A Son of Carver (Carver High #2) (10 page)

“Think about it Nash, about how you really feel about Presley… because I’m not sure I believe you.” She gets out of my truck, leaving me alone with my fucked up thoughts. And her leading words.

I’m not an idiot – I know what she’s trying to tell me.
Yes,
Presley is about all I’ve been thinking about lately, but there are dozens of reasons why- none of which involve the L word. But the happiness thing… that one’s messing with my head because, honest to god, seeing her happy that day in my pole barn and knowing I had something to do with it was the happiest I’ve been in a long time.

I’ve been telling myself I’m on a mission to make her like me, but when I think back on the last couple of weeks, the times that have gotten the adrenaline running through my body and suddenly the world looks all sunny and fantastic and I’m excited to get out of bed in the morning are not the times I’ve felt like she’s finally starting to like me, but the times when I’ve got her smiling or laughing or looking all peaceful.

The times I’ve made her happy.

God damn it. I’ve got to stop hanging around Summer.

I get out of my truck, slamming the door too hard, before heading into Tatum’s house. I don’t realize, until I’m through the door and see Tatum’s mom with a huge smile on her face when she sees me, that this is the first time I’ve been here since our breakup.

I used to spend just about every night here. Trish, Tatum’s mom, used to make me coffee every morning. This used to be my life. But now it’s Brandon’s. And that should be bothering me a whole hell of a lot more than it actually is. And I’m not gonna think about why that is.

Trish wraps me up in her arms and says, “Oh my Nashy, I’ve missed you so damn much.”

“Oh, yeah?” I ask, retuning her hug.

“Of course. Waking up to you in your jeans and not much else was my favorite way to spend my mornings. Your buddy Brandon’s always fully dressed,” she says with disappointment. And again, her drunken words should send me into a rage, but they don’t. I just laugh at her predatory ass.

“I aim to please,” I tell her. “How are you doing?”

“Nuh,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Hanging in there, like always. Me and my girls.”

And, as if on cue, Tally, Tatum’s older sister, is by my side, grabbing onto my bicep and dragging me into the living room. “Thank god you showed up. This party is lame.” She gets me to the middle of the living room, wraps her hands around my neck and starts grinding me like the professional dancer she is. “Aren’t you glad my sister dumped you? Now you get to dance with me properly,” she says with a laugh.

I hold onto her as best I can, but I’m not about to bump and grind the girl. Yeah, she’s hot, but it’s Tally. Tatum’s sister who I’ve known since I was five.

“Yeah? You think I’m better off without her?” I laugh.

“Probably not,” she says with a shrug. “What I can’t figure out is if she’s better off without you.”

I look over Tally’s shoulder to where Brandon is standing with Tatum wrapped up in his arms. He’s looking at her like I never did – like she’s the center of his world. And she’s looking at him like she never looked at me – like she feels the same way.

“She’s definitely better off without me,” I tell Tally with a smile. “But I’m not so sure about Summer. As much as I love you rubbing your good all over me, I’m gonna go check on her.”

“Boo,” she says, before releasing me, carrying on with her well-practiced moves, driving every guy that’s here to the brink of insanity, I’m sure.

I turn to go find Summer but the first thing I see is Presley sitting on the couch. Or, more accurately, sitting on Angel who’s sitting on the couch.

I know I should ignore it, but I can’t. I walk my ass to them and make myself comfortable in their space, throwing my arm up on the back of the couch, way too close to Angel and not close enough at all to Presley. “How are you kids doing?” I ask, brightly.

Angel gives me a condescending laugh like he knows exactly what I’m up to. “We’re great, Nash. How about you?”

“What I really meant to say was, how are you doing,
Presley
?” I stare directly at her now, trying to gauge her reaction to my presence. She looks annoyed. Of course she does.

“Did you need something, Nash?” she asks, expectant eyebrows raised. Annnd… here we go. Back to bitch mode. Which is how she treats me when there are people around to see her.

