Biker Class (28 page)

"Sorry," she mumbled.

He glanced back at her, eyes angry, but softened slightly at the sight
of her. He took a deep breath and breathed out sharply, rolling his eyes.
"It's not your fault, Hart. I'm not pissed at you. It's just... when my
bike goes out at important times, which it likes to do, I get mad." He
kicked the wheel again.

"It's okay," she muttered quietly, half of her face hidden
behind her knees. Jake turned to fully face her, starting to feel a little bad.

"No, it's not," he shook his head, opening up his arm for
her. "Come on."

"No, that's okay."

"C'mon, Hart," he laughed, grabbing her and squeezing her to
his side. "I'm sorry, okay?"

She peered up at him and saw that his eyes were sparkling
apologetically, not dark, and leaned into him, smiling. After a while of
silence, Melanie mumbled,

"What do we do?"

"Hope someone comes along, I guess."

"But—but we don't know what kind of people could come
driving up! What
kind of people drive
around the
country at nine thirty at night? Not good people!" she panicked.

"Hey, I might know some of 'em," Jake laughed, but Melanie
didn't get the joke. She remained quiet, eyes darting around the dark.
"Hey, kidding!" he shook her, trying to make her smile. "C'mon, Melanie,
smile! You know something is wrong with the picture when
I'm
the one
trying to get
you
to loosen up." When she still didn't make a
sound, he sighed in defeat. "If anyone bad
does
come along, I'll
protect you."

She glanced up at him feebly, brows raised, as if asking, 'Really?'

"I'd punch 'em out," he grinned
brilliantly,
making her giggle slightly at the fact he could talk about such a gruesome
topic and smile so happily. Jake smiled as well. "There we go!"

"Some first date, huh?" Melanie asked comically, but Jake
frowned. "No, no! I don't mean it like that. We could... just sit and talk,
I guess. Nothing wrong with that, right?" While she spoke, Jake had risen
and turned on the headlight of the bike, then sat back down by her side.
"Why'd you do that?"

"So if any cars come along, they'll be able to see us," he
told her.

"Oh," she said, embarrassed. That should have been obvious.
"So... do you mind if I ask you a question?" He raised his eyebrows
in
a
'it-depends-on-what-the-question-is' way. She
sighed. "I've been wondering this for awhile. Since you, you know, don't
live with your dad anymore—" he visibly tensed "—
who
do you stay with? Did you buy your own place or
something?"

"Why?"

"Like I said, just curious."

"I live with Rage now," he said shortly. She waited for
more, but it didn't come. Melanie continued hesitantly.

"Oh," she nodded. "That's... nice, I guess. What's it
like?"

He looked at her in a 'why-in-the-world-are-you-asking-me-this-stuff?'
way. "Uh..." he shrugged, "it's cool, I guess."

"Yeah, I guess you guys can do guy stuff and have fun without
your dad around, huh?" she asked, laughing lightly but stopped when he
didn't follow. She looked at her fingernails awkwardly, not knowing what else
to say. He obviously didn't find any topic related to his father funny in any
aspect. "Well—"

"Melanie," he cut her off, holding up a hand,
"something you should know about me is that I don't like talking about my
dad or anything related to him. I thought you'd picked up on that by now, but I
guess you haven't." When Melanie looked a little taken aback and shrunk
back with her knees pulled up to her chest again, he made her jump when he put
his arm around her and pulled her to him. "How many times do I have to
tell you, Hart, I'm not mad at you?"

"A lot, I guess," she said feebly.

"Hey," he told her quietly, silkily, squeezing her tighter
to his side. She peered up at him again. "I'm sorry. If I ever... get a
little testy, don't take it personally, okay? I'm never mad at you, I'm just
mad at the situation. Like, I'm ticked right now because this was supposed to
be a great night for you, and we're stuck on the side of the road at ten at
night miles from your house. And it's my fault."

"No, it's not," she comforted him, patting his arm.
"You couldn't help that your bike decided to stop working because of
the... the belt wheel lineament!"

He threw his head back and ran his free hand through his hair,
laughing. He looked at her with an incredibly amused smile. "It's
belt
or wheel alignment
, and yes, it is my fault. I looked at it this morning
and saw problems with it, but I didn't fix it well enough, apparently."

