Waiting for You (23 page)

“Shut up,” he said
placing my hands around his neck and his on my hips. “We won’t. We’re making
memories here, enjoy the moment, be here.” He placed his hand over my heart
again, his eyes focused surely on mine and blinked slowly. “Be with me right
here, in the rain.” I did, I was in the moment and wrapped myself around him,
my bare feet squeaking against the metal. “Every time I look at this hood, I’ll
think of this moment and you. And I’ll know that we’re the only two people who
will know what these dents mean because we were in a moment.”

You know those
moments, whether you’re in them or not, you feel something more than what you
intended
to feel, what you
wanted
to feel. That was right now. It was like
watching a sunset, one that I expected to be an average sunset and knowing what
the colors would be and the specific settings I would use, but then, with so
much as a shift in the clouds, a sunset you never expected is revealed. It’s a
stolen heart in the rain, sprinkled rays of light that kiss your skin and dance
in the rain to the sounds of thunder and rolling growls.

It’s
being in the
moment and giving yourself whether you intended to or not.

It’s a passionate
love held in place by ice blue.

A good part of me
was scared to love Dylan. But there was also a part, that child within me that
had always been in love with Dylan since that first kiss. The other part was
nervous to love someone like Dylan when I didn’t know myself. I knew that with
Dylan, you could easily fall in love with him.

“Sometimes I wonder
where on earth a boy like you came from,” I said my head laid gently on his
chest, his breathing light as the mist on us.

Dylan gave that
light chuckle I found so reassuring. “I think her name was Lauren…”

My smile tugged at
the side of my face, a slow creeping smile that memories molded. “And she
smelled like sugar cookies.”

Swaying side to side,
he twirled me once before reclaiming my hips.

We slipped as the
water beaded down the hood and landed on our asses after that.

Dylan looked at me.
“I didn’t take into account how slippery it would be.”

Trying to keep from
slipping more, I steadied myself but then lost it in a fit of giggles when I
saw that Dylan’s foot had cracked his windshield when we fell. Instead of
getting mad, he sighed shaking his head and sprawled out on the hood. “See,
what’d I
tell you…memories. I’ll look at that windshield now
and say, damn, that was a dumb idea.”

I couldn’t stop
from laughing and leaned sprawled out like he’d just done.

He looked over at
me, taking a pull from the cigarette he just lit. “You’re so fucking pretty
when you smile like that.” His left index finger tapped my nose.
“Makes these freckles light up.”

Silence fell over
us. Dylan scanned his eyes over mine as the tips of his fingers traced along my
cheek until he cupped the side of my face. “If someone asked you what color the
sky is, what would you say?”

“I would ask what
time of day.”

“Why?” Dylan looked
slightly perplexed by my answer as if I’d thrown him off guard. His hand
dropped from my face as he leaned against the window, his left leg bent at the
knee relaxing on the hood of dents and a busted windshield.

I looked up at the
sky, it was a light gray but shadowed in part by the sun and soon it would set
behind the blanket of clouds. The rain finally stopped and the smell of wet
trees and dirt surrounded us.
“Because sometimes it’s blue or
gray or white.”

Dylan took a slow
drag from his cigarette before blowing the smoke into the sky. “Fuck that,
those colors are bland. Look beyond that. Imagine what could be. There’s gold
and pink and purple and orange, there’s so much beyond the eye that most don’t
see, don’t want to see or can’t imagine.” He kept an eye on me and nodded to
the one sliver of clouds that had broken apart to reveal the sunset over my
shoulder. “Thinking that way will not only suck the life right out of you but
you won’t see what’s right in front of you, in the moment. You’re stuck seeing
what you’ve always seen. Don’t be that. Be alive, be wide awake, be anything.”

Childhood to
adulthood has a way of fading and making you feel this way, a way Dylan
believed and never lost sight of. Deep down he was that little mischievous boy
he once was; maybe he had a tougher shell these days. But watching him sing,
hearing him say things like this, made me believe he was still in there and
childhood hadn’t faded away, life had gotten in the way.

