Taking Risks (6 page)

             
My cheeks heated more as I spat out the only cliché thing that I could think of. “So what’s your story anyway?” Risks face darkened as he searched himself for an answer I knew would be vague.

             
“Oh nothing really that interesting. My family is originally from here and we just decided to move back.”

             
“So are you
really
twenty one?” I had been wondering that ever since I saw his license. It seemed creepy that someone so old would still be in high school.

             
Risk just chuckled at me and said, “No that was totally fake. My old man had the license made for me when we moved here so that I could fetch him more booze when he ran out. I’m eighteen.” I was so relieved.

             
Just like Risk had read my mind he said, “You thought I was some kind of creep, didn’t you?”

             
I took a sip of my cappuccino and slyly replied, “It hadn’t crossed my mind.”

             
After our drinks were gone we split a piece of apple pie with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. When we were finished Risk paid the waitress (who had been checking him out the entire time) and looked me right in the eye, stopping me from leaving my seat. “There was a specific reason that I asked you here today…” His voice trailed off and Gray started to rub his hands together in excitement with that stupid looking grin on his face. I knew the question that was to follow too, so I nodded at him to go on.

             
“Well you know prom is coming up, and I know it’s sort of short notice…I mean, you probably have a date already, but I was just wanting to know if maybe…” He stuttered around with the question and Gray yelled at him “JUST ASK HER!!!” After muttering a curse word under his breath Risk finally asked, “…Would you go to prom with me, Marlee?” I smiled so big that it hurt my cheeks. Someone amazing had just asked me to prom. I
never
thought that I would get a date to prom, let alone someone who was as gorgeous as Risk. I was already picking dresses out in my mind.

             
Gray waved a hand in front of my face. “Answer him! He’s getting ready to run!”

             
“YES!” I blurted out. Oh man, why couldn’t I talk to this guy like I had any brains at all? “No, I don’t have a date, and yes, I would love to go with you.” His nervous features washed away and a look of relief replaced them. “Oh good,” He said, “I thought you were going to call me a freak and run away.” He smiled as my eyes got wide and I said, “That happens to you, too?” Risk just sort of pinched his lips at me and raised an eyebrow as it dawned on me that he was joking and I was an idiot.

             
“Just kidding…” I muttered and glared at Gray who had fallen over, laughing his ass off.

             
We all got up to leave and Gray whispered in my ear, “Are you going to let him kiss you?” As if anyone else could hear him. That was something that I hadn’t thought about yet. I guess I
was
on a date, and I was eighteen years old and still had never been thoroughly kissed. I whispered as low as I possibly could while following Risk out of the coffee shop, “I don’t know…Should I?”

             
Gray was no help. His only answer was a shrug of his shoulders. I would have been better off had he never planted the question in my mind in the first place. At least then I wouldn’t have time to worry about whether or not it would be awkward or magnificent. When we got to the sidewalk I was a nervous wreck and sweating like a pig, yuck.

             
“Well I had a really nice time. I would really like to take you out again sometime soon. Would that be okay?” Risk was looking nervous again, but I was grateful that he had enough nerve to ask me out again because I could barely speak.

             
“Yeah I would love that.” I finally said after staring at him a little too long. Gray was standing too close to us and he was making me more nervous than what I already was.

             
“Awesome!” He had a real genuine grin. I wasn’t used to seeing someone excited to hang out with me, so the moment seemed special. “How about tomorrow after school?”

             
“Oh I have to work every night until Thursday…so how about Thursday evening?”

             
“That works for me! I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Maybe we can sit together in English.” He winked at me and then opened my car door. “This is an amazing car! It’s from the 1950’s right?”

             
“Yeah, my dad and I restored it together. She’s a real peach.”

             
“That makes this a special car then. It’s really cool that he took the time to do something special with you.” Risk said and a hint of sorrow crossed his face. “Anyways, see you tomorrow.” He said with a sweet grin and I thought that it was the most attractive grin that I had ever seen. I was standing there with my lips half puckered and ready for my end-of-date kiss when Risk turned on his heal and walked away.

             
I temporarily forgot about Gray being there, but he made sure that he reminded me of his presence by singing “Love is in the Air” as soon as we got into the car.

             
“Since we’re already in town, do you want to go see if Little Dirty Boy is at his old house?”

             
“Sure.” I was actually kind of dreading it. I didn’t want anything to be able to put  a damper on my amazing day, but I was growing to care about the boy, and he desperately needed help from someone and I was the only person that I knew of who could talk to ghosts.