“Just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I tell her with a smile. “And remind you that you don’t have to be the
best
for anyone, you know what I mean?”

She flares her nostrils and turns her eyes into laser beams. “That’s excellent,
random
, advice. Did you get that off your inspirational calendar?”

Angel snickers as he runs his jewelry covered hand up and down her thigh. “No, Presley. Actually, the quote on today’s calendar was,if your best qualities makes you unqualified to be someone’s sex buddy then maybe you shouldn’t take the job
.
Or, maybe you should. What the hell do I know, right?” I stand up and head to Tatum’s kitchen, passing Summer and her friends on the way to the back door.

I sit on the back steps and try to calm myself down.
Shit.
I can’t believe I just said that to her. Any progress I’ve made with the friend thing just got hurled out the god damn window. But seriously, if she’s willing to be that kid’s fuck buddy then she’s not who I thought she was and I probably don’t want her in my life anyway.

The back door opens and, assuming it’s Summer, I say. “You’ve gotta stop messing with my head. I just said some totally inappropriate crap to her and I’m one hundred percent blaming you.”

“To who?”
Presley
asks.
Shit.
She comes and sits by me and I’m shocked into silence by the fact that she’s not totally losing her shit on me right now. “If it’s me who you said some totally inappropriate crap to, I’m not sure I agree with you.”

I finally grow a pair and look at her. She’s giving me an unsure smile. “Who the hell are you and why do you look so much like Presley?” I ask her.

“Remember… taking this starting over friendship thing seriously this time? Yes, I’m pissed at you, but because we’re friends, I’m willing to consider that you did that because you’re worried about me; because normal people care about their friends and look out for them. And I’m starting to think you are a normal person who cares about his friends. So let’s talk about it.”

Again, shocked into total confusion. “Talk about what?”

“What you just said to me, in front of Angel.”

“It’s none of my damn business.”

She barks out a sarcastic laugh. “
None of your damn business
? I agree, but you just made it your damn business so now you’re stuck talking to me about it. I don’t know how you and your friends communicate, but when it’s clear that one of my friends has an issue with me I prefer to deal with it like an adult. Which means talking about it. So, tell me Nash, why you felt the need to come over and embarrass me in front of the guy you know I’m interested in?”

“Jesus, I’ve got to start hanging out with dudes again. You and Summer are killing me.”

“Is that who you were addressing when I walked out here? Were the two of you
discussing
me again?”

That topic’s even more horrifying than the Angel one, so I ignore it and go back to her previous question. “Did you and Angel come to some kind of agreement?”

“Meaning what?”

“Were you sitting on his lap, letting him put his hands all over you, because you’ve agreed to be his fuck buddy or has he changed his ways and deemed you good enough to date?”

“I shouldn’t have ever told you anything about the two of us. You don’t need to worry about him. You don’t need to worry about me. You don’t have to worry about me with him. I’m a big girl, I know who I am and who I’m not, and I can handle myself.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Because it wasn’t worthy of a response. Had you asked me, politely, if Angel and I had a chance to talk about our relationship, I would have told you that, yes, I went to his place last night and told him that Cole and I officially broke up and that I was interested in seeing where things could go between the two of us. But that I had no intention of having sex with him, much less doing it without attachment.”

Summer was right.
It’s possible that Summer was right, because the thought of her, alone with him, is making me angry and I’m having and extremely hard time stopping the words from coming out of my mouth that would tell her that she’s too damn good for him and that there are guys, like me for example, that can treat her right. “And what did he say?” I manage to mutter in her direction.

“He said he was cool with that.”

“Cool with that?”

“Yes, Nash. He wants to try and date me.”

“Like it’s a damn chore? That’s what you want, some guy who’s willing to
try
and date you? What the hell is wrong with that kid? You better have told him that you would
try
not to rip his balls off but that you probably wouldn’t succeed.”

She laughs, a laugh I know well because I do it to her all the time – she finds me amusing. “You know that’s not what he meant.”

“You better not be stupid enough to believe it’s not exactly what he meant.”