It also made me
believe there was hope, even though we had no idea what our future would bring
right now, we could do and be whatever we dreamed of being.

Silence settled
like the rain, no words needed to be spoken, blue eyes that wouldn’t let the
child in me get lost, make my head throb and my heartbeat. His eyes held mine,
heavy weights in place and the most imaginable colors behind him.

“Are you glad we
ran away?” I asked my lashes sprinkle water on my cheeks.

He looked at my
lips and then my eyes before clearing his throat softly. “It’s our deal. It’s
what we were supposed to do. So yeah, I am,” he sighed pressing his lips to
mine, “now, let’s bucket list this shit and kiss me in the fucking rain.”

Our
deal?

I wasn’t sure what
he meant by our deal but a kiss in the rain was enough to erase any thoughts I
may have had.

Memories flashed
against my closed lids, memories we created when we were kids and now consumed
me, made me feel those bleeding colors.

11.
    
Dirt Tracks – Bailey Gray

Dylan and I made it to
Dodge City around midnight after our kiss in the rain turned into more than a
kiss.

We were trying to find
a hotel but as it turned out, there was a race in town and all the hotels seemed
to be booked. Dylan’s uncle Kyle, his dad’s younger brother, called and got us
a room at the Best Western where a bunch of their crew was staying.

Now we were trying to
find the Best Western.

“I’m starving,” he
groaned into my hair, his lips brushing my ear as we drove around. “I’m so
hungry right now I could eat your elbow,” he laughed slightly, his chest
shaking me as his hand slipped around my shoulder, pulling me into him. His
hand kept its journey lower and ran down my arm. “Matter of fact,” Dylan
stopped and pulled my arm near his mouth, “give it here, I’ll nibble a little.”

I giggled twisting away
from him with laughter. The last few hours had been nothing but laughter,
lingering touches, tickling and wet clothes on the floorboards. We were both in
our underwear and the heater on full-blast trying to dry them.

“What did you mean when
you said our deal earlier?” I asked snuggling closer to his side.

Dylan was quiet for a
minute, one hand rested on the steering wheel, the other on my upper thigh.
“It’s not complicated brown eyes.” His lips pressed to my temple. “It’s
just…our deal.”

“We have a deal?” I
turned my head to look up at him. His eyes were on the road.

“Everyone has a deal,”
he said. “An unspoken understanding…we were meant to be and you know it.”

“There’s a Taco Bell.”
I pointed across his chest to the left side of the street at a strip mall.
“Let’s go there.”

Just like that, the
conversation twisted.

Dylan loved tacos so
that was where we ended up. We took the food back to the hotel and ate there.
There was nothing better than going through a Taco Bell drive-thru at midnight
in your bra and underwear.

It screams
inappropriate.

When we got to the
hotel, we both crashed not long after eating.

The next afternoon was when it got interesting.
Unlike Eddy, I’d never met anyone from the Wade side of the family other than
Ken, Dylan’s dad. And after knowing Ken, I wasn’t sure what to expect of Kyle.

We met for breakfast
not far from the racetrack in Dodge City. He brought with him his younger
brother, the youngest of the Wade brothers, Gentry. He was nice and closer in
age to us. I found out that Ken was the oldest, then Kyle and Gentry. From what
Dylan told me, all three were very different. Ken was serious and kind of an
asshole. That much I knew first hand.

Then there was Kyle,
the more determined of the three brothers and heavily involved in racing. The
youngest was Gentry, the goofball of the family. I could see that too.

He flirted with me that
morning and Dylan had to set him straight right off the bat. “No dude, she’s
taken.”

Gentry had fun with it
like all uncles would have. It was in good humor and kept light.

After breakfast, we
headed to the track to meet the rest of their crew and the NASCAR driver that
Kyle was the crew chief for. Apparently it was a bi-weekend and he was back to
racing the cars that he grew up racing.

