Supercross Me (Motocross Me #2) (14 page)

Five months ago – February

For the first time since the semester had started, I had no fuzzy, love-struck feelings about Ash’s impending arrival. I kept trying to get excited, to call back those butterflies that used to swim around my stomach every time we talked on the phone. But they were gone. The last couple of months had been mostly arguments or thinly-veiled sarcasm from the both of us. I knew it started with me getting upset over the stupid television interview, but Ash hadn’t done much to make it right.

He didn’t even update his own social media accounts anymore, saying they were stupid, and that he only had them because his bosses made him stay in touch with the fans. So now apparently some intern at Team Yamaha made all of his posts for him and that was Ash’s reason as to why he never mentioned his girlfriend online.

And why did it even matter to me? Social media was stupid. No one puts an accurate representation of themselves online, always taking multiple photos and only posting the best ones, the ones that make them look pretty and thin and happy. Social media was a lie, especially for someone like Ash, whose small supercross fame had brought him into the public eye.

“You’re my girlfriend, that’s all that should matter,” Ash had said the last time we hung out. But if that was true, then why did he cancel his last two visits?

Work.

A busy schedule.

His excuses where there, but I didn’t believe them. Maybe some people just weren’t meant for long distance relationships. Maybe I was the problem. Maybe Ash had found someone else. All I knew was that things didn’t feel right between us anymore, and I didn’t know why. I just knew that I hated it.

My roommate sauntered into our shared living room space wearing the same black dress from the night before. Her hair was done up in braids and swoopy bun knots that made little sense to anyone but her. She gave me a weird look. “What are you so dressed up for?”

I glanced down. I wore a sage green flowy tank top with skinny jeans and heels that had little rhinestones on them. I wasn’t
that
dressed up. But I guess I wasn’t in my normal pajamas and Ash’s hoodie that I wore to most classes.

“Ash is coming over today.”

“Ah,” she said, really dragging out the word. “You two haven’t broken up yet?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why would we do that?”

“Because you fight all the time, duh.”

I frowned and she swirled her finger in the air. We were lucky enough to get a deluxe dorm with a living room and two bedrooms and she points to the wall. “These walls are paper thin. You guys are bitter every time you’re on the phone lately. No wonder you get pissed when you can hear me having sex. It’s because you aren’t getting any.”

“Can you just . . . go now?” I said, letting my head fall back against the couch. “I don’t want you skulking around when he gets here.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” Zooey said, grabbing her purse from the floor.

My phone buzzed and I glanced down, getting weirdly nervous when I saw Ash’s name on the screen.

Flights are shitty today. I can’t stay long. Almost there, btw.

“Damn,” Zooey said with a low whistle. “I never see you looking that pissed off. What happened?”

I shook my head and shooed her off with my hand. “Nothing. Go, he’s almost here.”

“Good luck!” she said, blowing me a kiss before she opened the door. “Maybe you’ll get laid and the fighting will stop for a while.”

I groaned.

“Listen, here’s a test,” she said as if she were some kind of relationship expert all of a sudden. “If he shows up with flowers, then things are going to be okay. If he’s empty-handed, then screw him. Who cares if he’s famous and sexy? You deserve better, kay?”

I nodded, trying not to think back to all the times Ash ever brought me flowers. It wasn’t very often, but it did happen. Of course, sometimes I met him at the airport and he couldn’t exactly have flowers when he was walking off a plane. Would he bring them today? Would he try to make up for all the long distance arguments and bitterness now that he was here in person?

Ash arrived a few minutes after Zooey left, and I was still sitting on the couch, staring up at the spotted ceiling of our dorm room. The knock on the door made me more nervous than excited, as if there were an army of savage murderers on the other side of the door and not my boyfriend.

I opened it tentatively, afraid of what I would find. Ash stood there, a sheepish grin on his tanned face. Hands shoved in his pockets.

No flowers.

My heart careened through the next few minutes. The long, slow hug as I crashed into him, wrapping my arms around the guy that I hadn’t seen in weeks. Ash kissed the top of my head while we stood there in an embrace that felt both welcoming and cold at the same time.

“So,” I said, when I pulled away. “You can’t stay long?”

He shook his head. “My flight back is in three hours.”

My eyes bugged. “Then why bother showing up?”

“Because I wanted to see you?” Ash said, turning his palms up.

“That sounded like a question. I don’t need you to tell me what you think I want to hear, Ash.” I turned and walked into the dorm, leaving him to let himself in.

“Hana, that’s not it.” He caught my arm and turned me around, wrapping his hands around my hips so that I had no choice but to face him. “Can we please not fight today?”

I swallowed, staring into his pleading eyes. “We can do whatever you want,” I said with a ton of sarcasm. “Your stay is so short, you obviously planned it so that you wouldn’t have to be in my presence for very long.”