"Well, you
thought
you did, and it's the thought that
counts," she grinned. Jake bit his lip, as if trying to decide if that was
true, then smiled.

"Thanks, Melanie," he breathed, his thumb rubbing lightly on
her arm. Melanie met his smile with a flirtatious grin, batting her eyelashes.
He laughed.

Groan
.

They both looked down to Melanie's stomach, and she gripped it in
embarrassment. That totally just ruined the moment!

Grumble
.

"God, I'm sorry, Melanie," he apologized again. "I'm
hungry, too."

"For the last time, you couldn't help it," she smiled,
holding his hand. But another sound that came from her stomach silenced her.

"Let's see..." Jake said to himself, digging around in his
leather jacket pockets, turning so Melanie couldn't see what he was doing. In
the end, he held out two things to her. He held his head high and said in a
snooty voice, "Well, Miss Hart, I'm afraid all we have on the menu tonight
is..." he held up one of the items, which was circular "...a
refreshing pack of spear mint breath mints, and
..
."
Jake held up a square pack "... icy mint
Stride
gum."

"Ooh, it's such a hard choice," she pretended to be torn,
glancing back and forth between them. "I'm gonna go with the usual tonight
and take the gum, I think."

They laughed as he handed her the pack and she took out a piece and
chewed. The rumbling in her tummy ceased temporarily. Jake took a stick of it
as well.

"I think I may order this again," he told her, face
completely serious, and opened the blue pack again. He took another piece. He
popped it into his mouth and chewed awhile, then blew a huge bubble. Melanie
poked it when it got to it's biggest and it exploded, blasted all over his chin
and nose. She erupted into a fit of giggles. "Hey!" he cried through
all of the gum, wiping it off of his face with his fingers. He turned to her
after a moment, asking gravely, "Did I get all of it?"

"Not quite," Melanie giggled, reaching up to his face and
wiping off some on the corner of his mouth. He watched her with appraising eyes
as she did so, avoiding his gaze.

Suddenly, blinding headlights came into their view. The car skidded to
a stop in front of them, the two having to hold their hands up over their eyes
to actually see. As they got up and walked away from the blinding path of the
headlights, they discovered that it was an older-looking red pickup truck. Melanie
didn't understand why, but Jake suddenly tensed and was standing as still as a
post. He gripped her wrist so tight that she almost cried out in pain and he
shoved her behind him. His jaw was set. Jake must
actually
know this
person.

The door opened creakily and they struggled to see who stepped out,
but it was easy to tell it must be a man. His heavy boots scraped against the
loose rocks on the road's pavement. As he drew nearer, Jake's grip tightened
even more on her wrist and Melanie winced, and his silhouette was huge.

"Jake, man!" he cried, punching him in the shoulder. Melanie
shrunk back even more behind the blonde as she took in the large man before
them. He was familiar. He had an odd baby face, dark, muscular arms, with a
tattoo of a skull.

"Rod," he said stiffly.

"What ya doin' out in da middle o' nowhere, dude?" he asked,
laughing.

"My, uh, belt is havin' issues on the Harley," he said, his
grip still not loosening on Melanie.

"Good thang I came along then, huh?" he laughed, eyes
wandering for the first time over Jake's shoulder. His smile changed into a
less friendly one and more like a lion looking at
it's
prey. "Oh, who's dis, man?"

"Oh, uh, Melanie," he said with difficulty, not moving Melanie
from his protective stance. "Her name's Melanie."

"She looks familiar," Rod smiled. "Oh, you that
dog-lover from the gas station?"

"Um... yeah, that's me," she said almost so meekly that she
couldn't be heard. Melanie had to keep herself from crying out when Jake dug
his fingers into the delicate skin on the top of her hand. She gathered from
that she wasn't supposed to speak.

"Mmm," he nodded, glancing from her to Jake with a grin she
didn't understand. "Okay then. Y'all need a ride?"

"We're good, thanks," Jake said stubbornly. Melanie sent an
extremely questioning glance at him. Even if the guy was a little shifty, they
obviously knew one another, and they needed a ride! And they could put his bike
in the back! Did Jake want them to be stuck here all night?

