by Cassie Mae
Yeah, tonight’s the night. I’m gonna ask her out. Hold her hand. Kiss her goodnight.
I don’t have a Yoda, but I do have me, and I’ve been replaying this night in my head for a long time.
I make my way inside, following the signs and the noise past the food court to the archway with golf clubs decorating the brick. The lights on the floor lead to the outside doors to the Tiki Zone where there’s a miniature golf course and a bungee dive into water. Tiki torches line the walk and the snack shack is open and buzzing with many co-workers ordering umbrella drinks.
It’s been a while since I’ve come out here. The Wheel Zone is my… well, zone, and managers have stopped stationing me elsewhere for years. Candace once asked if I’d consider doing a different one for a week or two, but changed her mind before the schedule went out. It’s not that I don’t mind other zones. The Wheel Zone is just where I shine, I guess, and it’s been so long since I’ve done other places I might need training on them first.
I search through the familiar faces of coworkers and the unfamiliar ones from wherever Candace and Pete know them. I’m looking for one in particular, and it doesn’t take me long to pin her down.
Damn, she’s stunning. My breath stops dead in my throat. Mad’s usually tangled and messy strands are curled and bouncy, hanging just over the small of her back. A red, silky thing flows over her shoulders and down her torso, falling breezily into… well, shit… that’s a skirt. A bunch of metal loops create some sort of belt around her waist, cutting the red fabric into different shapes. She tries to push one side of the sleeve up over her shoulder, but it falls right off, leaving her collarbone exposed.
Aislynn, who’s standing next to her, laughs and gestures to the bare shoulder. From what I gather with the very little experience I have in lip reading, she’s telling her that’s how the dress is supposed to look.
I head over, tripping myself in the rush to just be next to her. Her hazel eyes drift to me a few steps away, and she gives me the brightest smile, and I feel like freaking Tony Hawk.
“Hey, Brink,” I say, and we greet each other with a clasped hand elbow bump. Even dressed up in our fancy pants, we keep it casual.
Aislynn flips her long pink hair over her shoulder and takes a sip from her bright orange umbrella drink. “You just get here?”
I nod, trying not to let my gaze drift to Mad and that dress. “You?”
“Nope. Just got off, so I changed in the break room.” She leans against a fake palm tree. “Do either of you know who that is who just walked up to Candace?”
Mad cranks her head around me, and I follow her gaze. A bespectacled dude with a decent beard pulls Candace into a hug, squeezing her pretty tight.
“Oh, that’s Luke,” Mad answers. “He works at Candace’s ranch.”
Say what now? My eyes widen, and I take him in more carefully. This guy works with Mad, then. Every day.
I try not to let the fact that he’s the typical female magnet bother me. The fact that he has a real manly job doesn’t intimidate me either. Nah.
My jaw clenches, and I stand a little straighter. Can she see me flexing in this monstrosity of a shirt?
“That man is the most gorgeous alive,” Aislynn says, making this conversation fun for me.
“For sure,” I tease, and she gives me a good kick to the foot.
“I meant second to you, babe.”
I kick her back, but I’m grateful for the shoutout. I can use all the help I can get.
Aislynn subtly jerks her head toward Mad, waggling her brows as she gulps a healthy sip from her fruity drink. I take a deep breath, taking the hint.
“Uh… Mad—”
“Can we talk for a sec?” she blurts, then backtracks. “Oh, were you going to say something?”
“Exactly that, actually.” Heat burns through my neck. Holy shit, I think it’s time.
Aislynn not-so-gracefully excuses herself. “Guess I’ll go introduce myself to that sexy man over there.” She pushes off the palm tree and hip-checks me as she passes. I let out a laugh so awkward that it ends in a cough.
Mad chuckles at the exchange, shaking her head at Aislynn’s retreating figure. “I wonder how long it’ll take her to find out he’s deaf.”
“Is he really?”
