The Carrier (The Carrier Series Book 1) (4 page)

“Oh, don’t you know?” An amused smile graced
her lips. “I do a little subbing up at the high school, and three years ago
when our little Ava here was a junior, she was elected prom queen.”

“Ah! Well, that explains a lot.” Nolan,
grinning widely from ear to ear, walked back over to the corner spot.

“And what exactly does that mean?” I played
along, letting my hands land on my hips in protest.

Suzanne laughed and held one finger up in the
air. “Oh wait, honey, there’s more. As a senior she was named Homecoming Queen.
That’s right.
Prom
and
Homecoming Queen.
I’d
say we’ve got royalty amongst us!” Then she slapped me on the knee like a move
from some hoedown dance.

The corners of Nolan’s mouth turned up slowly.

“No, I did not sleep with half
the class, as I can tell you’re
thinking. Let’s just say I
am a very friendly and sweet person. It’s in my blood. A family trait, you
could say.”

“I’m sure you are.” A hardly innocent and
crooked smile swept across his face, but somehow I still liked it.

Suzanne let out a loud belly laugh, and a baby
near the booth began to cry.

*   
*     *     *

The
next day Nolan was assigned to a different ticket booth uptown. Suzanne made a
tiara in my honor out of the tinfoil from her lunch and posted it on top of the
clock in the booth. Nolan would think that was quite funny. It was a very slow
day, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the lack of tourists or because my
Nolan wasn’t around.

I spent time between boats thinking about
checking my grades. Several times I had the page up on my phone, waiting for me
to press log-in.

“Just
do
it,” Jack
pressured me. “I can’t imagine them being that bad. Not from you.”

I swung around to see him peering over my
shoulder. “You have no idea.”

“You?
Bad grades?
Come on, what classes did you take?”

“English 101, Intro to
Psychology,
Chem
lab, and US History 110.”

“Well, see there’s the problem. Those are
boring.
Where’s your teaching classes
?”

“I can’t take teaching courses until I’m
admitted into the School of Education.” I sat down on the back deck of the
Bailey
.
“And I can’t get into the School of Ed unless I have good grades.”

“Then get good grades!”

I blew a raspberry at him and he laughed. “You
make it sound so easy.”

“Just check ‘
em
.”

Passengers began to descend the stairs and down
onto the blue dock. “Later,” I said, tucking my phone away. “I’ve got a tour to
give.”

“Right on!” Jack said, taking his place at the
back of the boat. “All aboard!” he yelled.

*     
*     *      *

On
Wednesday Nolan was finally back at Lower One. Once the last tourist walked off
my boat from my first tour, I wanted desperately to push through the crowd,
scale the stairs two at a time, and run back to that corner booth. But I knew I
needed to restrain myself as well as I could. Jack told me he had to fuel up
the boat and asked if I’d run up to the Last Chance Snack Stand to buy him some
Rolos
.

“Take it out of my tips, kid.
If we have any.”
He tried to smile, but I knew he was
completely serious.

Glad for an excuse to leave the dock, I took
the stairs to the dispatch booth maybe too quickly for DBT safety regulations
and breathlessly said hi to Rob as I passed by. I walked right by the Last
Chance, thinking I’d buy the candy on my way back down to the dock. I needed a
Nolan-fix as soon as possible, but as I rounded the corner, I saw only Suzanne
standing in the triangle booth. I stood there stuck for a moment. I didn’t
really want to go hang out with Suzanne, but she caught me curiously peeking
around the corner for Nolan.

“He’s not here!” I heard Suzanne yell in a
singsongy
voice.

Shoot!

“Okay,” was all I managed to squeak
out.
What do I do now? Was it rude to turn around and walk
away?

Before I could tell my feet to move she
continued, “But he asked me to give you this.” She held out a piece of white
paper folded in half. She shook it teasingly out the open window, gently
drawing me in.
A note?
What, were we in junior high? Even
so, I smiled widely and took three very excited skips toward the booth.

Stop, idiot!
I must look ridiculous,
so I slowed it down to a casual walk.