"Oh, c'mon, man, I insist!" Rod boomed, wrapping his arm
around Jake's shoulders and dragging them to the back of the dark truck. Jake
practically jumped into the back seat, taking Melanie with him and putting a
protective arm around her waist. "I'll get yo' bike," Rod told him,
shutting the door and going to the edge of the road to get Jake's Harley. Melanie's
mouth dropped when she saw the man pick up Jake's bike like it was a feather,
carrying it over to the truck bed and lying it down carefully.

"Hey," Melanie whispered, a little shaken, "what's the
problem?"

Jake just shook his head, sending her a look that said
'do-not-say-a-word'. A shiver went down Melanie's spine. Rod slammed down in
the driver's seat, making the truck rock, and turned to the two.

"Where to?" he asked.

Now Melanie understood. Since he'd be driving them... he'd have to
drop them off at her house. And he'd see where she lived. And for whatever
reason, Jake
hated
the idea of that. She wasn't too thrilled about the
idea, either.

This couldn't be good.

"Are you sure I should just drop you two off here, man?" Rod
asked skeptically, leaning out of his window, glancing around. "We only
drove, like, five minutes."

"Yeah, trust me, dude, this is fine," Jake assured him
stubbornly, still an iron grip on Melanie's wrist as he dragged her out of the
truck behind him. "We'll walk from here."

"
Walk
?" he repeated, face twisting up in confusion. Jake
winked at him, tilting his head towards Melanie suggestively. His baby face
twisted into a devious smile. "OH. Gotcha.
Walk
. Have fun
walkin'
,
lil bro."

Jake gave him an exasperated look and waved, signaling it was time for
him to leave them alone. Jake and Melanie began walking back to her house after
Rod drove away, which was only about five minutes away, Jake steering the
motorcycle as he walked, in mostly silence.

"Jake... what exactly did you mean by '
walking
'?" Melanie
asked suddenly, stopping with arms folded over her chest.

"Um... walking," he stated obviously, motioning to what they
were doing.

"No," Melanie shook her head, looking at him in a way he
hadn't seen since they'd first met. "You didn't. The... the way he said
'okay,
gotcha
' did NOT mean 'walking'."

"Yes, it did," he said, rolling his eyes. "I had to
make it sound like
that
to throw him off."

After a moment of silence, Melanie scowled. She finally spoke.
"Your friends are
gross
."

Jake laughed. "Aren't they, though?"

"Are you ready?"

"I don't know if I'm ready for this."

"Sure you are, Jake! Come on, it'll only take a second."

"Don't make me, Melanie. I'm not
that
kind of guy..."

"It's not
that
big of a deal. You don't really have much
of a choice, anyway."

"Yeah, I do! I could just say I don't want to do it, and then I
won't.
So
, I'm not. End of story."

Melanie and Jake were sitting on the cool grass underneath one of the
large, old trees on the Hart's property. The sun was just beginning to set,
tinting the sky orange, pink, and yellow, behind seemingly black and wispy
clouds. They were looking out over a beautiful, open grassy field.
School books
were scattered across the deep green grass, some
open and others closed and untouched. Melanie was waving an English book called
Poetry for Amateurs
around in Jake's face.

"
No
, Mister Slacker, you are
not
missing out on
another assignment," she scolded him, wagging a teasing, yet serious,
finger in his face. "Do you want to try and salvage your
Senior
year grades or not? And that means
no zeroes
on
anything
."

Jake groaned, hitting his head back against the hard bark of the tree
trunk. He closed his eyes, as if in pain. "Look at me, Melanie," he
begged, motioning to himself up and down, "do I
look
like the kind
of person who writes...
poetry
?" He said the word like it scorched
his tongue. Melanie looked him up and down, eyebrows raised indifferently.

"It doesn't matter if you look like the kind of person who writes
poetry or not, it's still an assignment, and it's still being taken for a
grade, which still affects your GPA," Melanie informed him.

Jake's head was leaned back against the trunk in exasperation with his
eyes shut again, but this time his jaw was set. He twisted his head to face her
but didn't lift it, sparing her a tired glance. "We've been at this for an
hour. Can we take a break?"

