Ruined by You (7 page)

Haden’s eyes locked on her, and he thrust his hand out in front of her.

“Hi, I’m Haden,” he said.

Sarah beamed and took his hand. “Sarah,” she said.

I struggled to not groan out loud. This was no going in the direction I wanted.

“Ready to go?” I asked Sarah, my tone flat.

Haden did his best to speak over me. He held her hand in his, and commanded her attention.

“Sarah, can you tell Maggie that she’s making a mistake,” he said.

Sarah cocked her head to the side, a smile still spread across her cheeks. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Haden tilted his head toward the bar.

“Scottie is offering her a once in a lifetime chance, and she’s trying her best to turn it down.”

Sarah’s eyebrows furrowed together and she leaned back. She glanced at me for confirmation.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. I turned to Haden. “Thanks for your help in there, but we really need to get going.”

“It’s no rush…” Sarah started, but I shot her a deathly cold stare. She fell silent while her lips kept moving.

Haden gave me a serious look, then snorted in disbelief.

“Are you going to spend your summer working at some classy place like McDonald’s, then?” he said. “This kind of thing doesn’t come up every day. I hope you realize how lucky you are.”

I sighed, again. “I don’t know!” I wanted to scream it so he would hear me, but he seemed determined to keep me on edge. “I’ll make my decision this weekend, and talk to Scottie about it on Monday.”

Haden let out a long sigh. Hopefully he had finally realized that he wasn’t going to get a solid answer out of me right there. I needed to get away from him - it was becoming clear that I couldn’t keep my senses with him around.

“We’re going to the bike track later, if you want to join us,” Sarah said out of nowhere. I gave her a shocked look, and couldn’t help but notice the smile widening across Haden’s face.

“What are you talking about?” I said in a hushed voice, as though he might not hear.

“I was just talking to Huck. His motocross team is doing a little demonstration before the season gets under way. They’re trying to get a lot of people out there.”

“I’d love to go,” Haden said. “What time?”

“I don’t know…” I said, but the two were having a conversation to themselves. It was clear that I didn’t even need to be there.

“Six,” Sarah said.

Haden’s smile widened. “Great,” he said. Then he turned to me. “I’ll see you tonight.”

I stood there, stunned, as he disappeared back into the bar.

What the hell is going on?
I asked myself, reeling from everything happening so quickly.

The afternoon sun burned down on us while we sat in the bleachers overlooking the dirt track. Enormous floodlights towered over the track, blasting their shine over everything. They washed out every shadow and, from where we sat, we could see everything.

Sarah sat next to me, her eyes scanning through each and every guy wearing a helmet and a number pinned to his back. She was looking for Huck, who had driven there separately.

I was on a search of my own, and I hated myself for it.

“I still can’t believe you invited him to come with us,” I said. “You don’t even know him. He could be a homicidal drifter, or something even worse.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Come off it,” she said. “I saw how you were looking at him. Just play it cool, he seems like a nice guy.”

I huffed another breath.

“He’s forward, abrupt, and rude,” I said. “I’m not ruling out the homicidal drifter angle just yet.”

“He’s just trying to get to know you,” she said. “It’s sweet. And you’re definitely not making things easy for him.”

I twisted the bottom hem of my shirt between my fingers and bit my lip. I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. There was something safer, more secure, about keeping Haden at arm’s length. I was afraid of what I might do if I let that guard down even for a second. It had been years since I’d built a fortress around myself - and I wasn’t going to let it crumble for the first cute guy that flashed a smile my way.

“There he is,” Sarah said quickly before jumping to her feet. My heart skipped a beat as my eyes searched frantically through the crowd for the tattooed man. But she wasn’t talking about Haden.

“Huck,” she yelled, at the top of her lungs. She flailed her arms in the air, high above her head. “Kick their ass, Huck.”

“
Sarah
,” I said, sharply, but she didn’t notice.

