Biker Class (24 page)

"Yeah?" It was nonchalant and clueless as to what was going
on.

"Did... did you have any of my brownies?"

That was when she looked away from him, down at the floor bashfully.
"I'm sorry, Jake. Super... super-super sorry. I was really hungry so I had
some!"

He tried his hardest not to collapse onto the floor. He gulped,
"H-how many did you... have?"

"Two," she shrugged. "Sorry! Why?"

"Uh..."

Jake didn't know what to do. He couldn't tell her what the problem
was! First, she'd smack him for bringing a substance like that into her house.
Secondly, she'd smack him for even
having
that stuff, and thirdly, she
would look down on him, and suddenly, he didn't like that idea at all.

"It's nothing! I was just—just gonna give some to my
friend."

"OH! Well, it's okay then. We're cool! COOLEO. Right?"

Wait a second
, he thought. It'd already happened, so why
couldn't he enjoy himself? Melanie was actually pretty funny when high, he'd
discovered. Especially when it's the person who'd taken the drug's first time.
He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard another voice. He looked up to
see that Melanie had turned on the television, flipping through channels until
she turned to a certain one. On it was
Dora the Explorer
.

"
Come on, everyone! Vamos!" the little cartoon-girl
smiled. "Sing with me!"

Melanie stared at it as if it were the most interesting thing she'd
ever seen in her entire life. Her mouth was slightly agape, and he couldn't
help but snort in amusement. She looked hilarious!

"You know what?" she asked, as if it were the most crucial
thing.

"What?" he
chuckled.

"
This show
... this show is
completely
inappropriate."

"Really?" he asked, trying to suppress his laughter.
"And why is that?"

"Do you think Dora and Boots are
really
friends?" she
asked randomly, ignoring his question. "Do you think they go talk in their
weird language to Swiper about each other behind each others' backs?"

"I don't know..." he bit his lip. This was priceless! He
should give her marijuana-filled foods more often! "What—"
laugh "—do you think?"

She suddenly turned to him, sitting up straight and smiling proudly.
"You know what?" she asked him. She nodded, high and mighty. "I
can speak French just like Dora."

"You can?"

"Yep!"

"Say something."

"I'm not good under pressure!" she exclaimed, closing her
hands over her ears with her eyes closed tightly.

"I'm sorry," Jake laughed.

"It's okay," she said suddenly, her expression contorting
back to normal as quick as lightning.

Suddenly, an idea struck him.

"Hey, Melanie?"

"Yeah?" she asked, her eyes glued to the screen again as
Dora and Boots began to sing a song in Spanish.

"So you like my eyes, huh?" he asked, smirking, leaning
towards her ever so slightly. He was going to take advantage of her loopy state
and get everything out of her that he could.

She turned back towards him, eyes glued to his like they had been the
TV
screen
. "Uh huh," she answered
immediately, gazing.

"What else do you like about me?" he wondered. He not only
thought her answer would be funny, but he was genuinely curious for reasons he
didn't know. Melanie's cheeks turned a darker shade and she giggled. She pulled
her legs up to her chest on the couch, hiding her face between her knees,
reminding him of a six year-old about to tell a secret.

"You're very nice
waaay
deep down," she grinned,
embarrassed. "And you're hot."

His heart skipped a beat. "...Really? You think so?"

She nodded bashfully, avoiding his eyes. "What do
you
think of
me
, huh?" she asked suddenly, turning towards him, almost
bouncing.

"Well," he grinned, propping an arm on the back of her couch
and caught a strand of her dark hair between his fingers. He twirled it around,
and she watched him. "
I
think... you are
very
, very
pretty."

Her eyes lit up. "Do you really?"

"Sure do."

"Wow," she giggled. Spontaneously, she turned away from him
and her eyes were glued to the television. "Come on, Swiper! You can get
that magical horn! SHOW DORA
WHO'S
BOSS!"

Jake watched his own finger as he continued to twirl her soft, shining
hair. His eyes snapped from her hair to her face, which he saw as profile.

Right then, he realized something.

These feelings were more than just hormones that wanted physical
action. He was starting to enjoy her company...

What the hell was wrong with him?

"And how exactly is this going to help you study?" Melanie
asked skeptically, peering over her sunglasses as the wind whipped her hair.
The two were sitting on the beach, facing the ocean and letting the salty smell
fill their noses. The sun was beating down on them. Jake looked away from the
water and to his tutor who was still peering over her Aviator sunglasses.

"Clears my mind," was his short answer, but he smiled
charmingly at her before turning his gaze back to the water. This felt like the
perfect time to have a beer... but Sweet Melanie wouldn't allow that when he
was three years under legal age.

There were cons to hanging out with her.

But they faded away when—

He needed to stop thinking like that. Like, now.

"We don't want your mind 'clear' when you need to remember your
material," Melanie shook her finger at him, smiling, picking up the math
book beside her on the sand. She didn't bring the English book.

She had a feeling that he had vocabulary
down-pat
.
And she did, too. It was hard to forget some of his... uh,
word choices
the other night.

