Wreckless (4 page)

“He's gone.” Fairview Guy shook his head. “Didn't try very hard, did he?”

Suddenly, anger piled on top of all the hurt and humiliation.

“Yeah. Thanks a lot for pointing that out.”

I took his hand, letting him hoist me to my feet and then just stood there, a little numb. A little lost.

“Hey, Moore.” The group of Hawks football players who he’d been standing with wandered by, led by some guy with a twenty-seven on the sleeve of his jacket. “Looks like you hit a slow pitch. Easy win.”

The whole group laughed as they moved on.

That was one more reason I never did well in groups. I didn't get it. The inside jokes that would probably make sense to a five-year-old went right over my head.

When the group was gone, Fairview Guy—
Moore—
turned to me again.

“Look, darlin’, I’m serious. Do you have a ride? If you don't, I can't just leave you here.” He pulled his hat off and shoved a hand through his dark hair. It was just long enough to stand on end, as if he were growing it out. It might have been the only slightly awkward looking thing about him even as he look incredibly hot settling that hat back on and straightening the bill over his eyes.

I thought about everyone back at the fair. My boyfriend—
ex-boyfriend
—my ex-best friend, and my classmates. Yeah, tack on the classmates. Too bad they weren’t ex-classmates. They’d obviously known for a while.

I couldn't imagine asking one of them for a ride.

I couldn’t even imagine facing any of them. The thought of it had my stomach turning over in a way that made me wonder if Fairview Guy really was going to have to deal with a girl getting sick in the parking lot.

Instead of trying to figure it out I shrugged, letting my non-answer be the equivalent of
Sure, please drive me home
. I mean, there wasn't much in the way of choices floating around. The fair had a certain flow. Saturday night was all about dates and drama. Apparently I’d managed to quasi-squeeze both into my first year there.

Everyone else—the families and teachers and anyone else qualified to drive me home without all the drama—came on Friday night when it opened or Sunday afternoon when the little kids tottered around patting farm animals and eating too much. Otherwise, I’d be hunting down one of my parents’ friends to take me home. That meant I had Option A—suck it up and head back to the fair—or Option B—get in the truck. Or the never-really-an-option Option C: cows, gullies, and darkness.

That narrowed my choices way past what I wanted them to be.

I sucked in a deep breath, cursing Leah for putting me in this spot. She knew what this was to me. She knew what trust and strangers and boys and drama were to me. She knew everything, and it still hadn’t mattered.

My eyes stung, but I refused to cry. Tears were dangerous and hard to tamp down, so there was no reason to let them start in the first place.

“Sure. I mean, a ride would help.” I could hear my mama’s voice in the back of my head telling me to be nice to my potential kidnapper. “Thank you.”

He reached out and opened the door of the truck I'd been hiding behind.

Figured.

“Slide in.”

I glanced inside the cab trying to test it…to test
him
. No weapons sitting out. No rope or any other typical kidnapper tools. Nothing remotely suspicious. Which, of course, seemed suspicious. Maybe the truck was
too
clean.

My stomach turned over again. This was a really bad idea. But my options were either further humiliation or potential evil-kidnapping-things-type danger.

“I know this doesn’t help, but I’m just going to take you home.” Fairview Guy leaned around the door and glanced down at me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re all types of drama I don’t have the energy for.”

What was I supposed to say to that? It didn’t sound like a fake convince-the-girl-I’m-safe line.

“I'm Jake, by the way. Jake Moore,” he said, as if there was a chance I’d know who he was. He must play football. Around here, they all thought like that.

He stuck out his hand, a friendly gesture my manners were too ingrained to ignore. I was surprised how big it was when it closed over mine, reminding me how little I was compared to him.

“Listen, Bridget, I can see you’re worried about this. I don’t blame you. I wish there was something I could say to make this easier for you. But I really can’t leave until I know you’re able to get home, and I don’t see you walking back in there.” He jerked his head toward the fair.

He was right. I wasn’t going back in there. I wasn’t going back to being the girl everyone whispered about and stared at. I had two days left before I had to be that girl again.