I’d never been to a
dirt track and I couldn’t exactly see the appeal. That was until I watched my
first race. I completely understood the appeal. The rush, the adrenaline, the
fans, beer, all of it was part of the experience.

Kyle had gotten us
passes to go in and out of the pits but once the racing started, I found myself
drawn in and not wanting to miss anything. Dylan was the same way.

“So what’s this driver
like?” I gestured to the black number nine sprint car that was on the track
qualifying.

The number board in the
middle of the track flashed with the words fast time and Kyle smiled shaking
his head with a laugh as he leaned back against the bench behind him. “He never
loses that.”

Gentry,
who was
sitting in front of me, glanced over his shoulder at me. “The
driver is an asshole. Just remember that and you’ll be fine.” He turned back
around to drink his beer like nothing happened.

Kyle nodded. “He is an
asshole but he means well. Just don’t be offended if he doesn’t talk much when
he comes up here.”

I’d never met a race
car driver before and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect once they said he
was an asshole.

Dylan put his hand on my
thigh but laughed and raised it to my face when he looked over at me and
brushed what I assumed was more dirt from my nose. “Are you having fun?”

I nodded my eyes giving
me away and Dylan cracked a smile, his eyes drifting back to the track as the
next car came out. One by one, cars made their way onto the track and made what
Kyle said, a qualifying lap. Jameson Riley, the driver of that black number
nine car held onto that fast time.

“So this driver,
Jameson Riley,” I motioned to where he was standing in the middle of the track
with a group of guys surrounding him as they talked to the announcer, “is he
really good?”

Dylan nodded, his arm
circled around my shoulders. “Yeah, he’s won the championship for NASCAR
something like eight times now and he’s only thirty-one.”

“Wow!” I had no idea
what any of that meant but it seemed impressive.

As the nights
activities moved along, the wooden bleachers we sat in overlooking the clay
track filled with families and enthused race fans. A burst of lights above made
the cars and the wings shine with glimmer I found captivating right along with
the sound. The sound reminded me of Dylan’s car, that sharp distinct growl of
horsepower.

Dylan’s attention was
mostly on the racing but he usually kept one hand on me at all times, feeling,
remembering, making memories, our deal.

A few of the other
drivers lingered in the stands prior to what they called the heat races began,
none were Jameson but a few were said to be drivers that raced for him.

I don’t know why but I
wanted to meet this Jameson guy that everyone, including Dylan, talked so
highly of.

“He’ll probably come up
here after the heats, maybe,” Gentry had said to us after he managed to get us
beer. “But don’t get bent if he doesn’t.”

Kyle
snorted,
the noise in between humor and annoyance. “Just know that the only reason he’ll
even talk to us is because he’s here, at a dirt track.”

That seemed a bit rude
to me. Why wouldn’t you talk to people who came out to support you?

Dylan seemed to notice
my questions shifting through my head and leaned in bumping my shoulder. “He’s
not a bad guy.” He rubbed his forehead with his right hand before adjusting his
hat. “He’s just the type that’s single -minded when he’s racing.”

“So you’ve met him
before?” I said into his shoulder shielding my eyes from the sun as it peeked
over his left shoulder.

He noticed and moved
forward to block the light, his eyes squinting at the brightness before he
moved his shades that were on his head down. “Yeah, once at a track back home.
He’s from Washington.”

“Oh.” The thought that
he was from Washington made me cheer a little harder for him.

Before the main events
came on another group of people came into the stands. They were introduced to
me as Jameson’s wife and two boys, Axel and
Casten
.
They had a little girl too,
Arie
, but she was at the
merchandise trailer, whatever that was.

In a matter of two
hours, I had learned a whole new language that I never knew.
The
racing world.

Sway, Jameson’s wife,
sat next to me when Dylan went down to the pits with Kyle and Gentry to look at
the car.