             
When we pulled up to the house I saw Little Dirty Boy through one of the windows. He was in a part of the house that hadn’t been completely destroyed by the fire, but was still badly damaged. The window had been broken out and black soot had coated the Bedford stone on the outside of it. Little Dirty Boy had a blank expression on his face. He was still wearing the same clothes that he had worn the first day that we met and he was still covered in dirt from head to toe. I sat in my car and watched him as he stared at a soot covered wall. It looked as though he might have been staring at some kind of picture that had somehow remained intact.

             
Gray, of course, broke the silence. “What do you think he’s doing in there?”

             
I sighed, “I don’t know. Hopefully he’s getting things sorted out with himself. Let’s go see if he’ll let us talk to him.”

             
Gray and I got out of the car and walked slowly over to the house. Little Dirty Boy didn’t seem to notice us. I wanted to go inside and comfort him, but it looked like it would fall down and crush me as soon as I set foot in the door.
I cleared my throat to make a little noise in hopes that I could get his attention without surprising him. Still nothing. I looked over at Gray and he sighed as he disappeared only to immediately reappear inside the house, behind the boy.

             
When Little Dirty Boy decided to acknowledge us, he grit his teeth. “What are you doing here? Can’t you tell that I’m
avoiding
you?”

             
Gray rolled his eyes. “We’re just trying to help, bud. Marlee and I think you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

             
In a flash the boy appeared outside of the house right in front of me. He was inches from my face with eyes blazing and teeth clenched. I yelped and stumbled back only to end up flat on my ass. He spat at me, as if ghosts could salivate, and Gray appeared right next to me from thin air.

             
“What’s your problem, dude?” Gray was pissed. He didn’t like it when people bullied me, even if they couldn’t physically harm me.

             
“What’s my
problem?”
Little Dirty Boy didn’t seem so innocent anymore. He was transforming himself into an ugly soul without even realizing it. “My problem is that you two jerks won’t leave me alone! If you knew what I had done to people than you wouldn’t be standing here like dummies!” Then he vanished once again.

             
“How do I keep ahold of you people?” I accidentally yelled at Gray. “As soon as we find him, we lose him again!”

             
Gray shrugged and said, “If he doesn’t want to be helped than what else can we do? We can chase him down every day and hope that eventually he’ll talk to us, or we can ignore him and let him go his course. Either way, I can’t make that decision for you.”

             
I didn’t like either of those decisions, but Gray was right. There was nothing else we could do but try and get through to him.

             
“He’s starting to scare me, Gray. I know he can’t hurt me, but he just seems mad and unpredictable.” Gray looked at me sympathetically. Trying to ease my mind, he put on his prize winning half smile and said, “At least you got a date to prom. You should call your mom right now. She’ll be so proud, especially when she sees that he’s not a swamp monster or a fifty year old virgin.” The rapid change of subject made me laugh. My mother
was
going to be ecstatic about prom, but not nearly as excited as I was. It had nothing to do with getting to dress up, in fact, I hated that part, but I think I was beginning to see what Gray saw in Risk. Risk seemed genuine and unfazed by my reputation at school. I could tell that he had secrets, like Gray could, but there was no guarantee that Risk wanted to be involved with me anyhow. Maybe he just wanted a friend for the last few months of his senior year at a new school. Either way, I was okay with it as long as I got to look at him and be on his well-defined arm.

             
I called my mom just as soon as Gray and I got back home. She actually had time to talk for a second, instead of just texting or ignoring me altogether, because she was in between meetings at the moment. Mom was amazing at her job. She ran an up-and-coming company that manufactured and sold eco-friendly cleaning supplies. So whenever she could squeeze a little time for me into her busy schedule I was delighted.

             
“Hey Mom! When are you going to be home again? I thought that we could go shopping.” I was so excited to tell her my news that I was practically bursting at the seams.

             
“You hate shopping…What’s gotten into you? You’re not
normally
this perky.”

             
“Well I was hoping that you would come home for a bit sometime in the next two weeks, because I got a date to prom and I need your help finding a dress!” I heard a sigh from her and I bummed by her lack of enthusiasm. “What’ wrong? I thought this is what you wanted?”

             
“It’s nice to hear that you’re socializing, I just don’t want you to have some sort of awkward date that’s going to make the kids at school harder on you than they already are. You definitely don’t need any more bad publicity to add to your reputation around town.” I knew the meaning behind her words and what she
really
meant was, “Don’t take some super freak to school just to show him off and say that you did as I asked, because that would just add to the embarrassment that you cause me every day.”

             
“Um, actually Mom, he’s pretty hot. He’ new at school and kind of an outcast like me, though I’m not sure why. His name is Risk and I think you’ll be happy to meet him.”