I could see Huck with the number thirty-two pinned to the front and back of his padded race shirt. He wore a white and black helmet with a visor on it, and the muscles in his forearms rippled as he guided the huge bike at his side. He pulled the helmet up over his head and scanned the bleachers until he saw Sarah.

“It’s not a race,” he yelled over everyone, his eyes locked on one person. “There are no winners today.”

He smiled from ear to ear.

“Go beat them, anyway,” she yelled back.

She brought her hands to her lips and blew him a wide kiss. Huck’s chest swelled, and he held himself even taller. Then, he flipped the helmet back down and continued around the outside of the track to the racer’s entrance.

I couldn’t help but smile at the way the two acted together. It was the cutest thing I’d seen in a long time.

“What was that all about?” I said, nudging her.

She gave me an innocent look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

“I’m talking about that little kiss you blew him,” I said. She shrugged a shoulder and looked at her hands in her lap. “Huck’s a good guy,” I said.

“Yeah, he’s not too bad,” she said. She didn’t look at me when she said it--she was already watching him again.

“So, how long’s it going to take for you to make a move on him?” I asked. This seemed to get her attention, as she looked at me with wide eyes. She regarded me for a tense moment, but the moment was cut short.

“This is one hell of a hard place to find,” Haden said, appearing from nowhere, in the row in front of us.

His sudden appearance floored me, and my stomach twisted into tight knots when I saw that he was wearing a sleeveless shirt that exposed the full length of his arms. A breeze wafted between us and blew his hair into his eyes--those
glorious
eyes of his. They stayed locked on me the whole time. My pulse quickened every time his hair jittered and danced in his face.

“I was starting to think you made this whole place up just to get rid of me,” he said with a single laugh.

“Well, we’re glad you didn’t give up looking,” Sarah said.

She may as well not have been there for all he was concerned. His attention was completely locked on me.

“You look great,” he said.

My cheeks burned instantly, and I ducked my chin down.

“Thanks,” I said. “I just threw this on - it was no big deal.”

I risked a sideways glance at Sarah. She snorted a small smile and rolled her eyes. She knew full well that I had spent more than just a little bit of time picking out the soft-blue blouse I was wearing, and the black skirt that went along with it. And I’d spent and hour in the bathroom, brushing my hair a million times in a futile battle with the Texas humidity.

I looked back at Haden, hoping he hadn’t noticed the exchange. He stood motionless in front of me, still, a smile firmly fixed on his face. I realized that I wanted to live in that moment forever.

Haden finally climbed over the bleacher and sat next to me. The bleachers were crowded with people, but it felt like he sat even closer than was necessary. But, I didn’t mind.

“So, who’s team are we on?” he asked, his eyes sweeping over the track.

Sarah pointed toward the pack of racers lining up along the inside of the fence that separated the track from the spectator’s area.

“Just that one there. Number thirty-two,” she said. “That’s Huck, a friend of ours. They’re not really racing, though. It’s just to get people excited for the upcoming season.”

Haden nodded, slowly, as he looked to where she was pointing.

“Kind of like the previews at the movies?” he asked.

“Yeah, something like that,” she said.

We sat in silence for a while, watching as the racers were divided into different groups. I could feel Haden next to me, but I was too scared to look at him. I was worried that if I looked up, I might not be able to look away. He was closer than he’d ever been at the bar, and I felt the vibration of his every move, as if we were somehow connected. I might have been upset that Sarah had invited him out with us, but there was no denying that I wanted him there.

“I’m going to go talk to Huck real quick,” Sarah said, suddenly. “I’ll be right back.”

Before I could protest, she bolted from her seat and skipped down the bleacher rows, hurdling around, and between, other people. She reminded me of a rabbit running away from something. Haden and I were there alone, and there was no one to save me from him, or from myself.

“So, this is fun,” Haden said, after a moment.

I bit my lip, but risked a look over at him. He smiled down at me. It was the same smile he always had. It had a way of going right through me.

“Why are you here?” I asked, quietly. The question seemed to catch him off guard, and his eyes narrowed as he considered it.

“I thought I made that pretty clear,” he said. “I want to get to know you.”