“Hana, seriously.” Ash’s voice had turned cold. “All we do is fight and it doesn’t even make sense. Why? Why do we do this?”

I shrugged, looking at the floor between our feet.
Why didn’t you bring me flowers?
I wanted to ask, even though it was so stupid. I wasn’t a flowers kind of girl. I didn’t need them. But I did need some kind of gesture that showed that he still cared about me.

“I don’t know why we do this,” I settled on saying, the lump in my throat threatening to cut off my airway. My eyes burned and my stomach was twisted in knots. “We’re supposed to love each other and all of that.”

“We do love each other,” Ash said, his voice nearly whispering. “But we can’t keep doing this. All we do is argue or ignore each other. It’s affecting my job, Hana.”

“Why am I supposed to care about your job?” I asked, regretting the words the moment I said them. I was on a roll now, so I wasn’t about to stop even though I knew it was wrong to keep talking. “All your job ever does is take you away from me, throw you into parties with hot girls who you don’t bother telling you have a girlfriend—”

“That is
not
true,” Ash snapped. His grip on me tightened. “Hana, everyone knows I have a girlfriend. You can’t still be pissed about that stupid TV interview.”

I shoved away from him and took a few steps backward. “I can be pissed about whatever I want! You have this big fancy life now, with parties and money and fame and there’s no room for me anymore.” I took a ragged breath, willing the tears to stay at bay. Ash watched me, making no move to deny anything, so I just kept going, ripping into him with every horrible thought I’d ever had. “You made me fall in love with you and then you left. You said we’d see each other all the time but we don’t. You cancel visits more than you keep them, and I’m just supposed to be okay with this?”

“Racing is hard, Hana.” Ash’s features hardened and I could tell he was trying to keep his emotions hidden. “I put all my money on the line for my parent’s new house, and if I just quit then we’ll be screwed. I’m the rookie here, and I have to prove myself. I
have
to be at each race and you know that. I can’t help the interviews and photo shoots—it’s all part of my contract. You used to think it was cool, but now you persecute me for just doing what I’m paid to do.”

“I was as supportive as I could be, but then you totally ignored me in that stupid interview,” I said, no longer trying to force back the anger in my chest. “How am I supposed to sit here and pretend everything is fine when clearly you don’t want to be with me?”

“What would make you think that?” Ash said, his voice breaking. “I love you! And that interview was one damn mistake. I’ve apologized for it a million times. You have to let it go or you’re going to ruin us.”

I folded my arms across my chest. Every part of my body screamed for me to stop, to shut the hell up and run into Ash’s arms. But something had taken ahold of me now, and it was stronger than my heart was. “You’re the one who ruined us, Ash.”

He flinched and then straightened himself to his full height. “Is that really what you think?”

No.

“Yes.”

He sighed, staring at the floor for an uncomfortable length of time. “Okay,” he said, resigning. “I guess we’ll just end this now.”

No.

I blinked. “I guess we will.”

He turned to leave and I should have stopped him.

The door closed behind him with a resounding click that told me we were over, officially. I waited a beat and then rushed to the door, wanting to throw it open and apologize. But what would be the point? We’d just fall apart again, in some other heartbreaking scene in the future. I twisted the doorknob and opened it just an inch, silently watching while my first love walked away.

He reached the end of the hallway and stopped. My heart went cold, the sudden rush of hope sparking up my insides. But he didn’t turn around. He reached into his pocket and took out a small black box. Staring at it for a minute, he dropped it into the trashcan and left.

I raced down the hallway, my heels clacking on the tiled floor. The box was sitting on top of a pile of old fast food bags and I grabbed it, feeling the velvety exterior. Once I was safely back in my dorm room, I held the box with shaking hands and opened the lid.

It was a silver necklace. The pendant was a dirt bike number plate, the number three-three-six on it. My eyes filled with tears as I turned it over in my hand.
Hana & Ash
was engraved on the back.

This was better than flowers.

I guess breaking up made sense now. I didn’t deserve Ash Carter.

Regionals Race Day

It’s four in the morning and I am awake five minutes before my alarm. My body knows the drill by now. I throw off the covers and make my way downstairs. I grab a granola bar and scrawl a note telling Teig good luck, then leave it taped to the bathroom door. I go through all of the same motions as I would on any other race day, only this time I’m doing them alone. There’s no Molly in the kitchen making breakfast burritos, and Dad isn’t already at the track flipping on light switches and brewing coffee. Today, it’s all up to me and the small staff at Mixon Motocross Park.

A loud knocking on the front door makes me jump and stub my toe on the pantry door. I’d been reaching for a third granola bar, which was doing nothing to cure my morning hunger like one of Molly’s burritos does.