"Nice try, but you're not getting out of it that easily,"
she smirked, closing the poetry book and lying it in her lap. "If you
have
to have a break, we can. But the second we're done, we're jumping right
back to it."

The biker groaned again, loudly this time. He turned his head away
from Melanie and his face was facing the sky now, head still slammed back
against the trunk in a hopeless and final way. Jake was just blinking casually
now, eyes no longer shut.

"I hate English," he commented sourly, chest heaving as he
sighed. "Well, except for vocabulary." His eyes wandered over to a
pink Melanie as he smiled smugly.

"Well, what do you want to talk about on our break,
slacker?" she asked lightly, drumming the cursed-by-Jake book with her
fingers.

"I don't know," Jake shrugged. "Any
more
questions about me, Hart? That you don't already know?"

It couldn't be much, he thought. They'd had countless talks about his
home life. The topic was actually getting a little less 'forbidden' lately,
since it had been mentioned so often. Some things lose their thrill if you talk
about them too much. Melanie bit her lip and played with her nails. Jake
noticed that she always did this when uncomfortable, or knowing that she was
venturing into unknown or dangerous territory with him, so he instantly went to
the defensive. She used to look like that before she mentioned his dad.

"Um... this is a little off topic..." Melanie shrugged,
keeping her head down a bit, "but... you know your reputation. And what
people say about you, right?"

He scoffed. "Yeah! How else do you think I've gotten where I am
today?" He adjusted his jacket.

"Okay," she gulped, "well... I've heard about how
you've... you know..." she seemed to deliberate on how to phrase what she
was about to say next, "...
done s-stuff
with, um, girls,
and—" this caught his attention instantly, making him lift his head
off of the tree and face her, "—I was just wondering... if any of it
was, uh, true."

He felt like he needed to be honest, even thought she probably
wouldn't like the answer. "It depends on what you've heard," he said
cautiously.

"Um... you know, just—just stuff," she shrugged,
obviously extremely uncomfortable. "Stuff... stuff that said that you,
um... had girlfriends that you... did
things
with."

"What
kind
of—?"

"Oh, Jake, don't make me say it!" she cried, covering her
face with her hands. "You know exactly what I'm talking about." Melanie
peeked up through her fingers at him, feeling squirmy. She felt so... so tiny
and helpless, and he looked so bigger than she did. That's how she felt,
anyway. She felt like the kid here, and when it came to
that
kind of
stuff, she
knew
that
was
the kid here. "You, uh... fooled
around with them and stuff."

"You mean had sex?" he asked casually, making sure they were
talking about the same thing. He couldn't say he was surprised when she winced
at the word.

"Yeah," she answered softly, looking up at him with innocent
eyes. "Is all that stuff true?"

He bit his lip for a second, starting to nod slowly. "Most of it
probably is, Melanie. And I'm not
gonna
lie. Most of
it, if not all of it, probably
is
."

Melanie let out a breath she had been holding deeply. She knew in her
gut that it was true, and she didn't know why she had to ask, but she knew that
rumors could get nasty. She supposed that there was just a tiny glimmer of hope
inside of her that wished it was
all untrue
and that
she was worried about nothing. "Oh, okay."

"Why?" he asked. His mind raced as what he wanted to say
next surfaced. If he told her aloud, it would go directly against the bet, and
he could be lying to her face for all he knew. With a staggered breath, he
inhaled. "You know... you shouldn't be worried, Melanie. If—if you
don't... want me to do something, or if you're not comfortable with...
um," his blue eyes looked around, trying to word this carefully,
"something I'm, um,
doing
... all you have to do is tell me and
I'll... I'll stop."

She looked up at him with big brown eyes. Melanie had no idea how to
put into words how badly she had wanted to hear that... or how thankful she
was. She just let a huge smile overtake her face, the one that was her
trademark. She tucked her hair behind her ear. "That's... that's
such
a relief," Melanie sighed, draping a hand over her chest. "I was kind
of worried... that, you know, I might... no, it's nothing." She waved off
her thought last minute.