“Don’t, Nash. I’m out here trying to fix things with you when I could be in there with him. So don’t make me feel like crap. You don’t need to call me names. Maybe he’s not practiced in the art of flattery, but there’s something to be said for honesty.”

“Ha,” I bark out a laugh, “because I haven’t been completely honest with you about everything?”

“That’s not what I said. It’s not a competition, I’m not comparing the two of you, all I’m saying is that, he might not be as eloquent as you, but at least he’s being honest with me. I don’t want him to tell me this is going to be easy for him when I know it’s not. And I’m not taking it personally because I know it’s an issue he has with himself and not with me and if he’s finally willing to deal with it just to have a shot with me, then I’m choosing to see it as a compliment, not an insult.”

All I can do is shake my head. Personally, I think she’s blind but what the hell do I know. “Do what you gotta do, Presley. Honestly, I hope I’m wrong about him. I hope he treats you right. But if he doesn’t, you need to let me know because I will kick his skinny little ass.”

“Sometimes you shock the shit out of me, you know that Nash?”

“Go be with your boy,” I tell her, not able to look her in the eye.

She leans into me, I can feel her body brush against my arm and her hand around my neck. It excites the hell out of me, way more than it should. Then she puts her fat, soft lips on my face and kisses me, her thumb dragging across the back of my neck as she does it. I can hear her release a breath and feel the moisture being transferred from her lips to my cheek. The whole thing takes a couple of seconds at best, but the way my body is taking in every touch she’s giving me makes it feel like the world is paused for a minute.

She’s gone, and I’m immobile on the back step. I close my eyes and memorize the way she felt, the sounds she made and the scent on her skin.

And then I let myself be pissed off. Because she kissed me on the
cheek
and then left me to go be with another man. And I feel like I just got completely screwed over. I feel like I just lost something huge and none of it makes any fucking sense.

Am I gonna see you later?

The text from my
boyfriend
or
trial boyfriend
or whatever Angel is, says and I smile hugely. Because I’m happy. Like, genuinely, at least eighty seven percent happy.

I forgot how good the rush of a new relationship feels. And by
new,
I mean two days in, but they’ve been a pretty great couple of days.

Friday was a slight set back because Nash made it clear that I had discussed Angel with him but Angel doesn’t take anything about Nash seriously and generally feels bad that I’m stuck with him in photography class. He thinks Nash is a complete joke and until very recently, I was on the same page. I don’t know how to tell Angel that I was wrong, that he’s wrong, without looking like a complete idiot.

But I was wrong. Nash has been proving that to me every day. Even that stunt he pulled at Tatum’s was just his childish, Neanderthal way of showing me he cares about me. And I get why he’s apprehensive about me dating Angel, but he’s as wrong about Angel as Angel is about him.

I told you I have to go take pictures of Nash at his race tonight

Who am I supposed to stare at from the stage?

Tatum?

I can’t make sexy eyes at Tatum

Then don’t make sexy eyes

I always make sexy eyes when I’m performing

You sound really stupid right now

Yeah, texts are not my best form of communication

Most of the crap you say doesn’t really work without the sarcastic tone

Exactly. I just read this back, and yeah, I sound like a total douche

Completely douchey

I’m gonna miss you tonight

I get all giddy at his words.
Giddy. Me.
Which is so stupid and girly but I can’t help it.

Maybe I can find a ride to your place when it’s over

Try. Text me when it’s done

Yep
,
I text him before shoving my phone in my bag and heading outside to wait for Nash at the corner- neither of us want to deal with Jolee.

He’s already there, so I climb in and give him a bright smile.

“Are you really that exited to watch me race?” he asks, his head cocked.

“Sure,” I tell him, not sure how much I want to discuss Angel with him.

He pulls away and laughs under his breath. “You’re already completely pussy whipped, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think you quite understand what that term means,” I tell him with an easy laugh.

“It applies, trust me.”

Clearly, he’s calling Angel a pussy, but I refuse to engage. “So, are you nervous?”