             
She put an effort into perking her voice up, but I could tell that she didn’t believe me. “Okay sweetie, I’ll try coming home next week.”

             
“Okay Mom.” I sighed, “I love you.”

             
“Love you too, baby.”

             
She hung up the phone before saying goodbye and I was left to wonder how she always made me feel like the biggest disappointment in the world. I was happy about going to prom with Risk, but before the phone call to Mom I had also been happy about her reaction to the news. I was being the daughter that she had always wanted. At least Dad used to pretend to be proud of me and try and understand what I was seeing and hearing, without thinking that I needed to be hauled off to the looney bin.

             
Gray was actually patiently waiting on me to speak first. He knew how badly I needed to have my mother’s approval, and he felt bad that I could never get it. Gray hated it when people made me feel bad.

             
“She thinks I’m taking the fifty year old virgin to prom.” I looked up at Gray and painted a smile on my face. He put an arm around me and even though I couldn’t feel him, the gesture was comfort enough. Gray wasn’t a blood relative, or even alive, but he was family to me and even as bad as it must be for him to be stuck here I don’t know what I would do with myself if he ever decided to cross over.

             
We sat at the foot of my bed for a while making crude jokes back and forth to one another then decided to pass the time, until a decent hour to go to bed, by playing cards. Even though Gray couldn’t hold a hand of cards he’s still a worthy opponent. Our favorite game is called war. War is a game that the deck of cards is split between two people and you each lay a card down at the same time. Whoever has the highest card wins their opponents card. Whoever runs out of cards first is the loser. War was the easiest game for us to play because there was really no strategy, it was just pure luck.

             
When we finished our game I headed upstairs to get ready for bed and Gray flopped down on the couch to watch The Price is Right. I brushed my hair and teeth and slipped on a tank top with some yoga pants. I looked in the mirror at my big brown eyes and I noticed that they were much more tired than usual. The excitement with Risk and the stress of Little Dirty Boy was keeping me up late and making me restless while I slept.

             
That night I had the nightmare of Little Dirty Boy trashing my room again. I knew that was a bad sign. When Gray woke me up the next morning I was groaning.

             
“Come on Mar! You’re already going to be late!” Gray was screaming in my ear, “Risk is going to be waiting for you in your first class, remember?” That got me up and moving. I took one look at the clock and realized that I had hardly any time to put myself together before topping out the Delray on the way to school.

             
I ran a brush through my mess of waves and quickly brushed my teeth and put a dab of mascara on. I threw on the first pair of jeans that I could find on the floor, which just happened to be my favorite skinny jeans that made me look like I had a little junk in the trunk, and ripped a t-shirt off of a hanger that was black with some kind of smart ass comment on the front. After I was as satisfied as I was going to get with myself (after no sleep and five minutes to get ready) I bolted out of the door. Gray let me know that he was going to stay behind. He said that I needed to stand on my own two feet with Risk and I couldn’t chance looking like a fool in front of him by talking to myself just yet.

             
I paused at the door of my English class to slow down and put some swagger in my step. I only ended up being a minute late, but everyone still looked at me as I walked into the room. When I locked eyes with Risk my heart seemed to skip a beat.

             
He was sitting at his desk, slouching like a bad boy with one leg stuck far out into the isle and one arm hanging over the back of the chair. When he saw me walk in his green, almond shaped eyes lit up. He was wearing a dark yellow polo shirt that hinted that he was fit and toned underneath. I wanted to find out if that shirt told the truth. My breath caught in my throat and I coughed a little girly cough to try and cover it up and headed to my seat. When I looked back at Risk he had one of those halfcocked grins that I was so used to seeing on Gray. It was the kind of grin that put knots in your stomach and heated your body. I also noticed that his eyes were sparkling and I thought how strange it was that he and Gray seemed to be so much alike, almost as if I were
meant
to find Risk.

             
Gosh, I was turning into a total girly girl if I was thinking of things like
fate
and
meant-to-be.
Who knew boys could make you so stupid? When I turned back to face the front of the class the brunette Mean Girl, Gabby, was turned around in her seat and paying way too much attention to what I was doing. Gabby gave me her nicest smile, flashing perfectly aligned white teeth. “So are you two freaks
dating
now? That would be a match made in heaven.” I blushed and put my head down a little.

             
“That’s really none of your business.” I tried to sound confident and a bit snotty while still looking down at my desk. Obviously Gabby noticed that Risk was out of my league too.