I grabbed for the paper, but she pulled it away
quickly and held it up near her face, which was hosting the strangest grin.
“So,
Queenie
...what’s with you and Nolan?”

My cheeks burned with embarrassment. My voice
was stuck—I couldn’t say anything! “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the kid doesn’t stop talking about
you.”

He doesn’t?

I stood there, smiling like an idiot, and then
reached up and gleefully took the note from her hands. I could feel Suzanne
peering over my shoulder and turned forty degrees right so she couldn’t see,
although I knew she had read it already anyway.

Hey kiddo. They moved me out
to Delton Corners for the day. I have to work until 8. You should stop by when
you’re off work.

Nolan

He wants me to stop by.

“I think you should go out there and see what
he wants,” Suzanne said. “He’s a handsome guy, you know, and if I were twenty years
younger I’d have already bagged that hot piece!” Then Suzanne laughed her
boisterous laugh, and I walked away shaking my head, slightly disturbed.

My heart was racing as I pulled my baby blue Oldsmobile
into the parking lot at Delton Corners. Delton Corners was the ticket booth
owned by DBT located farthest from the docks. Lake Delton was a small town
butted right up against the city of Wisconsin Dells. There were attractions in
both towns, and many tourists probably never knew they crossed the lines into
another town when they drove down Highway 12.

I turned the keys in the ignition and pulled
them out. Suddenly, I felt a sharp stab behind my left eyeball. “
Ow
! What the heck?” But then the pain was gone as quickly
as it had come on.

“Weird.” I rubbed my eye for a few seconds
until I was sure the pain was gone, and then I looked up at the ticket booth. I
could barely see Nolan’s face behind the wall of closed windows. I took a deep
breath, held it for a few too many seconds, and then let it fly loudly out of
my mouth.

I sat fiddling with my keys, waiting for my
head to tell my hands to open the door. Why couldn’t I move?

After several seconds, I finally pulled down
the visor and checked my appearance in the mirror.
Hmm,
not my best.
But then again, I did just finish a seven-tour
day—what did he expect? If I was lucky, he found the wind-blown look sexy.

Delton Corners was the largest ticket booth DBT
owned. It was the size of a small living room with rows and rows of windows and
a small ticket counter several feet from the front door. I nervously walked in
the back door—and there he was, facing the row of windows out the front of the
booth. He looked like he was about to do some kind of goofy dance, like he was
hearing some kind of funky music in his head.

What was I doing out in the middle of nowhere
with this guy?
I barely know him!

I started backing up toward the door...he
hadn’t noticed me yet. But as my head was telling me to abort the mission, my
heart was telling me to move forward and explore a little more. He must have
heard my heart beating out of my chest because he suddenly turned around.

“Couldn’t stay away, huh?” His smile was as
radiant as the sun. He was blinding me with his straight teeth and icy blue
eyes. The sight of Nolan’s muscled shoulders and arms bulging through the white
boat shirt began to stir up something exciting inside of me.

“Yeah, well, Suzanne passed me a note after
study hall,” I teased, “so I figured I had to come see what you wanted.” I
could feel sweat building up in my palms.

Stay cool, girl, stay cool.

I looked away quickly to the floor—I couldn’t
get pulled in again. My brain turned to mush whenever that happened.

“I’m really happy you came out here. I wanted
to see you again.” Nolan put his tablet under the counter and came around to
the other side.

“I’ll see you at Lower One tomorrow, won’t I?”
Did I have the courage to ask what I really wanted to? I suddenly felt like I
wanted to see him every second of the day.

“Yeah.
I
guess you will.” His eyes were staring at me again. My stomach felt as though
it were on fire while my heart felt like it was playing a circus march on
steroids. It was the most wonderful feeling. I thought I’d never feel like this
again after graduation last spring.

For my last two blissful years of high school,
I dated the quarterback of the football team and local
hottie
,
Aaron. But last year when we graduated, he dumped me as we headed off to
different colleges. Breaking up came as quite a shock to my heart because I
really thought I was going to marry him. After a year of reflection, I realized
that probably most girls who fall in love with their high school boyfriends
think they have found “the one.”