She nods, fiddling with the shoulder on her dress again. “It’s taken me a bit, but I think I’m pretty good at understanding his language. I’m not fluent by any means, but we can at least hold a conversation.”
“That’s cool.” It really is. Can’t believe I didn’t know it already, but then again, Mad doesn’t talk about her day job often.
She lifts a shoulder like it’s not a big thing and that just makes me love her more. She hooks a finger with my pinky and pulls me to a darker section of the outside zone, near hole seventeen on the mini golf. Every step gives my heart an extra zap, and rocks plummet into the pit of my stomach.
Holy shit… this is it. I’m gonna tell her I love her and ask her on a date.
I will.
“Okay,” she says, dropping my hand. I immediately miss it. She peers around me, then lifts her gorgeous hazel eyes to mine. “You think we could get any boarding in tonight?”
The question throws my one-track mind off kilter, and I hop onto the train her brain’s running. “Not sure. This party could go on for a while.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” She reaches for the hem of her dress and yanks it up. My eyes bulge out until I see that she’s wearing light saber bike shorts underneath that red thing, and her phone is tucked inside. Holy hell, my heart nearly stops. “I was hoping you could help me with something else, then.”
She taps her phone on, wiggling her hips until her dress falls back into place, the screen lighting her face. A single curl bobs over her right cheek, and my fingers twitch with the urge to tuck it gently behind her ear.
“What’s up?” I lean in, turning my attention to her phone… and her perfume. Something flowery. Mouth-watering. Amazing.
“The Ultimate Boarding Competition requires a video entry this year.” She scrolls through the web page, stopping at the entry rules. “I was hoping you could help me come up with an audition tape.”
“Hell yeah.” I pluck the phone from her hand, using my thumb to read it over as she explains.
“I was thinking of starting out with the half-pipe, then dropping into some of the grinds and flip tricks.”
“That’d be a good idea. Maybe freestyle for a bit, too. Do what comes naturally.”
“No routine?”
“Freestyle would be part of the routine.” I hand the phone back, a grin tilting the corner of my lips at her excitement lit up by the phone and board talk. “Some of your best stuff comes out when you’re not thinking about it.”
She tilts her head back and forth, considering. “Maybe. I’m thinking you could film me a few times during these practice sessions. I could study them, fix some of the missteps. That kind of thing.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
“You don’t mind?”
“’Course not.” No way in hell do I mind. That equals more time with her, more involvement in her boarding. “We could even go see the amateur league in Indy next weekend. Check out what the judges are impressed with this year.”
“Oh, good idea. It’s a date.” She scrolls through the rules, her eyes bright and excited and focused while my jaw drops like a fish out of water.
Did I just do it? Did I ask her out?
After a few seconds of silent scrolling, I decide that I didn’t. I think I want it to come out better than that.
Maddie grins and hefts out a large sigh, her shoulders falling in the most relaxed position I’ve seen all night from her. “All signed up. Video needs to be in by the end of August.”
“Plenty of time.” My mouth twitches upward in what I think is a grin, but by the wrinkle in the bridge of her nose, I don’t think I’m doing it right.
She tilts her head, curiosity running wild i
n her eyes as she lifts her skirt again, short-circuiting my brain until her phone is in her pocket. “Did you need to chat with me about something?”
Yes. “Uh…”
She laughs. “I totally made you forget, didn’t I?”
Absolutely not. But I let out a humorless laugh. “Way to go.”
“Sorry.” She bumps into my side as we make our way back to the louder spaces of the party. “Let me know if it comes to ya.”
My entire left side warms where she walks just an inch away, and I yell at my lips to form the damn words. Come on, Tanner. Ask her out for real. A real date. Hold her hand. Board with her till the sun comes up. Kiss her. Say the three little words.
My eyes drift to her hand as we walk. She tugs on her dress, wriggling around like she’d like nothing more than to rip the thing off and walk around in bike shorts and a sports bra.
I love her so much. Too much. Too much, too fast, too soon…
“Feel like a drink?” my lips say instead of what I want them to.