He looks at me and shakes his head. “I’m not sure how I feel about this new pussy whipped version of you. Where has all the feistiness gone?”

“Kill me for being happy.”

“So I was right all along, huh? You just needed to get laid.”

“I’m not going to acknowledge that comment with a response. If you would like to rephrase it, we can discuss it.”

“You know what else I don’t like? This new diplomatic formal way in which you speak to me ever since we agreed upon the terms of our new friendship,” he says all monotone, clearly mocking me, since it’s the tone I now use when I’m in
take a second before you ream his ass and think
mode.

“It’s called exercising self-control. I don’t like constantly yelling at my friends and now that you’re part of that very small circle, you get to receive all the benefits.”

“Then maybe I don’t want to be your friend.”

“You would prefer I go back to being a bitch to you?”

“I would prefer you be real with me.”

Ugh. I’m trying with him, I swear I am. But there’s no pleasing this damn kid. “Seriously, Nash, you should just take what you can get. I wasn’t bullshitting about the kid gloves – I refuse to put them on every time we’re together. I’m trying to have a grown-ass relationship with you.”

“That was better. Jesus Christ, I can’t handle you all uptight and weird as hell.”

“That’s great except that once I slip back into my old ways you’re going to start giving me speeches about how you’re trying and I’m not and everything you say is genuine and I don’t believe any of it and
blah, blah, blahblidy blah.
”

“Blahblidy blah? And I’m the one who needs to be handled with kid gloves?”

“You tend to bring out my inner five-year-old.”

“Just so you know, I like your inner five-year-old,” he says as he pulls up to the front of his house.

I smile at him without even trying.
Okay,
I think to myself.
This is fine. This is who we are. I just need to accept that and go with the very immature flow of our friendship.

“I think the five-year-old version of me is very compatible with the eighteen-year-old version of you. Who’d a thunk, right? Too bad we couldn’t have figured this out months ago.”

He sticks his tongue out at me, and I stick mine out at him.

“Oh my god,” I say, rolling my eyes when I realize how deeply I just embraced our new friendship. “You’re going to be bad for me, Nash. I can already feel it,” I tell him as I get out of his truck and walk with him towards the pole barn.

“The word’s
fun
Presley. Get yourself a dictionary and become acquainted with it.”

“We’ll see,” I tell him. “I guess anything could happen.”

“Yep,” he says suddenly tense, “anything could happen.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, starts walking to his full potential and I’m suddenly ten yards behind him.

I’m confused until I look beyond him and see the truck and trailer that’s loading his big old car. Clearly he’s nervous. I would be too. What kind of race car is that?

“Presley,” a man that I recognize from the picture as Nash’s dad, says as I get closer to the commotion. He catches me off guard when he wraps his arms around me and gives me a bear hug. I pat his back with my face smashed against his rough flannel shirt. “Good to finally meet you. Nash’s been talking about you a lot lately.”

“Really?” I ask when he finally releases me. I look over his shoulder to where Nash is congregated around his car with his brother and a handful of tattooed bearded guys that I don’t recognize.

“Sure. You’re a pain in his ass, but I don’t think he minds,” he tells me with a wink.

“The feelings mutual,” I assure him.

He laughs, slaps me so hard on the back that I stumble forward, then says, “So, you ever been to a street race before?”

“Street race? That’s where I’m going? To a
street
race?”

“Not what you were expecting?”

“Isn’t that like, racing down the road?”

“Well there’s no track but it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Is that the car he’s racing in?” I ask with genuine concern.

I asked Tatum what she meant when she said she doesn’t go to Nash’s races and she told me it’s because she’s terrified he’s going to get hurt. I get it now.

“She looks like a beauty, but trust me, she’s a beast.”

“Oh… her name’s Ruby right?”

“Yep. One of Nash’s favorite girls of all time. Never thought he’d love anyone more than his first love, Davina, but Ruby’s been good to him.”

“Davina?”

“His little black baby,” Nick says with a sparkle in his eyes.

