01 Untouchable - Untouchable (11 page)

“
What? It’s not cool to let
a chick drive your car?”

Ryan revved his engine making the car
lurch slightly forward, “You wanna run it, Leese?”

“
Don’t—don’t listen to him,”
Evan said in a way that clearly showed he was worried.

“
Drag racing is
dangerous.”

“
Good girl…”

At that moment the light
changed and I dropped the Nissan’s gas pedal to the floor as the
tires peeled out on the asphalt. I heard something come out of
Evan’s mouth that didn’t bear repeating. I worked easily through
the gears as I left Ryan and his muscle car screaming to try
catching me.

“
Leese! Slow down!” Evan
yelled out over the high pitched whine of the Nissan’s motor. I
checked my speed. I was close to 100 miles per hour so I backed
off, down shifting gradually until I stopped a quarter mile away at
the next traffic light. “Wha—what happened to ‘drag racing is
dangerous’?”

I looked over at him and
smiled sweetly, “Oh, please Evan. It’s only a race if it’s at least
close—did you see how far back there I left him?”

The Trans Am pulled beside me, “Very
funny, Leese—you didn’t say you were gonna race,” Ryan
yelled.

I acted like I couldn’t
hear him. Once again he began to dump the fuel into his four barrel
carburetor, his car jumping up and down with the need to move
forward. I looked over, and I don’t know what came over me, but I
winked at him.

“
No, Leese!” Evan warned,
“I’m gonna take my keys back!”

I looked into those angry
green eyes and then wound the tight little engine into a
frenzy.

The light changed and the
Trans Am tore off the line in a stinking cloud of blue-white rubber
smoke. I just smiled as I gently nudged the car forward and
proceeded at a normal pace.

“
Good,” he began, “At least
you finally got some sense…” Then I saw the smile break out on his
face as he realized why I didn’t tear down the street. Ryan was
being pulled to the curb by a Pensacola police officer. “You saw
the cop, didn’t you?”

“
Yeah, I saw the cop. I
hope they let Ryan off with a warning—he couldn’t have gotten up
too much speed by the time they pulled him.”

“
I hope he gets a ticket,”
he muttered. “That’s what he gets for encouraging you.”

“
Be nice,” I scolded. But
he gave a merciless laugh, and I knew he was hoping that it was a
big, fat ticket.

“
Don’t race my car,
anymore,” he added. “But, you did a good job—just don’t do it
again.”

“
I’ll be good,” I replied
sweetly as I pulled into the movie theater parking lot.

He reached for the keys,
but I clenched them in my hand, “Nope. All night,
remember?”

“
No
racing,
remember
.” He looked serious and then he smiled. “Come on, Danica
Patrick. Let’s go get our tickets.”

Kevin, Carlie, and a few
others were in line when we walked inside. We got our tickets and
then Evan insisted that we couldn’t see a movie without popcorn. He
was at the concession counter about to finish up, and I was seated
in the lobby when Ryan, Jewels, Nate, and Natasha came through the
doors.

Jewels spotted me and
dashed over, grabbing my arm. “You got to drive his car?” she
squealed, though she knew the answer because she’d seen me. “That
was so cool the way you took off the first time.”

“
Did Ryan get a ticket? Is
he mad?” I figured it was better to get these answers before Evan
came back.

Jewels gave a big smile and shook her
head, “Nah, I talked the cop out of it.”

“
How did you do that?” I
said, stifling a laugh.

“
I told the officer, ‘Oh
please don’t be mad at him, I just asked him if he’d show me how to
make the tires smoke,’” and then she gave this really fake
bat-your-lashes thing and put a sweet smile on her face.

“
That worked?” I asked in
disbelief.

“
Well, yeah. The speed
limit was forty-five and Ryan had only hit fifty when he saw the
cop. But the cop said he could give him a ticket for an
‘uncontrolled start’ or something like that, so I begged for
forgiveness; it worked. And, I don’t think he’s mad actually,” she
added. “Although he says he could have beat you if he’d known what
you were going to do on the first stretch.”

“
Jewels, I could have taken
him the second time too, but I saw the cop.”

She giggled. “I believe
you. Just don’t tell Ryan that. I don’t want that sizzling male ego
to be too damaged by my best friend.”

Evan made it to where I was
sitting, carrying two bottled waters and a medium popcorn. “Hey,
Jewels,” he acknowledged her, but then looked to me. “Let’s go
ahead and get our seats before the good ones are all
gone.”

Ryan and the others had
just come around the corner, and I realized that he was trying to
get me moving before they got to where we were. “All right, see you
inside, Jewels. Bye.”

We went down the long
hallway to the appropriate theater number and slipped quietly
through the door. The room was already darkened as the previews
played. He turned and started up the stairs to the upper rows of
seats. I was a sit-in-the-center kind of girl, but evidently he
liked the very top row. I asked him why so high when we settled in
our comfortable chairs. He seemed mildly annoyed that I hadn’t
figured that part out, then he tapped the wall behind our heads and
simply said there’d be no ‘jerk’ sitting behind us. I translated
jerk into Ryan.

It didn’t take long for the
whole group to migrate toward the upper rows. The movie began and
the theater became darker than before. Not long after the opening
credits and the boy meets girl part, the killer axed off one of her
friends. I jumped unintentionally—why did I agree to watch this?
Yikes! There went another teenager. I hadn’t realized the grip I
had on the arm rest until Evan pried my hand free and put it in
his. Only for a moment, my mind was distracted from the flying body
parts on screen as he held my hand and gently stroked my forearm
with his fingers. It was warm and safe and almost melodic enough to
make me drift into comfort. NUTS! A kid had been gutted on
screen.