She remembered the hot blush that had spread across her cheeks that
night after he left when she explored the magical world of
Dictionary
.
com
. Melanie was surprised she could still
remember half of the definitions... for some reason, that night she was feeling
a little cloudy when Jake left. Weird.

Melanie had been sitting on her bed, legs Indian-style, typing the web
address in as quickly as she could before she forgot Jake's words. She tapped
her fingers impatiently on the keyboard of the laptop as she waited for the
internet
to connect. Usually it was lightning-fast. Figures
the one time she really needed it, it would decide to be slow.

Finally, after the few minutes that had seemed like hours, the
homepage for the dictionary website pulled up, and Melanie sighed in relief.
She clicked in the search bar and wracked her fuzzy mind for Jake's seemingly
sweet dialogue.

What was that he'd told her?

At first, she
thought
that he'd said she was... um...
c-comely
?
Was that right? That was a word, wasn't it? Melanie typed it in and hit
'search'. The loading felt like forever. The result popped up, and her eyes
raked it unforgivably.

Comely – [synonym] pretty, handsome, beautiful, good-looking,
personable:

She smiled goofily, but made herself stop, shaking her head. She tried
to beat down the tingly feeling that had been spreading from her toes to her
hairline.

Now... for the next word.
Wait, what
was that word that had rhymed with 'allure'? And he'd said 'but that is all
right'. Was it 'demure'? Yeah!

Demure – shyness, modesty:

She supposed she was quiet. Next word!

She couldn't remember! Her blurry mind whirled. What had he said?

"Melanie?"

She jumped, her head snapping towards her doorway. Ms. Hart was
peering in, smiling.

"Oh, hi, Mom."

"I made some brownies, sweetie. Do you want some?"

Bam.

It hit her.
All of it.

"Maybe later. Thanks, though!"

"Okay," she said doubtfully, backing out of her doorway.
"They have a peanut butter middle!"

"No thanks," she said dismissively, her fingers flying
across her keyboard as she typed in every word. Her mother shrugged and left,
closing Melanie's door behind her.

Melanie grinned ear-to-ear, remembering it so clearly.

"You are very comely," he winked. "I hope this won't be
a dalliance. You are sometimes demure, but that's all right. You are dulcet and
effervescent. You are emollient to my outlook. You have much felicity. Halcyon
is what you are. Sometimes you can be an ingénue, but that's okay, too. Melanie,
you have a lagniappe for spreading joy. You look lissome and lithe, and your
laugh is mellifluous. You are redolent. I'm hoping this is full of enough
eloquence for you."

Melanie typed as fast as she could.

Melanie stared at everything Jake had said about her. It was very
flattering.
Very flattering
. And why he'd randomly decided to spew
compliments to her that she couldn't understand, she didn't know. But it was
incredibly sweet now that she knew what the words meant. It was his way of
flirting with 'smart-people words' as he called them. And what confused her is
that she didn't know if this made her happy or nervous.

Melanie snapped back into reality as she realized she'd been staring
at the same math problem for five minutes. Jake hadn't said anything to her
about her sudden silence, not planning on making her talk about math if he
could help it.

"Um," she said suddenly, "I... I think a good number on
your SAT will be very... very
dulcet
." Jake's head snapped away
from the view and to her face, brows raised and eyes shining. The blue of the
ocean and of his eyes disoriented her, but she didn't let it show. Melanie
tried to play it cool, like always. And she was failing miserably, like always.

"You've been reading up on your English, Hart," he smirked,
his voice smooth and almost somewhat quiet.

"Well, I've got an SAT to study for!" she grinned hyperly,
completely ruining any romantic moment they may have been having. She buried
her nose back into the math book with eyes not on Jake. They were on school
things, which was where they needed to be. The
only
place they needed to
be.

Jake groaned to himself and rolled his eyes, turning his eyes back to
the waves. She was so hard to read. Suddenly, he had an idea. She seemed to
like it when he used big words, after all.

"You know what?" Jake said suddenly, sitting up straighter
and stretching his arms. "This is getting
cumbersome
. Why don't we
do something... uh,
emollient
instead of this?"

Melanie tried her best to hide the blush on her cheeks at the use of
the familiar word. "Uh... why don't we not?" she suggested weakly,
shrugging.

"I think you're lying to yourself," he said smoothly,
leaning towards her slightly. She was holding her breath and didn't realize it.
The sun was making his eyes a glowing blue, taking her breath away. "You
don't wanna do math either." He pushed the book down. Jake looked around.
"It's a nice day. Why don't we do somethin' fun?"

"F-fun?" She had a feeling that they had
very
different ideas of fun.

"Yeah," he grinned. "Why don't we ride around?"

Melanie suddenly had an idea. "You know what? I think I've got a
better idea."

"How is
this
a better idea?" Jake asked a little
irritatedly, an eyebrow
raised
. He looked to Melanie,
who was lying down on her back and staring at the sky.