“Wait, we’re talking cars here, right? Not women?”

“Ha,” Nick laughs, “When Nash looks at a girl the way he looks at his cars you let me know so I can let my daddy know his home’s about to freeze over.”

I can’t help but screw up my face at Nash’s dad.
What the hell kind of weird idiom was that?

“Hell,” he tells me. “Pretty sure my daddy’s living in hell – he was one mean son of a bitch.”

“No, I mean… yep. I got that. I mean, I understood what you were saying there…” Jesus Christ. I’m not gonna be able to hang with these back woods country folks. “And I get the Nash part too. I watched him work on her the other day and I’ve never seen him so serious. Makes sense now… he’s tending to the love of his life. It’s really sweet, Mr. Carter – you raised him right.”

He laughs at me again. Because I sound like a complete blabbering idiot. “I can see why Nash likes you so much.”

“Oh, no, Nash doesn’t like me. I mean, we’ve come to an understanding and all, but he doesn’t actually like me. I mean, just so you know.”

He cocks his head at me. “You’re a strange bird, Presley. Everyone in California as weird as you?”

I kind of bobble my head around and tell him. “I think so, I mean the boys there fall in love with girls, not cars. And, for the most part, people believe their dead parents are living in some sort of utopia, not heaven necessarily, but you know, some sort of nice after life. And I’m pretty sure that car racing involves an oval type track, although I’m not really up to date on racing of any kind, so what do I know, right?”

“Don’t be nervous Presley. Kid’s gonna be alright,” he tells me with one more forceful slap to my back, before walking away.

God, is he right? I do tend to babble like an idiot when I’m stressed out. Am I worried about Nash?
I look at the car again, at how big, clunky and ancient it looks. Then I look at Nash who has his fingers interlocked behind his head, his black T-shirt straining against his flexed muscles. His face looking tense and way too serious. And like a man, not like a damn five-year-old.
Of course I’m nervous.

I realize as I stare at him that I care about him. I’m not just running through the motions, pretending that he is now my friend. He really is my friend. And I care about him a lot.

Tentatively, I make my way towards Nash, suddenly needing to be near him. He’s busy with his gang of guys but when he catches site of me he reaches out and pulls me tightly into his side and I know in that moment that he’s nervous too.

“Presley, these are the guys. Guys, this is Presley.”

I wave, scared that if I open my mouth incoherent nothingness will fall out. They nod at me but quickly return to their car talk. Nash keeps me tucked under his arm, close to him. Which is weird and I think about pushing away but he seems completely unaware of my presence as they go over what seems like a check list of things that were done to the car.

Now I’m the one who feels like a five-year-old; unable to follow the conversation, scared out of my gourd about what I’m going to witness tonight and feeling utterly tiny pressed up against Nash’s massive, hard body.

Fifteen minutes later, Nick joins the circle telling everyone, “They’re ready for us.”

Who
they
are, I don’t know, but it sets in motion a lineup of the
guys
as they all give Nate, Nash and Nick
bro
hugs. I try to move out of the way, but it only causes Nash to hold me closer, so I hunker down and wait for the man wave to subside.

“You ready?” Nash asks me.

And since I’m not the one that should be nervous because I’m not the one getting into Ruby, I force a huge smile and tell him, “Yep. Can’t wait.”

He huffs out a laugh, staring at me with confusion like he often does and says, “Let’s go.”

He leads me to the cab of the truck where most of the space is already being taken up by Nick and Nate.

“Get the hell out,” Nash tells his brother.

“What? You get the hell in,” he tells him with a dismissive laugh.

“Nate,” he says more sternly. “Get the hell out.”

“Put your girl on your damn lap and let’s go.”

“It’s fine,” I mutter in Nash’s direction. Seems like everyone’s on edge and I’m sure a brotherly fight won’t help the situation.

He looks at me for a moment before hoisting himself up, then flinging me on top of him. I am curious what, exactly, Nash looks like under his shirt for one reason – the ease in which he can maneuver me around with zero effort.