It’s a wonder how I made it through my first
year at UW–Stevens Point without falling into a deep depression. Aaron showed
up at the door of my heart, calling, emailing, and teasing me with the
temptation of getting back together. He also showed up at the door of my dorm
on several occasions, sending me joyfully back into love with him, only to
leave me lonely again. Each time, when I thought he’d found a place for me in
his heart, he’d stop talking to me for weeks at a time. At some point last
spring, he decided it was unhealthy to keep going back and forth like that, and
he broke it off for good.

Before I knew it, two whole semesters of
college has passed like a blur across my brain.

I knew this summer could end up being awkward
since we were both going to be working in the Dells for three months. But I
hadn’t seen Aaron at all this summer. He was a driver and tour guide for the
Original Wisconsin Ducks. The Ducks was one of the most popular attractions in
the Dells, aside from the
waterparks
. For a small
fortune, you could take your family aboard an authentic, WWII vehicle called a
Duck. The big, army green, twenty-passenger truck drove through the forests
around the Dells and then thrilled its passengers as it plunged directly into
the Wisconsin River and magically transformed into a boat.

The Duck entrance at Echo Point was right
around the turn near the beginning of the Lower Dells Boat Tour, and every time
I rounded that corner, my heart skipped a beat, as I was hoping to see Dolly,
the Duck Aaron drove. Although each time I secretly wanted it to be Aaron, it
didn’t really matter because the Duck company seemed to hire only good-looking
college men in their twenties, and I was happy to flirtatiously wave at any one
of them.

I was still somewhat infatuated with Aaron when
I came home from college for the summer. I never really got an answer to what
went wrong in our relationship, and I blamed myself somehow. Now I wondered if
anyone could ever love me the way Aaron once did. Could I really now be finding
a way to break free from the hold Aaron had on my heart? My mind came back to
the present, and somehow Nolan was only a few feet away from me.

How did he move so quickly without me knowing?

He randomly picked a brochure for the Tommy Bartlett
Ski Show off the rack and nervously rolled it into a tube. “So, how was your
day?”

Something told me this wasn’t a good idea. Why
risk heartache again?

I pulled my tongue out of the back of my throat
and squeaked out, “Fine. We sold books.”

Dammit
!
Why did he come off so smooth while I
sounded like an idiot?

He gave a chuckle under his breath. “That’s
good.” He moved in closer, and I could smell his cologne. The scent just about
tipped me right off my feet when he suddenly stopped his momentum, turned on
the spot, and headed back over to the ticket counter.

I snapped out of his delicious scent-hold and
wondered what I did wrong. I turned and breathed into my hand for a quick
breath check. Was my hair more hideous than I had thought?

He stayed at the counter, doing something by
the till. It was odd behavior.

“Well, I have to get going. My parents will be
expecting me.” I started backing out of the booth, still facing him, unable to
turn away. The next few seconds passed in slow motion as my foot smashed into
the corner of a metal stand holding up the American flag. The flag crashed to
the floor with a loud clang and I flew backwards, grabbing the rack of
brochures to break my fall. But it didn’t. The papers went flying through the
air as I landed on my right hip on the concrete floor, covered in brochures for
Dells attractions and a metal rack on my chest.

Oh my God. Did that really just happen?

 Nolan jumped up from his spot at the
counter and ran over to my side. He dug me out of the pile of brightly colored
papers, asking if I was okay.

That was it. I just ruined my chances to spend
any time with this cool, alluring boy this summer. Who would want to be with
“Ava the Clumsy”? I was mortified and wanted nothing more than to hide in the
cave of brochures on top of me and never see Nolan again. 

I opened my eyes and found his blue eyes not
more than four inches before me. His breath on my face confirmed the lack of
space between us.

Three beats of silence passed as we searched
each other’s eyes for answers, and then a tiny chuckle escaped Nolan’s mouth.
He tightened his lips, trying to hold it back, but it was so cute I collapsed
into laughter. Relief played on his face as he offered a hand to help me up,
and we laughed comfortably for a minute together.

I knew right then no matter what happened this
summer, I’d never forget the time Nolan watched me pick a fight with a brochure
rack.