the heat until every dial was set to maximum. I started to sweat in my seat.“Well, however you get there, I’ll be there, too, so it will techni
cally be a date.”

  I balked at his words and resisted the urge to throw my coat off. “That makes absolutely no sense.”

  “Really?” he challenged. “I’m asking you to meet me at the Folly concert. If you’re there on Saturday, you accepted my date request.”

  I glanced at the speedometer and saw he was hardly doing fifteen miles an hour. This ride would never end. “I’ll go with Jake.” I unknotted my scarf, dragged my hat off, and put my mittens in my lap, and I was still sweltering. I didn’t know what was more uncomfortable; the extreme heat of the car’s interior or the slow, hot burn of rage that spread through me in response to Saxon’s ridiculous games.

  “Isn’t the motocross race at the Valley next Saturday?” he taunted.

  My ears burned. I had forgotten! Jake hadn’t said anything about it for days. I already told him I would go. I even wanted to. How was I going to line everything up?

  Now I was aggravated, and Saxon was purposefully crawling along even more slowly. I knew there was no way he’d drive this slowly even in a blizzard. He just wanted to torture me.

  “Can we talk about something else?” I growled. I hated his arrogant smile and the way he knew exactly which buttons to push to get me going.

  “Sure,” Saxon drawled. “What would you like to talk about, Brenna?” The way he said my name was warm and slow, and it coiled down low in my gut.

  “Are you doing any sports this fall?” I asked, my voice falsely bright.

  “Yeah.” He shot me a smile. “I’m a forward.”

  “Like on the soccer team?” He didn’t seem like a joiner, let alone one of the most important members of the soccer team.

  “Like on the soccer team. So are you doing any sports? Cheerleading?” He suggested with a laugh. “Kidding,” he added, and I smiled despite my best attempt to scowl at him.

  “I was thinking about track,” I admitted.

  “You should. You run like Gump.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know. I’ve heard you and your friends chanting for me.”