Instead, I reached for the steering wheel to help me up and climbed in, very aware the extra couple inches he'd raised the truck was enough to make me even more awkward in a skirt. I suppose if I was a
certain
type of girl—for example, oh, Leah—that wouldn't have been a problem.

I eased my legs around the stick shift and practically crawled to the far side of the cab. Fairview Guy—I mean, Jake—gave the engine a gentle rev before pulling out and maneuvering us around the holey, pitted dirt road. Leaning my head against the window, I watched the parade of lights fade away in the passenger's side mirror as he pulled out of the lot and down the orange flag-lined dirt drive.

“So darlin’, where we headed?”

“Greenville.”

I had no idea how I was going to explain this to my parents. Not the getting home early. Not the unknown boy in the strange pickup truck. Not the fact that I never wanted to go back to school.

“Greenville? You want to be a little more specific?”

“No, thank you.”

Maybe I didn't need a ride all the way home.

The pale crescent moon lit a sliver of clouds in the sky, and the dark night closed the space in on me. The only good part about this was, it let me focus on how I was going to get home instead of everything that was going to hurt when I stopped to think about it.

“Who was he cheating on you with?”

I guess it was too much to ask for a silent ride. Not that it mattered. He was apparently the only one around who didn’t know. And it wasn't like I was ever going to see this guy again anyway.

“My best friend.”

“Ouch.”

Yeah. Understatement.

We drove on in silence, slow going over the Dawsons’ pothole-filled dirt road, the loud squeak of his shocks and struts filling the cabin.

I finally gave him a looking over, studying his unpracticed ease. He drove comfortably, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gearshift. He looked like a guy who got whatever he wanted, went wherever he wanted, and could be whoever he wanted. He didn't look like he worried about being who people expected him to be or keeping everyone happy. He looked like maybe he wasn't worried about staying safe…or even being safe. No. He didn’t look safe.

“Thanks, Jake.” I wasn't really sure what to say beyond that.

We drove on, the streetlights on the road finally appearing as distant spots ahead.

“Why do you think he was cheating with her?”

I really couldn't figure out why this guy was asking so many questions. Maybe they didn't get cable at his house. I'd have to explain those small satellite dishes to him.

For some inexplicable reason, I answered him. “I don't know.”

As if that was an answer.

Would knowing why have helped? Was there a way to understand this situation away?

“Didn't look like a new thing.”

Maybe the good Lord sent him to finish me off.

“I mean,” he continued when I didn't say anything, “They looked comfortable together. Everyone looked comfortable. Until…you know…”

Yeah, until I—the
actual
girlfriend—showed up. Then, not so comfortable.

“She's…she's more fun than I am.”

There. There it was. Leah was all about fun. Who wouldn't want to hang out with her? She was exciting and adventurous and willing to try crazy stuff. Not to mention pretty and flirty.

I was cautious. I was the one who pulled Leah back from the edge when she needed it. I was the safety net.

I guess no one wants to date the safety net. I'd been living life cloistered—even for Greenville. The last few years in particular had been a practice in how not to take a wrong step.

I could have written a manual:
Walking the Straight and Narrow.
Subtitled,
How to live a safe, easy life
. Or maybe,
How to make all the right decisions, never rock the boat, and have zero troubles come my way.

Obviously that had worked so well. Or not.

Jake glanced my way, waiting for me to say more. Or just doing that guy thing where one sentence was the equivalent of an entire conversation.

The silence started to grate. I wasn’t used to people depending on me to talk. To keep the conversation going. It was doubtful there was anyone out there who depended on me for conversation at all.

“She is more fun than I am,” I said again. It was a hard thing to admit, but it wasn’t much of a surprise. “Fun” wasn’t a word I typically tied to myself. Fun led to messy. Messy led to bad decisions and horrible life-and-death stuff no one wanted to deal with. “But I have very good reasons for not being
that
type of fun.”

“Darlin', no one has good reasons for not being fun.”

“No. I do.” I thought over all those quiet years in my house. I had a very,
very
good reason for wanting everything wrapped in cotton.