Door-to-door salesmen don’t come around before the sun is up, so it’s probably Marty stopping by for some reason. I amble over there, actually craving some coffee for the first time in my life, and pull open the door.

Shelby waits on the welcome mat, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Hana . . .
Fisher
,” she says, uncrossing her hands and putting them on her hips. “I don’t know your middle name or that would have sounded more menacing.”

“What the hell did I do to you?” I ask, a smile playing on my lips so she knows I’m not really upset. She bends down and retrieves two Starbucks coffees that she’d set by her feet and hands me one.

“Did you put these on the ground just so you could cross your arms when I opened the door?” I ask.

She nods. “I had to because I’m mad at you. Well, disappointed, more like.”

I roll my eyes and take a sip of the coffee, wondering how she knew I’d need this caffeine boost to get through the day. It tastes delicious, hot and sugary with a hint of creamer. Shelby can order a good cup of coffee. Not that I’m willing to admit to liking the stuff just yet.

I let her inside. “What did I do?”

“You’ve completely shut me out of what’s going on with your dad!” Her knuckles turn white over the paper sleeve of her coffee cup and she shakes her head. I realize now that she’s wearing a Mixon Motocross shirt and the old running shoes she wears when she works at the track. “I can’t believe the races are still going on! You guys should have cancelled it. But I had to find out from Dorothy when I went to visit Mr. Fisher at the hospital last night. She said she was worried to death about you and Marty because you’ve been working yourselves like crazy. I thought we discussed at dinner the other day that you need to slow down.”

She peers down at me because she’s a little taller than I am, and something inside of me writhes in agony. Her disappointed expression looks so much like her twin brother’s and I can’t stand this. “Sorry I haven’t talked to you much lately. It wasn’t on purpose, I’ve just been so busy. And I know you wanted me to slow down but I can’t. This race has to go on.”

“Why didn’t you just cancel the race? Your dad’s health is more important.”

I shake my head. “Since this is a Regionals race, it’ll earn more than half of our yearly income from this weekend alone. I couldn’t just cancel the race and have Dad’s financials screwed up for the rest of the year. God knows how much his medical bills are going to cost, you know?”

She frowns and sips her coffee. “I guess that makes sense. Mr. Fisher was doing okay last night when I saw him. He’s still all sedated and everything, but Molly said he was doing good.”

I stare at my name, scrawled in black marker on the side of the coffee. “I just know that if we can pull off this race, then Dad will be proud. It’ll be one less stress for him to come home to. So yeah, thanks for the coffee, but I have to get to work.”

“You mean
we
have to get to work,” she says, donning a grin that also reminds me of her brother. “I’m here for you, Hana.”

“Thanks,” I say.

We gather some things for work and decide against taking one of our vehicles to the track since there will be so many racers and spectators today that parking will be limited. It’s much easier just walking across the dew-covered grass, no matter how much I hate the icky feeling on my legs.

“I feel like we haven’t talked in forever,” Shelby says while we walk. “What’s up with you and Ash?”

“You’ve been dying to ask that, haven’t you?” I let out a chuckle that sounds way more lighthearted than I feel. “I don’t think there’s anything up with us. His career is literally on the line right now, so we haven’t talked much.”

“Yeah, he said if he doesn’t get a good finish time at tonight’s race, then he’s screwed. I’ve got it set to record on the DVR in case I’m here too late to see it. God, I hope he does well.”

“Me too,” I say, and it’s only kind of a lie. I do want him to succeed. I just wish his career didn’t take him away from me. The second the words cross my mind I feel like an epic asshole for being so selfish. Ash deserves all of the success in the world. If only I wasn’t so stupid to have let him slip away.

“Still, I kind of thought something was going on between you last time he was here,” she says. “Maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.”

My stomach tightens when I remember our frenzied kiss that night, the feel of his hands on me after months of being without him. But that was all it was—a lapse of judgment between two former lovers. Right? Ash has only sent me a few texts in the last few days, most of them asking how my dad is doing. “Yeah, I don’t think Ash wants to be anything more than friends with me.”

“Oh.” Shelby kicks an acorn across the wooden bridge. “Well call me crazy, but you two were holding hands last time he was here. That’s not exactly a friend thing.”

I sigh. “I’d be lying if I said I maybe, sort of, kind of, wish that we were starting up again.”

Shelby stops in her tracks. “I knew it!” When I keep walking, she hurries to catch up. “I mean, I don’t even understand why you guys broke up in the first place. You’re obviously soul mates. I’m so glad you’re finally admitting it.”

I level a glare at her. “I’m not going to tell you things if you’re going to act like that.”

“I’m cool,” she says, holding up her hands. “I won’t make a big deal about it, but I’m telling you, Ash feels the same way. You two just need to get together and make amends already.”