"You'd what?" he asked. He tried to smile, even though the
thought of it made him angry. "Melanie, you know that I'd
never
...
never
make
you do anything you weren't ready to do, right?"

She shrugged, which made his chest hurt. He couldn't blame her though.
If he
was
in her shoes, he'd probably think the same
thing. "Well," she smiled in a small way, "I do now."

"Good." The corners of his mouth pulled up as he draped a
lazy arm around her shoulders. After a moment of silence, he grinned, planning
to lighten the mood. "Okay, Hart, now
I
get to ask the
questions."

She laughed heavily. "Um, okay. What do you want to know?"

"What about
your
love life, hmm?" he asked casually,
smiling in a lighthearted way. Melanie took that in a more literal way than
what was meant.

"Oh," she laughed tentatively, "I—I don't...
don't
do
that kind of..."

"Oh, no, I
meant
, how many boyfriends have you had?"
he corrected himself quickly, not believing that he was almost a little red
himself.

"Why?" Melanie asked, amused.

He shrugged, using one of her famous quotes. "Just
curious
."

"Oh, well, um," she laughed shyly, twisting her hands
together, "I had one back in Wisconsin..." she smiled at the memory,
"but—but it was just puppy love, I think. It only lasted a couple of
months."

"Oh," Jake nodded, pushing down a few of the
typical-teenage-boyfriend-feelings when talking about their current
girlfriend's past boyfriends. He just nodded and pushed thoughts out of his
head. "Who else?"

Melanie looked away from him and put on a persevering smile. "Oh,
uh, that's it."

Jake almost couldn't believe it. He blinked. "You're
kidding."

"Nope," Melanie blushed, terribly embarrassed. Jake propped
his elbow on his knee, leaning his head on his hand.

"Seriously?" he clarified, disbelieving still. He knew she
was a goody-goody and all, but
still
...
one boyfriend
? It was
hard to swallow. With her looks, he figured guys would've been all over her.

"Aw," she flushed, "not—not really, hehe."

Oh. Did he say that out loud?

"Yeah, you did." Melanie's color deepened.

"Crap!" he muttered, slamming his palm into his forehead. Melanie
just laughed her signature laugh, like always. "Well... that's probably
just because they grew up with you, am I right?"

"I guess," she grinned bashfully.

"You've... you've probably gotten crap loads of attention since
you came to California," Jake said, knowing that
his
attention was
easily caught but the dog-loving new girl.

"Well... I don't know," she shrugged modestly. "All
guys really did was offer to 'show me around'. So, not really." He laughed
at her. "What?"

"Melanie," he laughed, shaking his head at how naïve she was
when it came to what guys wanted, "okay, here's a little glimpse into the
mind of a teenage guy." Melanie
rose
her
eyebrows. "If a guy asks to 'show you around', he is pretty much saying
'Hey, you're hot and I'm interested'." She scoffed. "Hey, it's the
truth."

"Well, I
have
had some guys come up and ask me out, but I
said no of course," Melanie said. "I just felt like they thought I
was pretty and that was it."

Well, the word they were thinking of probably wasn't 'pretty', but
whatever
, Jake thought.

"And," Melanie added, "I had some football guy ask me
out for
a second time
yesterday."

Now
that
caught Jake's attention. He laughed, but his eyes were
getting dark. "W-what? Really? W-who asked you out?" Anger was
brewing in the pit of his stomach, making his fists clench and unclench. It had
gotten around the school at least a week ago that they, him and Melanie, were
going out. If someone asked Melanie out before
they
were
a thing,
he was kind of okay with that thought.
But
afterward
, and when the whole school knew about
it,
that
was different. His blood was boiling.

"I'm not sure what his name was," Melanie contemplated, not
noticing his fast-rising temper. "Maybe it was a... a Todd? No! No, it was
a Toby. Definitely a Toby."

Jake bit his lip and stayed silent. Melanie hadn't noticed his rising
anger until he removed his arm from around her shoulders to prevent from
squeezing her to death. When she looked up to him, her heart jolted. His hands
were balled into fists resting on his knees, his jaw was clenched, his face was
growing red,
he
was biting his lip so hard that he
could feel blood in his mouth. But what startled her most of all was his eyes.