Biker Class (13 page)

"Are you not going to let me talk with your beautiful
daughter?"

"I would, Leanne, but we really need to make rounds. It was good
to see you, I hope you are enjoying yourself."

"Okay. Goodbye, Melanie."

"Bye!"

***

"Sorry I, uh, took so long," Melanie apologized, walking
back into her bedroom, an incredibly bored-looking Jake sitting on the edge of
her bed. "Making rounds, you know."

"Yeah, sure," he shrugged. Melanie turned her back to him,
putting an arm against the wall and propping up herself, using her other hand
to slip off her heels. She groaned, wincing as she threw them on the floor. The
circulation on the back of her heels was cut off, pink.

"Why do girls wear those things?" Jake asked bluntly, his
brows
raising
at her temporary injuries.
Because it
makes you look hot
, he thought. He kept it to himself, however. No
perverted jokes of any extent allowed.

"I don't know," she whined to herself. She really was starting
to question her sanity as far as her choice in shoes went. There was a reason
she had curvy legs, she supposed. Muscles will form if she wears those so many
times. Jake glanced at the clock on his phone while she threw her shoes in her
closet. "I'm sorry I took so long. Really." She smiled shyly. "I
guess you didn't learn much today, huh?"

"I wouldn't have remembered anything anyway," he lifted his
shoulders and dropped them in a shrug.

Melanie had had something on her mind for the last thirty minutes. It
was common for kids to act out when their parents were with someone new, right?
Maybe that's why Jake did what he did. Perhaps it was a way to vent his
frustration of the feeling his father was trying to replace his mother. She
knew there had to be an explanation for this. Rachel said about the time he
started going bad was in ninth grade, and according to Rosie, Leanne met his
dad around two and a half years before. That time frame matched up, didn't it?

"I met a lot of interesting people downstairs," Melanie told
him. He merely mumbled 'hmm' while texting someone. "Rosie… Layla… Sylvia…
Leanne…"

Jake glanced up from his phone, meeting her eyes for a split second.
He quickly looked away and
back
to the haven of his
screen. He muttered again.

"Do you, uh, know any one… of those names?"

His head snapped up, searching her face scrutinizingly. She must know.
He watched her as she pulled her hair into a high ponytail, sitting down in a
green chair beside her window. Jake squinted, watching her expressions.

"Why?"

Melanie shrugged shyly, watching him with a new look in her eye. It
looked like she was looking at a lost puppy.

"I, um… I heard that your dad has a girlfriend," she
mentioned, biting her lip. She watched for his reaction. After all, they barely
knew one another and she was asking him about home life. "I met her
downstairs." Jake didn't say anything, just staring at his phone screen
but not using it. Just staring. "Leanne, right?"

He spared her a glance. "Yeah. So what?"

"Do you like her?"

"Why– why do you care? Why are you asking me this?"

Melanie was silent, a little taken aback, and stared at her hands. She
shrugged. "I was just… wondering."

"Why are you wondering?" he demanded. He hated talking about
his father and his girlfriend. He always tried his best to forget them.

"I just thought that… m-maybe… you might want to know that she is
downstairs." Neither of them said anything for a while. Then, "You
know, to say h-hi or something."

"I have nothing to say to her."

It was blunt, void of feeling, a little angry.

"Don't you want to–?"

"No, Melanie!" he exclaimed, making her jump. He lowered his
voice hastily. "I don't really have anything to do with my parents. Let's
leave it at that."

She daren't bring it up again, easily seeing the unhappy feelings he
had towards it, and she didn't need to give him another excuse to get angry or
do anything else along those lines.

For the rest of the hour, Melanie tried telling him techniques that
helped her remember formulas in math, but she could tell that he wasn't really
there. His mind was somewhere else completely. It was obvious. She knew it was
either on her, on a girl, or on his home life. Melanie had a feeling it was the
last.

Their heavy steps going down the staircase echoed in the crowded house
as Melanie and Jake came downstairs. Melanie didn't speak as he opened the
front door of her home without so much as looking back at her or anyone else. Melanie,
politely, waited at the doorway and saw him out, watching as he trudged towards
his bike with hands in pockets, head down. But then they both seemed to notice
something quite…
eye-catching
as Jake closed in on his motorcycle.

There stood Lucky, proud and strong.

He was holding Jake's eye as if it spoke of the dominant one.

With a single leg lifted.

A squirting sound.

An infuriated and dumbfounded Jake.

A horrified Melanie.

"
Lucky
!" she shrieked, running towards the bike and
the dog as fast as she could. "No! No, no, no, no! Bad dog!" Jake was
already lethal enough as it was, he didn't need a dog marking territory on his
bike to add onto it. The bad boy wasn't
speaking, fists
clenched as he stared at the dog and his precious bike, lip twitching slightly.
But before Melanie could reach them, Jake exploded.