             
“Well you know why he moved here, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, but I knew that she wouldn’t anyway. She liked to hear herself talk too much. “He was adopted and his parents say he’s crazy. They have to drink themselves stupid just so they aren’t afraid to sleep at night.”

             
I gaped at her, which was exactly the reaction that she was hoping for, and she shot me a sly smile and turned to face the front of the class. I grit my teeth and hissed, “That’s
not
true.” But Gabby didn’t even care enough to acknowledge that she heard me.
Bitch
. However, I did suspect that the story that Risk told me was bullshit, and it was strange for someone to pack up and move an eighteen year old to a different school in the middle of their senior year.
Maybe I should ask Risk more about his move when we hang out Thursday.

             
The bell rang and everyone scrambled over themselves to get out of class. I never knew why they were
always
in such a hurry when we still had
hours
of school left. I took my time getting my things together and hoped that Risk would stop by my seat and walk me to my next class.

             
“Hey, I was going to save you a seat, but I thought you weren’t coming today.” He
did
stop to talk to me!
Score!

             
“Oh yeah…sorry. Gray had to drag me out of bed this morning…” I chuckled at remembering Gray screaming at me.

             
“…Gray?”
Oh holy shit! No I did NOT just do that!

             
“Umm…yeah listen, I’m kind of in a hurry. I already have a ton of tardies and I can’t be late again.” I was scrambling for an explanation but I had none and I needed to get out of there.

             
“Look, if you’re seeing someone I understand. I can see how someone who looks like you wouldn’t be single for long…” His voice trailed off and he shuffled his feet.

             
“Someone that looks like
me
?” I was confused and he saw it on my face.

             
“Um yeah…you’re kind of…gorgeous.” My mouth fell open and Risk blushed. “Look I don’t want you to be late…” Risk said.

             
“I’m not seeing anyone. I mean, I’m not seeing anyone
else
.” I kind of blurted that out. I didn’t want to sound too desperate, but I wanted to make myself clear to him.

             
His mouth grew into a wide grin that brightened his face like the sun. “Oh, cool. Can I walk you to class then? I don’t really care if I’m late.” I nodded and off we went.

             
The rest of the day I spent thinking of Risk. It was a lot easier to concentrate on how I felt about him with Gray being absent. I knew that I thought Risk was gorgeous, but the rumor Gabby told me
did
fit into place with some things that I had noticed. For instance, Risk always looked away from my face when he was nervous or he thought things were going in a negative direction. That made me think that his self-confidence was shot, and I knew the feeling because that’s how I reacted in those situations. Also, I had met his parents and they looked rough. His dad was a total boozer, just like Gabby said, and his mom acted like she had something to hide. Just because his mom didn’t order a drink at Rocktop didn’t mean that I didn’t see her downing half of what her husband was ordering. Yeah, Risk definitely had some secrets, but I didn’t mind hanging out and seeing what they were. I just had to keep my damned mouth shut about Gray.

             
I brought my Rocktop uniform with me to school so that I could go straight to work and have a little time to hang out with Remi, maybe even talk boys with her. I knew she would love that.

             
I got dressed in the bathroom and then went to the back to the employee room and waited for Remi to get to work. While I waited, Jane, the bartender, came to take her break. Jane had a more risqué uniform than the rest of us had. She wore a blue Dallas Cowboys jersey that she had cut to show most of her abdomen, which was flat and well defined, and her shorts were white which meant that if she wore panties with them everyone would be able to see them, but that also meant that everyone knew that she didn’t wear panties. Her tights did nothing to make her skin appear tan because she was already nice and bronze from head to toe. Her black hair was cut as a short bob, which was a popular style, and it was messy and a little spiky in the back, but down to her chin and sleek in the front. She also had red streaks in her hair that framed her face.

             
If Jane, Remi, and I were the Charlie’s Angels Remi would be the leader, Jane would be the vixen, and I would be the ditzy awkward girl.

             
Jane came and plopped down beside me on the employee lounge sofa. “You’re here early…Are you sick? Your face looks funny.” She scrunched up her face and smiled.

             
“I wanted to talk to Remi about…something.” I started to blush and Jane punched my arm.

             
“We knew it! You have a
boyfriend
! We thought that you’d be a single virgin forever with the amount of interest you’ve shown the men around here. I voted that you were a lesbian…wait…you do have a
boy
friend right?” I’m sure she saw the look of surprise on my face, but then I burst out laughing. “Oh my, am I
that
obvious?”

             
Jane looked like she was convinced that I was a lesbian. “It’s just weird. You’re totally hot and guys check you out
all
the time, but you never go out on any dates and you turn down any phone number or invitation that you get.”