Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) (4 page)

“What’d you think of the game?”

“What game?” I scooted my bike farther onto the shoulder of the road as a car cruised past.

“The football game. Today. At home.”

“I don’t follow sports much. Was it good?” Those maddening mirrored glasses
hid everything. His extended silence couldn’t be a positive sign.

“Are you lost?” he
finally asked.

I glanced around
. “I don’t think so. Do I look lost?”

His self-deprecating smile thinned his lips but showed no teeth
. “No, sorry, most students only ride far enough to find beer.” He moved his head in a way that suggested he was checking out my gear. “I should’ve noticed you weren’t dressed for a grocery run.”

“I only did about ten miles,” I said with a shrug.

“Twice what I can do on these hills.” He grimaced.

I
slid my sunglasses off my sweaty nose. I didn’t like not seeing his eyes and hoped he’d show me his if I showed him mine. I used the maneuver as an excuse to check out the rest of him. His biking shorts were loose, like gym shorts, accentuating awesome, tight calves. The top half of him didn’t disappoint, either, with the thin fabric of his shirt plastered over his pecs. He was respectably muscled, not over-juiced like Bodacious.

Hot. Ness.

“New to biking?” I asked.

“
Rehabbing my knee.”

“That sucks.”

“Yep.” He finally removed his sunglasses to wipe his forearm over his ruddy face.

“
What happened?” I indicated his leg with the tip of my chin.

His q
uick glance registered surprise before he gave the same odd little smile. “Oh. I was a quarterback for the football team. Took a low hit at the end of last season.”

I squinted at his leg. “Wow, those scars are tiny.”

He prodded at a shiny pink dot on his hairy skin. “The doctors in Pittsburgh are some of the best.” He sounded tired, or sort of downcast.

In an unusual moment of insight, I said, “
Was today the first game since?”

“Yep.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t play?”

He looked down the
street, away from me, then at the road cinders at our feet. “This is the first fall I haven’t played ball since I was six.”

“Wow. I can’t think of
anything other than, you know, the basics like breathing I’ve been doing for that long.”

He smirk
ed.

“Docs wouldn’t clear you?”

“They did. I didn’t.” He picked up the front of his bike by the handlebars then set it back down. “When the mom who drove you forty miles round trip for midget practices and the dad who wrecked his shoulder passing the ball back to you both say it’s time to quit….”

“Sounds like your parents are good at mind-jobs, like mine.”

He smiled a little more cheerfully and I smiled back, glad because he’d been cruising toward miserable. Just the image I wanted to create—here’s the sports ignoramus who can totally bum you out in thirty seconds flat.

“
They let it up to me in the end. I made the right decision. It’s not like I have a chance to go pro. I’ll be able to walk when I’m forty, maybe throw the ball with my own kid.” A shrug bunched the muscles at his shoulders. Another shadow of doubt passed over his face.

“
The bike’ll be good for you.” Again with the brilliance, as if some millionaire orthopedist hadn’t already told him about biking. Duh.

“I can go farther in Nebras
ka. Fewer hills,” he said. He reached for the water bottle attached to the down tube of his bike, and I could almost see him shaking off the blues. “Where are you from?” His green eyes bored into me with unanticipated curiosity.

“Indiana. We have
hills but not like this.”

“Why do you ride?” he asked after he’d finished taking a deep drink from the Copperheads Football bottle
.

“Um, mostly
’cuz it feels good. I mean, it helps me to clear my head.”
It feels good?
Really, did I say that out loud?

“Endorphins,” he said. “Though I could do without the bugs smacking me in the
face.” He tucked the bottle in the cage and pushed his sunglasses back on. “Wanna head back?”

“Sure.”
I slid my own glasses on and clipped one foot into a pedal.

We stood
on the corner, ready to launch, each waiting for the other to lead.

“You go ahead,” he finally said with a chuckle.

“Is this a test to make sure I’m not lost?”

“No
.” He grinned. “My mama taught me ladies go first.”

I rolled my eyes, checked traffic and pushed off, thanking God my other biking shoe clicked neatly
into its bracket.

“Clips,” he said from over my left shoulder. “You’re brave.”

“Power on the upstroke and downstroke,” I said.

“
Or instant death the first time I tried to stop.”

I laughed.
“I practiced in my front yard for awhile. If I can do it, anyone can.” I shifted into a lower gear for the gentle climb. The real bitch of a hill would come at the end.

“Don’t baby me, now,” he said.

I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Have it your way.”

He panted in even, deliberate puffs b
y the time we reached the edge of campus, but he hadn’t given up. He’d stayed on my back wheel. I did a cool down loop on the local streets before guiding us to the dorm.

I
stepped off my bike and reluctantly removed my helmet. My stubby ponytail was mostly intact, though much of the front section of my hair slipped from the skinny hairband. I did my best to tuck the errant strands behind my ears.

He arranged his own gear then looked at me with the green stare again
, more intense than before. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“I’m sure we freshman all look alike.” I extended my hand. “Violet Perch.”