“Driving tonight.”
“They got mocktails and shit.”
“Ooh… shit. Yum.”
I knock into her side, but she’s sturdy and tough, so it barely interrupts her gait. “How ‘bout a Gatorade?”
She lifts a brow. “They have that at the bar?”
“No, but I’ll hook you up.” I lead her toward the inside door, taking her down the lit hallway and past the food court and up to the arcade. She follows next to me, skipping some of the steps as she pretends to be on a skateboard.
“Maybe I’ll add in a hardflip,” she says, mimicking the motion of the advanced trick. By her tone, she’s kidding, but it’s not a bad idea.
“You should.”
She snorts and gives me a look. “And fall on my ass in front of all those judges? How fun!”
“I’ve seen you do it plenty, Brink.” We get to the top of the stairs, entering inside the shut down arcade. The game lights are all out, and the eerie darkness surrounds us, but it feels like home to me.
“Fall?”
“Land the flip, smartass.” I lead her to the only lit up machine here—the vending. “Seriously, you should consider a lot more of the advanced tricks in your audition.”
“The hardflip requires a lot of faith in your board, and while I love my little Millennium Falcon, she’s getting up there.”
“I think she’s got it in her.” I slip a couple bucks in the machine and click the Arctic Blitz button. It’s her favorite. The bottle bangs and rumbles the machine on its way down the chute, plunking into the bottom. I pull it out for her and slap it into her waiting palm.
“One day she’ll retire.” She cracks the seal on the bottle. “Until then, I think I’ll stick to the stuff she knows.”
For the life of me, I don’t know why she just doesn’t get a new board. Not sure if she’s just attached, or she doesn’t feel like she can spend money on herself. They aren’t freakishly expensive. Mine was about a hundred and twenty, but it was worth every penny.
And I’ve thought about buying one for her more than once, but those words Lydia said forever ago just haunt the hell out of me, and I don’t want to mess up my chances by coming on too strong.
Knowing Mad, she probably wouldn’t accept it, anyway.
“You know,” she says after a minute, “we could totally sneak into the Wheel Zone now and no one would give a crap.”
I smirk at the vending machine, sliding in a couple more bills. “You got the Millennium Falcon with ya?”
“In my car,” she lilts. “We should totally do it.”
My own Gatorade plops and crashes to the bottom. “It’s almost like you want to get caught.”
She waves me off. “We’re up here, aren’t we?”
“Not playing the games.”
“True.”
“And how bad would Candace kill me if I dragged her future sister-in-law from her party?”
She sticks a finger out. “She’s not the one I worry about, actually.”
“Yeah… Pete is more demanding when it comes to the social stuff.”
“Yeah.” She blows a raspberry and looks over her shoulder. “We should go back. I think he’d hate me more right now if I bailed.”
“You guys fighting?”
“Not out loud.” She shakes her head, and we start a much slower journey to the party. “He knows something’s up with me. According to Demi, he thinks I’m jealous.”
My brows pinch. “Of what?”
“Hell if I know. Candace? Him getting married before me or something? Like I would care about that.”
No, Mad wouldn’t care about that. Kinda wish she would care a little about finding a special someone, but the obliviousness to her appeal is so damn adorable, too.
“You haven’t told him what’s bothering you?”
“I’m not even sure what is bothering me. Not really.”
An unexpected laugh falls from my mouth, and she gives me a look.
“What?” she says. “You think it’s obvious?”
To anyone who knows her, maybe. I could be assuming a lot, but Mad is a caring person. She loves entirely and cares deeply. It’s the main draw I have toward her. I see the way she is with Pete, and I’ve been jealous of it more than once. My brother and I aren’t that close and probably never will be. But they got each other’s backs always. And when Candace entered Pete’s world, I think Mad knew in some small way that her role in his life would slowly start to shrink.
“Pete’s your brother,” I say as we hit the bottom step out of the arcade. “And now he’s gearing up to start his own family.”