"You– you freakin'
dumb, piece of shi
–"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Melanie interrupted hastily, leaning
down and picking up the smug canine. She sheltered him with her arms and he
didn't stop glaring at the animal like he was going to kill it.

"He
peed
on my freakin'
bike
!"

"I– I know he did, but he doesn't know any better and–"

"Oh, I can freakin'
promise
you that he knew better; that
stupid flea bag! I'll kick that thing until it can't breathe!" Jake raged,
nostrils flaring.

"Don't you touch my baby!
"
Melanie
growled, holding the little grey dog to her chest protectively. She stroked
Lucky's
ears as a high-pitched growl escaped the dog.

"That… that…
thing
," Jake breathed, fury encasing him
as he pointed a shaking finger at the animal, "urinated all over my
Harley! He needs a hard kick in the–"

"No, he doesn't! I won't let you touch a hair on his head!
Haven't you and your buddies done enough
harm
to this
little guy enough as it is?" Melanie demanded, standing up for this poor
animal once again.

"Not
enough
!"

"If you want to get to him, you are gonna have to go through
me
!"

Jake's eyes were clouded with anger. He stepped closer to her slowly,
not dropping eye contact with her. "That can be arranged."

As much as Melanie was tempted to waver, she stood her ground. She
wasn't going to let Lucky get hurt on her watch. Not again.

"I'm not backing down," Melanie said certainly, quietly,
holding his dark eyes. They stood there for who knew how long, having a
stare-showdown. Little did they know, this moment would foretell quite a bit in
their relationship. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Jake took a step
back and looked away exasperatedly, sighing in aggravation. His jaw was set as
he whispered,

"Just get him out of my sight quick and I won't beat the ever
living snot out of him."

Melanie didn't need to be told twice. She turned her back and Lucky
peered at Jake over her shoulder. If he didn't know better, he'd say that that
dog was smirking at him! Melanie sat him down and Lucky just stood there,
staring at Jake challengingly. He barked once, pronouncedly. Jake advanced on
the dog, and Lucky quickly bolted away towards the backyard, barking and
growling all the while. The biker stopped in mid-stride nodding and smirking.
"Yeah, that's right. Not so tough now, are ya?"

Lucky was out of sight soon, leaving Melanie standing there awkwardly
in her dress and a pair of flats. He stared after the canine, huffing.

"I'll, uh, get some paper towels," she whispered awkwardly,
going inside hastily and appearing moments later. She bent down to where the
dog had… ahem…
relieved
himself and began to rub and dab with her nose
wrinkled.

Jake watched her in her little black dress, 'polishing' the bike, the
wind blowing her hair back behind her, and he found himself smirking again. He
checked himself before she noticed, but he liked the idea of that. He got a
thrill out of her cleaning his motorcycle, for some unknown reason. Melanie
finally stood to her full height, sighing and holding the towels far away from
her.

"Done," she muttered. She met his eyes for a brief second
before throwing the pee-stained towels in the nearby garbage. "Sorry about
that."

"Yeah," he mumbled in return, stepping on it and kicking it
to life. It leaned to the side as he adjusted himself and looked at her to tell
her one last thing before he took off. "Just make sure it doesn't happen
again."

"So, um, I guess I'll see you next Wednesday?" she asked
hesitantly, hands clasped together in an innocent manner. He looked back at
her, the smallest and slightly forgotten trace of a smile on his lips.

"Sure. Whatever. Don't know if it'll help any anyways,
though."

The way she looked at him made him stop himself from taking off at
when
their
conversation
should
have been over. Jake
looked back at her, brows raised. She bit one side of her lip while the other
side pulled up in a half-smile.

"It'll help," she told him.

"And what makes you so sure about that?" he asked, actually
a little
amused
at the fact she thought so.

"Because… I, um, I believe in you," she said, shrugging
nonchalantly. For some reason that he didn't completely understand, Jake cut
off his motorcycle and his hand went limp on the handlebar. He was looking at
her with a look that couldn't be explained. It was befuddled, surprised,
unsure,
somehow
thankful.

"You
what
?" he asked, and it came out in some form of
an unbelieving laugh.

"I think you can learn," Melanie nodded, smiling smally.
"But you have to apply yourself." She emphasized the last statement.
An odd feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach that wasn't familiar to him.
This girl–
hot
girl– that he barely knew– but made it
a mission
to
get close to– was telling him that she believed that
he could learn– something he'd never heard. No teacher ever made an
effort to 'tap into his potential'. No peers or friends ever said he was smart.
His father definitely never told him that he was sharp.