“Boone Ramer.” He took my hand and, though our palms were hot and sweaty, he continued to hold it, lighting a fuse of attraction that sparked up my wrist and past my elbow. “Violet. Unusual name. I’ll remember it now.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a curse,
” I said as the heat passed my shoulder to go straight to my skort.

“I didn’t mean unusual bad
. It’s nice. Feminine.” He released my hand while his eyes touched me, sliding down my pink jersey and along legs I knew weren’t particularly long but had hints of muscle definition.

I knew what I w
as. In our world of breast enhancements and thigh gaps, I didn’t have the right dimensions to attract a guy in Boone’s league, especially with my sports bra smashing my itty bitty titties down to nothing. Helmet hair, sweat stained armpits, padded bottoms, and black sturdy shoes completed the non-seductive, flat-chested ensemble. I was all in.

H
is face sharpened in a way that suggested he might like what he saw. My nostrils flared in immediate, misguided response. God, he was magnetic.

“You’re in good shape,” he said appr
eciatively. “I bonked on the last hill but you pulled me up.” He waggled his brows at me. “Couldn’t let you make me look bad.”

My face flushed
beyond exercise-induced red. “You did good.” We wheeled our bikes toward the door and I’d almost worked up the courage to ask if he’d like to ride together again when a trilling voice called his name.

Twyla
Blakelock, who’d ignored me at a rush party last week, bounced up to press her glossy lips against his mouth. Her nose wrinkled. “Ewww, you’re all sweaty,” she said.

What kind of moron
touches him and says
Ewww
, I thought. You’re ewww, Twyla.

“Hey, I’ll see you later,” I said
out loud, eternally grateful for the guy who came out the door at the right time to hold it for me.

S
o chronicled my first real interaction with Hotness, somewhat stilted, yet also easy and perfect, until his then-current girlfriend arrived.

What if today i
s easy and perfect?
He’d asked me to the game, hadn’t he?

His obvious interest
, his taking the initiative, settled my innards.

At 1:01,
his head popped in the door. Of course, I’d seen him in class on Wednesday and Friday and run into him once in the Study, so it wasn’t totally weird. But seeing him framed in Mia’s and my door made my armpits sweat again.
OMG, had I put on deodorant? Had I shaved?
Too late. “Hey, Boone.”

“Hi
, Violet.” He glanced around my room. “That’s the new rig?” He pointed toward the bike in the super-cool wall rack Dad had helped me find online. (Mia’d been shocked I’d had a plan all along.) The rack leaned on the wall at the foot of my bed, and though it could hold two bikes, I only had mine on the uppermost slot, so it hung with the back wheel over the foot of my bed and the front over our mini-kitchen of fridge and crates. It worked great.

“Giant. Nice,” he said, appreciating the brand. “The wheels look big.”

“Seven hundred millimeters. Bigger wheels got popular with mountain bikers, though this is a crossover. Not quite as burly as a straight mountain bike, I mean.”

“Still ride a lot?” he asked
.

“
Yeah,” I said.

“How far?”

“It depends. Usually twenty miles round trip, something like that.”

“Is that safe? For a girl? Alone?” He stumbled through
the words, recognizing thin, politically incorrect ice. “I mean, I was thinking about how you wrecked last winter, out by yourself.”

Good save.
“I’ve always ridden alone.”

“
What if something happens, like you get hit by a car or have a flat?”

I shrugged. “
I run an app on my phone. Mia gets emails when I’m riding. She knows where I am. And the guy at the bike shop taught me how to change a tube. If someone hits me, I hope they’ll at least call 911 as they speed away.”

His nod did not completely camouflage his skepticism. “Maybe we could ride together
again sometime.”

I looked from him to my
bike. My riding clothes still weren’t exactly in any fashion magazine’s list of Ten Versatile Outfit Pieces for Fall, but I’d enjoyed biking with him before.

“Sure. I’d like that.”

“Good. Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yep.” I had already forced my
lip-gloss and student ID into my front pocket and I slid my phone in a back one. Walking down the steps with him behind me felt awkward, and then, out on campus, I imagined everyone stared at us, though they didn’t. If they were looking at anyone, it was he, in a faded WCC T-shirt stretched tight on his shoulders but loose over the waist of khaki shorts. He wore his black Vans without socks, untied. He looked awesome. I doubted he had spent two hours getting ready like I had.

“A few friends are getting together at an apartment on Broad Street. Nothing weird
.” We crossed Campus Ave. through thick traffic. Music blared from the stadium parking area where alums tailgated. The scent of burning charcoal and bratwurst hung in the air.

Beyond the manicured haven of campus, we
walked two blocks of storefronts and run down houses converted to apartments. Boone opened the door to a duplex with dented white aluminum siding. Not sure where to go, I stepped to the left of the door. The interior smelled like sour beer and sweat, and when I looked around, I could see why. A generous collection of empty cans and dirty socks dotted the orangish carpet of the living room. An enormous guy with a shaved head yelled from the ugliest green couch I’d ever seen, “The Cornhuskers are kicking Wyoming’s ass.” A tattoo of two snakes contorted into the number fifty-two decorated the folds on the back of his neck. The cinderblock head rotated to look at me. “You must be Violet. Do people call you Violet?”