I bit my lip as my heart skipped a beat. Now, it was his turn to catch
me
off guard.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, trying to clear my head. “I meant, why are you in Green Falls?”

His eyes never moved from me, but I had the feeling that he was focusing on something else. They grew distant, like his mind was seeing what it wanted, instead of what was in front of him.

“Just… getting away for a bit,” he said. His voice softened with each word.

“No one goes to Green Falls to try and get away,” I said. “This place is a road stop in the middle of nowhere.”

He smiled, but it was faint and brief.

“It doesn’t seem all that bad,” he said. His eyes focused on me once again. “It may not be LA or New York, but it has a certain appeal.” He eyed me, intently, when he said the last part, and I tried my hardest not to blush. But, judging by the burning in my cheeks, I didn’t think I was successful. “Besides, why are
you
here?” he asked, his tone accusatory.

“We’re not trying to get away from anything, that’s for sure. We’re just here visiting family for the summer.”

He shook his head once, and looked off in the distance. His eyes focused at something on the track, or perhaps on something in his past.

“Everyone’s trying to get away from something,” he said.

We sat there in silence while the bleachers swelled around us. I could feel his body tensing again mine, and he seemed more distant than he had a minute ago. Had I said something wrong? It was clear that there was something on his mind, something that he wasn’t ready to talk about, and I was dying to know what it was.

I studied him from the corner of my eye. Haden could have been the textbook definition of cool-confidence, but as he sat there, looking out over the dirt track, I realized that there was something that could shake even him. Something
had
shaken him. I had a nearly irresistible urge to ask him about it; to try and find out what it was, but now was not the time or the place. Through great effort, I forced myself to keep my mouth shut.

“You think about that job any more?” he asked.

I blew out a sight. “If you’re going to sit there and try to convince me - you’re wasting your time.”

He shook his head. “I just wanted to talk about it,” he said. “You’re the kind of girl that’s easy to talk to.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

The corner of his lip turned up in another smile, and he looked down at his feet.

“I don’t know. It’s just the feeling I get. I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day--ever since you left the bar.”

“About what Scottie said?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “About anything.”

I smiled, despite myself. I knew exactly what he meant - the feeling you get when you can’t get someone out of your mind. It was the feeling you got when you realized you were crushing on someone. I never imagined that guys could feel it, too.

“So what do you want to talk about?” I asked, not bothering to hide the smile he’d put on my face. Haden looked at me for the first time since he had gotten quiet, earlier.

“You think it’ll be too hard?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I guess,” I said. “I don’t know the first thing about finding a band, or signing a band—or anything else, for that matter. I’ve never even had a real job before. Mom was always too worried about letting me into the city alone.”

“There’s people that can handle all of the complicated stuff,” he said. “You just have to do the leg work. Find them. Get them interested. Once they’re interested, they’ll figure out a way to make it happen.”

“But, where would I even find a band?” I said. “It’s not like they’re just hanging out on street corners with signs saying
Will Play Concert for Food
.”

Haden laughed, softly. “You might be surprised,” he said, almost to himself.

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head, dismissively, and looked at me. “Scottie seems like he knows what he’s doing. He’s not expecting you to go out there completely blind - he said he had some people for you to talk to, and they’ll know other people you can talk to.”

I shrugged and thought about it some more.

“I don’t know,” I said, again. “It just sounds like a lot more work than I was expecting. It’s my last summer before going off to college - I want time to have some fun, too.”

His smile spread even wider.

“A lot of people would think that hanging out with bands all day was a pretty good time,” he said. I couldn’t deny that. I laughed along with him for a moment, then he got serious, again. “I just want you to know that, no matter what you decide, I’ve got your back.”

My smile faded when I realized how sincere he was. Haden spoke with such straightforward honesty that it was hard to doubt what he was saying. Back at the bar, he had offered to help me find a band if I wanted, and now he was offering, again. This time, though, I didn’t doubt him at all. This time, I wasn’t worried that he had a secret agenda. He was doing it for
me
.