“There's a difference between not being fun and being boring.” He downshifted as he rolled us over the edge of the dirt road and onto pavement. “You can be fun at church…you know, if that's your crowd.”

I sucked in a breath.
Boring.
This stranger's words stole one of the truths I'd built my world on. He hadn’t even been a witness to that boringness, just a passerby. But after just a few minutes, he knew the difference.

And he was right. I'd confused
safe
with
boring
a long time ago. I'd been going through the motions as I watched my peers—including my best friend—make everything one adventure after another. Living life.

As soon as he spoke those words—those slightly cutting, very direct words—something shifted inside me, hard. I'd played by every rule, and even made some extra ones up just to be safe. Look what it had gotten me.

Hurt.

Humiliated.

There were so many things I'd never done. I stared out the window, thinking about Leah—which made me think about Christy, who I never, ever, ever thought about—and the lines they each had walked…and each had fallen off of.

I thought about my own lines. How they were broad as an interstate and far more dangerous. I didn’t get near those lines, let alone walk along their edges.

Even the smallest rebellions were untouchable to me.

“I've never missed curfew or lied to my parents or stayed out all night,” I said, pushing the weird confessions out for some unknown reason.

The eighty-seven-mile marker zipped by the truck, a short flash of green against the shadowed night.

“I'm not sure that's a bad thing.” The tone of his voice said he was actually questioning my sanity.

That was fine. I was starting to question it, too. But it was all rushing through me. All the feelings of loss for the time I’d allowed myself to be sidelined by a need for safety. All that, only to be taken out by people who had passed my own personal emotional security check.

“I've never drank. I've never kissed a boy at a party—or, for that matter, any boy who wasn’t Tanner. I've never trespassed or TPd a house or gone skinny-dipping. I've never stolen a sign. You know there's actually a Larson Lane—my last name’s Larson—and every time we drive down to visit my aunt, I wished I was the kind of person to steal a sign.”

“Okay…” He drew the word out like he was waiting for the point. Like there might actually be a point. “Is this like a sober, non-beverage version of I Never?”

I tried not to glare at him. “I don’t even own anything that would get me sent home for breaking the school dress code.”

He eyed what I was wearing and I’m pretty sure he snorted. I smoothed the skirt down as close to the edge of my knee as it would reach. My super cute sundress may not have been slinky, but it was still super cute.

“I've never gone cow tipping.” I wasn’t even sure where these ideas were coming from. Cow tipping? No one really goes cow tipping.

“Seriously?” Jake glanced my way. “You want to go cow tipping?”

He seemed more surprised by that than by my insanity-induced babbling.

“I don't know. I mean, isn't that what people do? Go to parties and drink and hook up and do stupid stuff?”

“And so you want to tip a cow over?”

“I'm not sure I'd want to tip a cow. I mean, they're kind of cute. From a distance.”

“They smell.”

“They totally smell.” I laughed, wiping the tears I hadn’t noticed off my cheeks.

“And what have they ever done to you?”

“One nipped me once when I was five. I have a scar on my shoulder. My dad said she was just looking to chew at my hair.”

“Well, there you have it.” He turned the radio on and lowered the volume so it played quietly under the purr of the engine. “They're innocent hair-chewers. But we all have bad habits. You can't really blame them for it.”

I laughed again, a little surprised to hear the sound. I couldn't believe that fifteen minutes after seeing Tanner with Leah something could make me not want to throw-up, let alone make me laugh.

“And,” I added, “contrary to earlier accusations, I've never cheated on a test.”

I thought about that, suddenly suspicious about who had sent the letter. The options had narrowed down from
I have no idea
to
Which one was it.

Jake glanced at the clock on the dash and over at me.

“Where do you live?”

I could see the lit-up dot of town growing closer. “Just drop me off in Greenville.”

We drove another few minutes, the only sound an old Tim McGraw song playing like a background soundtrack to my misery. I shifted on the seat, trying to pull the hem of my dress down over my knees. What had seemed cute and just a little daring when I'd put it on seemed too short now that I knew Leah had picked it out and that Leah was a Junior League Home Wrecker.