This feeling in his stomach was foreign to him.

Was he feeling… proud?

He didn't do this… academic stuff. He wasn't a nerd. Jake didn't exert
any effort when it came to school. Well, granted, he exerted effort to
disrupt
school, but never to do well in it.

"I think if you put as much effort into your work as you do into
riding that bike," she grinned, pointing at it, "and acting crazy…
then, I… I honestly believe that you could do– do pretty well."

Jake was speechless for the first time ever. He couldn't say anything
but ask skeptically, "Really?"

Melanie nodded, smiling earnestly. "Really."

Jake cranked up his bike and revved it a few times, smiling at her.
And it wasn't a smirk. And it wasn't forced. It was a
smile
. But he
didn't roll his eyes. He didn't scoff. He didn't even say thank you.

"See you at school, Hart," he winked, speeding away before
she could register what was going on. The dirt from the gravel swirled in
clouds around the back of his bike as he left. Melanie watched and listened
until she could no longer see nor hear the Harley Davidson.

***

"And how did it go?" Lawson asked Jake that night at the
regular fire underneath the dock, taking a swig of his beer.

"
I, um, I believe in you," Melanie had said.

"It was… interesting," he replied uninterestedly, shrugging
his shoulders. Jake took a drag from one of his rare cigarettes. He suddenly
felt more stressed since this bet had been initiated.

"…And?" Rage questioned. He wasn't yet drunk out of his
wits, but he had remembered enough from the night the bet had been set to
remember there was one at all. The fiery
red-head
was
deeply drawn by Lawson's little proposition for Jake, and always asked often
about the subject. Jake exhaled and the grey smoke floated into the air,
blending with the smoke from the beer bottle-filled fire.

"Well, her mom was throwing some kind of party for people at her
office and crap," he said, smirking, "so Melanie had to dress up and
make sure she was 'presentable'. Three words:
Hot. As. Hell
."

Rage wolf-whistled. "Oh, dude, wish I had been there to see
that."

"All for my eyes, man," he wagged his eyebrows, clicking his
tongue. "It's sweet."

"Just wait until you get that eye candy unwrapped," Lawson
grinned, seeming to toast the air with his bottle. "Too bad Rod's already
done his initiation. He would have gotten to that by now."

"Oh
yeah
, man!" they heard from behind a distant dock
pillar. Rod was currently on look out. Jake chuckled to himself.

"It's only been one session," Jake reminded him.
"Remember, she's the goody-goody virgin. It may take a while to get to
her, but I'll do it."

"You better," Lawson said, but his voice wasn't very
humorous.

"After all," he scoffed after taking another breath-full of
nicotine-filled smoke, "how long is she gonna be able to resist
this
?"
He motioned to himself up and down. Rage and Lawson rolled their eyes.

"Well, anyway, enough about Jake and his little project,"
the leader said in a final tone, slowly getting out of his chair and beginning
to walk up the beach. "Talkin' about chicks is getting me riled, guys. I'm
goin' to the strip club."

"Have fun," Jake called after him, laughing.

"Neither of you comin'?"

"Nah," Rage shrugged. "Already been twice today."

"Jake?"

"Too lazy to get up, man."

"All right. I'm goin' to get laid!"

They heard Lawson's Suzuki G-Strider take off, and Rage whirled around
to Jake immediately. His devious smile matched his fiery hair, appearing to
flicker on it's own in the light of the flames.

"I wanna hear."

"Hear what?"

"Come on, ass-lick, I know that you were holding out with Lawson
here listening in. I want details on your special little virgin." He was
smirking like mad.

Jake couldn't deny that he had been anything less that detailed about
the tutoring session when he knew Rage could detect the truth. The blonde
lifted and dropped his shoulders in a shrug, smirking his special smirk that
couldn't be replicated.

"The curves, man," he shook his head, eyes shut tight as he
remembered that dress. "
Hot
."

"Yeah, well I know that," he rolled his eyes. "I've
seen her."

"I mean in that nice little black dress she was wearing," Jake
winked, making Rage's eyes light with devilish glee. "She is so hot and
she doesn't even know it."

"Which makes her hotter," Rage added. If he were
more drunk
, the blonde boy was certain he would have been
drooling. Jake just nodded, taking another drag then throwing the small packet
into the fire. "Oh, man… if she's got a friend, fill me in."

Jake's mind flashed to Rachel. He shook his head. "Don't know if
you'd want to get involved with her."

"She ugly?"

"Nothing close to Melanie, if that's what your expectations
are."

"Well, crap."

They were both silent as they listen to the orange fire crackle and
the sea's waves swell. A couple of sleepy sea gulls cawed and the large, tan
moon watched them.