"It's fun!" she grinned brilliantly, trying to convince him
to lie beside her in the tree house.

"
What's
fun?" he demanded. He clasped his hands
together in a cheesy way, batting his eyelashes. "Are we going to
lay
down and watch the clouds
?" He imitated what she supposed was supposed
to be a girl. "
Ooh, look! It's a bunny
!"

"Shut up!" Melanie snapped, a little more venom in her voice
that she'd meant. She took a deep breath and calmed herself before attempting
once more. "Come on, Jake! It's plenty
emollient
."

He sighed, rolling his eyes. He couldn't believe he was about to do
this. They'd look like some cheesy couple in a chick-flick, watching the
clouds. If his friends saw him now...

Jake lied down beside Melanie, scowling, staring at the sky unhappily.
The fluffy white clouds actually
did
make him think of bunnies. Ugh. He
swore, he could feel his masculinity slipping away with every passing second.

"Come on, you're ruining this for me," Melanie frowned,
hitting his arm.

"Now you know how I feel."

She held her tongue for a second, pasting a smile onto her face.
"Turn that frown upside down, mister! Just try it!" When he didn't
reply, she sighed, rolling her brown eyes. She'd just do it by herself, then.
After a few moments of silence, Melanie pointed to a slowly moving cloud
passing by. "That one looks kind of like a face," she said
absentmindedly.
Still no answer from Biker Boy.
She
tried again. "That little one looks kind of like a water bottle!"
Nada. Not a peep. Melanie sighed. She decided to try one more time. She pointed
again. "Now,
that
one
looks a little like a Harley."

"That looks nothing like a Harley."

Ha ha, success! She kept the argument going, smugly.

"Yes, it does!"

"Nu uh."

"Yes huh."

"'Yes huh'? What are you, five?"

Silence.

"It totally looks like a motorcycle."

He groaned, pointing upwards with his hand. "You know
nothing
about bikes, Hart. You see how it juts out in the front? That's not a
motorcycle, that's a chopper. Choppers have the big extension for the front
wheel."

"Ooh, my bad," she laughed, faking concern.

"Seriously. You were
so
off on that one," Jake
informed her.

"Was I really?"

"Yeah. You were.
Really
."

"Well..." she shrugged, eyes darting around the blue sky to
other clouds as well. "I think...
that one—
no, right
there—looks like a piano."

A deeper silence presented itself. His voice was softer, kinder
almost.

"I don't see it."

"Yeah! Yeah, see, it's right there. Cut off one half of it and it
is totally a piano."

"You are insane. It looks more like a nose."

"No, that's the wrong cloud! The one to the right of it."

"Oh. That one. Hmm. Na, I still don't see it. You're crazy."

"
You're
crazy if you can't see that, Jake. Look really
close on the left side of it."

Silence.

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'."

More silence.

"It kind of looks like my mom's piano."

Quiet.

"Really?" Melanie asked gently, wanting desperately to look
at him, but knowing that it would make them both uncomfortable, chose not to.

"Yeah."

"What was your mom like?" she questioned softly.
"You—you don't talk about her much."

Jake didn't know what to say. Normally, it was painful to talk about
her, but he had a feeling he would feel guilty later on if he just dismissed it
and ignored her questioning again. He sighed, uncomfortable.

"She was just... you know... a mom," he shrugged awkwardly,
watching an anvil-like cloud pass their vision. "Just like any other
mom."

When he didn't continue, Melanie cut in again. "What was she
like
,
though? You know, was she nice?"

Jake laughed dryly, almost to himself. "
Nice
? Yeah, she
was nice." There was a moment of quiet. All they could hear was a soft
wind that swirled around the structure. "She... she was one of the nicest
people I've ever met."

Melanie thought of her own mother and how much she looked up to her.
She hated to push, especially on an obviously touchy topic like this, but he
needed to talk about it. "How?" she asked.

"How what?"

"How was she nice? Like, what did she do?"

"She just... always smiled at me. Smiled at everybody. Made you
feel special. She was really nurturing, ya know? Even to people she was just
meeting. She was always so welcoming.
To everyone.
The
gardeners, the butler, the maid, her friends, her coworkers, random people on
the streets... me."

"What did she look like?" Melanie asked. Only did she
realize after it escaped her mouth that she was whispering.

"Wavy blonde hair. Skinny.
Bright blue eyes.
Warmest smile you could ever see. Laugh lines around her mouth, I
remember." His voice was getting quieter as well.

"Did you guys ever fight?" she wanted to know, remembering
her
oddly-real
dream of him fighting with his father.

Jake was silent for a moment, and Melanie assumed that he was
thinking.

"No, not that I can remember. I mean, I'm sure if she was around
now we'd... we'd butt heads some... but ya know... she's not." His voice
almost sounded a little strained at the end.

And there was the ongoing problem.
The fact that she
wasn't around anymore.
And Melanie was pretty sure that she knew why.
Considering that her dream had so far been so eerily accurate, she was just
beginning to assume that it was reality, whether it was safe to assume that or
not.