Her lips press together, and I hold my breath, hoping I didn’t poke a nerve. “Yeah,” she says after a second. “That’s exactly it.” She juts her gaze to me. “How in the hell do you do that?”
“What?”
“You’re so fluent in mind-reading.”
Ha. Not sure about that. But I do pay a lot of attention to her, and I don’t want to scare her, but it falls out anyway. “Only when it comes to you, Brink.”
“You’re being a real brat today,” I scold June, the troublemaker of the mares. She bucks her head, her lips stretching out toward me as I try to groom her. She nibbles at my shirt, goosing me in the butt.
“June!” I squeal, pushing her head. “I’m going to have to get the crossties. You really want me to put you in that?”
She pops her head up and down, and I sigh. The crossties aren’t my favorite, and Mona Lisa and Pearl were good girls, so I didn’t have to reach up there and hook them in. But June is being a pill.
I’m a bit of a shorty, so I stretch up on my tiptoes after grabbing the rope to clip it to her, but June whips her head up out of my reach.
“You butt, come here,” I say through a strained voice. I jump, but she won’t let me put her in.
A shuffle from behind me has me turning my neck, and Luke steps up, an amused glint resting in his eyes.
Having trouble? he signs.
“Help?” I say, my hands busy and unable to sign it to him, even though I do know that word. His shoulders move in silent laughter, then he gets the naughty horse into the crossties with no problem.
I really need a stepladder.
Thank you, I sign.
Next time, just holler at me.
I shake my head at his joke, giving him a slight shove in his very toned upper arm. He snags up a currycomb and crosses to June’s left side, circling her coat. June leans into him; she hates being tied up but loves getting pampered… especially by him. The man is the Yoda of horses.
I start working on her mane, running the strands through the teeth of the comb. June is a gorgeous girl, white with chestnut spots. Every fall, the Sherman’s open the farm up to the locals and have a petting zoo of sorts. They do hay rides and make apple cider, and of course, the mares get tons of attention. Last year, June was almost everyone’s favorite. She’s wild and fun and immediately draws people in with her beautiful color
ing.
But she’s a darn right pain in the butt. I’d take my sweetie pie Mona Lisa any day.
Luke passes the currycomb across June’s back to me, and I take care of her other side. He steps in front of her and starts rubbing between her eyes, softly whistling. It’s the only sound I ever hear come from his lips. Luke doesn’t try to talk when he communicates.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and with June now calmed down, I don’t want to risk interrupting the process, so I let my phone sit there till I’m done.
Luke waves a hand to grab my attention.
You have the music on?
I make a sort-of motion. Audio book playing right now.
He gives me a look. No wonder she’s fidgety. He moves to the Bluetooth speaker, plucking it from the table sitting underneath bags of carrots hung from a hook on the wall. He gestures to my pocket, and I dig my phone out and hand it over. A few months into my employment here, I put together a playlist for June, who is super particular about everything, including music.
There’s a slight pinch between Luke’s brows before he scrolls through, setting up June’s playlist. Lee Brice bursts through the speaker, and his foot starts to tap. He’s only a tiny bit off the beat, but he catches it quickly through the vibrations.
June immediately starts bobbing her head, and Luke hands me my phone, fixes his glasses, then takes the speaker to her. I keep the volume where it’s at, even though it’s a bit loud. He pats her neck with the beat, and she ends up being the best girl ever while I finish up her grooming. I even get to braid her tail without her whipping it against my face.
One day I will learn from his horse Jedi powers, but today I’m way too damn tired.
“Come on, silly girl,” I say after Luke unhooks her from the crossties. “Let’s get you back to your stall.”
She clops along beside me, and I allow myself a small grin at the cathartic sound. Nothing like a horseshoes against a stable floor… Well, except for a set of wheels on concrete.
Once Miss Pain in the Butt is back in her stall, I close her in and take a hefty breath. Grooming should not take so much out of me, but I’m running on about two hours of sleep, and I have a full day still ahead of me.