“Right. Because that’s so easy to do when he’s never here.”

Shelby reaches for my hand and gives a squeeze. “He’ll be here. Eventually.”

*

The air is alive with the buzz of race day. The smell of high-octane fuel mixes with the sweetness of the wildflowers that grow along the sides of the track’s biggest jumps. People are everywhere, from proud grandmas in massive sunhats on the bleachers, to kids in full body motocross gear with helmets so huge they look like colorful alien heads walking around. Dads run around fixing bikes and refueling gas tanks while Moms administer bandages to scraped elbows and apply sunblock to the tops of noses.

I stand on the roof balcony at the top of the score tower, gazing out at this massive gathering of motocross racers and fans from all over the state. Marty is making the pre-race announcements below me, and at the front gates Shelby and Dorothy are signing in the long line of spectators. The ambulance guys have staged themselves near the track in case anyone gets hurt. Our flaggers are all stationed around the track, and the first moto is lining up at the gate. The American flag whips through the air, and everyone turns their attention toward it as Alyson begins to sing the anthem.

My walkie-talkie rests on my hip, silent for the last half hour. Everything is running smoothly. From my vantage point three floors high, I smile at the event below me. I feel like I could take on the freaking world.

The gate drops and the races begin. I know Teig is getting ready for his race in the fifth moto, so I’ll head down there to give him a high-five in a few minutes. But for now, I just want to breathe in the warm summer air and admire everything we’ve accomplished while Dad was in the hospital.

My phone rings, the familiar jingle of the Skype app. For a brief second, I think Ash is calling me since we used to Skype all the time when we were dating. I don’t have time to let my stomach get twisted up in knots before I see Molly’s name on the screen.

“Hey,” I say, answering the video call.

Molly’s eyes are dark orbs in the dim hospital lighting, but when she bursts into a smile, the whole screen lights up with her. “How are things going?”

“Things are running perfectly so far,” I say. “You don’t need to worry about us, okay?”

“Oh I’m not worried.” Molly’s eyes dart to something off the screen and then she gives me a mischievous look. “Someone is awake and wants to talk to you.”

“Dad!” my question is more of a shout. The screen blurs and then my dad’s face comes into view. He’s lying back on his hospital bed but for once, his eyes are open.

“Hi, honey.”

Tears spring to my eyes. “Dad, you’re awake.” It’s all I can say before I choke up. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve felt better,” he says, glancing at Molly at then grinning. “But for almost dying, I guess I can’t complain.”

“I’m sorry I’m not there,” I say, turning around to lean my back against the balcony’s railing. “I can probably leave right now and get there soon.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, honey. You stay there. Molly told me what you and Marty and the rest of the crew are doing. I couldn’t be more proud of you, Hana.”

“Save your pride for after the races,” I say with a laugh. “There’s still plenty of time for everything to go to hell.”

“I have faith in you. I always knew you’d be able to run this place after I was gone.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’re not allowed to
be gone
any time soon, okay? One heart attack is enough. I’m going to make sure Molly keeps feeding you healthy food from now on.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. She’s already lectured me on all of our upcoming lifestyle changes. I’ll let you get back to work, Hana. I just wanted to say hi now that I’m awake.”

“Okay, Dad. I love you.”

“I love you, sweetheart.”

The call ends and the sound of someone climbing the stairs to the roof balcony makes me spin back around to face the track. Dammit. I’m standing here all whimpery because I just talked to my dad who almost died. The last thing I want to do is small talk with some spectator. I slide my phone into my back pocket and wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes.

Pretending to be incredibly interested in the track before me, I watch the first moto complete their laps. Maybe whoever it is will walk to the other side of the roof and leave me alone. Of course, now that word has gotten out about Dad’s heart attack, and the track’s Facebook page has mentioned that Jim’s daughter will be running the show today, it seems like everyone wants to talk to me.

The stranger’s footsteps walk directly toward me. I stiffen, my hands going immediately into fists.

“Hana?”

The voice freezes every cell in my body. There’s no freaking way.

I turn around, slowly, my eyes focused on the floor. If this is just a trick of my mind, some sick cruel joke conspired by my brain and heart working against me, I will lose it. His hand reaches out and takes mine, breaking the spell that had kept me from looking up.

When my eyes meet his, I know this can’t possibly be real. He should be in California racing to keep his career intact. Maybe he’s a mirage, a figment of my imagination, appearing because I want him so badly that I’ve gone completely insane and gained the power of hallucination.

“Ash?” I whisper, expecting him to poof into thin air.

His head dips down as he pulls my hands forward and around his back until our bodies meet. His lips hover over mine, his breath minty and warm on my skin. I know without a doubt, that he is real.

And he’s right here in Mixon, Texas.