Thirty minutes later I was
so wound up that I felt like one of those Halloween cats with its
back arched, claws out, and every hair standing up on its body.
That was when I realized I was nearly in Evan’s lap. Every time the
hero or heroine would back up near a dark place in an alley or
hallway, I’d duck my face against his neck and grip his shoulder.
Once or twice, I thought I heard him chuckle—I don’t know how he
could have found anything funny in all of this!

Finally the climactic scene
arrived. Would she live? Would he save her in time? I knew the
answers in my head, but my nerves were unconvinced. It appeared he
was getting into the scene as well because at this point he had
both his arms wrapped around me and my head rested against his
cheek. Aah! Finally the killer was down, surely to vanish before
the end scene, but I didn’t care. The pair had survived the
onslaught and he finally told her he loved her—kiss—missing
killer—the end. Whew! I could finally take a breath and
relax.

“
You can let me go now,” I
whispered as the credits rolled.

There was a hint of a smile
at the corner of his lips, but he didn’t budge.

I pushed myself gently out
of his embrace and that was when I saw it. In all the gripping,
clawing and fright, I had pushed the sleeve of his tee-shirt almost
to the top of his shoulder. I hadn’t meant to expose the scar that
he was so sensitive about, but I gasped when I saw it. I’d never
seen a bullet wound, but I knew that’s what it had to
be.

Quickly, he pulled down the
sleeve and gave me a steely look.

I wanted to say I was sorry and that I
hadn’t done it on purpose, but the words wouldn’t form.

Everyone trudged out to the
lobby. It was a few minutes after nine and they were making plans.
The mall was open until ten, but by the time we would arrive there,
it wouldn’t be long before we’d have to leave. Someone suggested
pizza, but after all the blood and guts earlier, there weren’t many
interested in that idea. Then it was down to billiards at Cooties,
bowling at the AMF, or cruise out to the beach for a campfire. The
whole campfire thing sounded just a little too romantic for my
taste, but it seemed to interest everyone else.

Skeeter, one of the boys in
our group, had a key for the West Beach park gate. His mother was a
park ranger, and he was privileged to have it as long as he never
took people out there that did stupid things like drinking or
vandalizing park property. “We can’t get loud,” he
warned.

“
I don’t want to go,” I
whispered to Evan.

He was still looking a
little gruff over the business of me seeing his scar. “Why not?
It’s early. What time did your…” he pause and dropped his voice
lower so that he wouldn’t be heard. “…friends say you have to be
home?”

It stung a little hearing
him say it that way. He was reminding me of my secrets, the same
way I had reminded him about the secret he kept under his sleeve.
The difference was that mine was completely
unintentional.

“
I—I don’t have a set
time.”

“
Good, then you can go to
the beach. Don’t worry, Leese,” he spoke, quieter than before,
“With all your friends around, you’ll be safe.” And he just stared
at me with those unnerving eyes.

I wondered, though my face
felt expressionless, why he said it that way? Once again he was
making me afraid of him.

“
Leese,” Jewels called over
the lobby noise, “Are you guys in?”

“
Yeah, I guess. But just
for a little while.”

Five vehicles, practically
in train formation, headed out toward the bridge. I was in the back
of the line. My fleeting joy over driving his sports car had
evaporated, and I wasn’t about to get near Ryan at the front of the
line because I knew there would be another challenge.

He seemed pleased that I
wasn’t enjoying the drive as much as the one on the way to the
theater. He looked relaxed in the seat as he stared out the window
watching the bridge lights go by. I studied him in the moments that
I knew he wasn’t looking. Matt had been right, he could have easily
passed for someone in their twenties, not just because of the well
developed sinuous sinew that ran from his neckline to his finger
tips and places I hadn’t seen, but only were alluded to beneath his
form fitted clothes, but also by his maturity. The other guys his
age were usually more immature and less deliberate. There was
something about him that was very deliberate, almost the point of
being driven, and it seemed to be staying close to me.

My hand reached up for his
stereo system. He didn’t notice the movement at first until I
switched the controls from navigation to show the stereo
options.

“
You know how to work
that?”

I ignored the question and
was getting ready to search for my kind of music when I remembered
I could bring up the previously played songs on one of these. My
heart skipped a beat when I saw that it was the Natalie Grant
song
Perfect People
that I had sung Wednesday night. I was ready to replay it
when his hand stopped mine.

“
Don’t.”

“
But you must have liked
it…” I started to rebut.

“
I wanted to compare you to
the original, that’s all.”

I moved further down the
previously played list, surprised that he had played the other song
I had sung as well. Then I hit Evan’s music. He hadn’t lied to me.
It was all heavy metal. I recognized a lot of them. I flicked to
what was most recent just before my music and clicked play.
Welcome to the Jungle
,
by Guns n’ Roses began to pump through the Bose sound system like
shock waves through water.

A smile curled onto his
face.

I pushed the button for the
windows to roll down, letting the salted air in and the music out.
The list read like a bad boys dream. There was
Paranoid
by Black Sabbath (which had
been played numerous times),
Smells like
Teen Spirit by Nirvana
,
Enter The Sandman
by
Metallica,…

“
Ah,” escaped my lips
before I could stop it.

His brow furrowed as he looked at me,
“What?”

“
One of my favorites,” I
exclaimed.

I could tell by the look on
his face that there was no way he figured I’d have found something
in his playlist that was one of my favorites. He looked at the
screen, “
Twilight Zone
by Golden Earring? I don’t believe that.”

“
Oh yes, Baby,” I said with
an almost iniquitous change in tone. “This song reminds me of eight
minutes of shear heaven.” I hit the play button and gave it more
volume. I knew every word and I could see it stunned him. I dropped
the gears and pulled into the passing lane.