How It Rolls (18 page)

             
“Because you and I could have a lot of fun.  Your little derby girl would never have to know.”

             
I moved to the side, trying to get away from her a little.  “Yeah, I’m good.  I’m not the cheating kind.  Have a nice night.” 

             
“Oh, come on.  I’m sure she’s really busy always practicing and these things.  I’m sure you get lonely.  Derby widows
always
get lonely.” 
You’ve got to be kidding me.

             
“No, I don’t.” Then she started laughing.  And when Reed passed by after a successful jam she leaned over the railing and hugged the girl and fist bumped her.  Then she skated off. 

             
“Farrah, I presume?”  I said and laughed with her.  “Did I pass the test?”

             
“You totally did.  Especially since I’m so lame at coming on to guys.” 

             
We watched the rest of the bout and she told me how much she loved Reed and how she had been dealt a shitty hand in life.  After it was over, Reed in one piece but looking like blue and purple camouflage, we all went out to eat at the pizza place where the team usually went for Friday night dinners.  Farrah was really funny.  My phone alerted me to a text and after I realized it was from Reed I tried to act casual since she was sitting across from me but couldn’t say whatever she wanted to say out loud. 

             
R:  See? Whole-Team-In-Your-Pants.

             
I looked around and a lot of girls suddenly were very interested in their pizza.

             
F: Only one girl in this world for me. 

             
She answered in the form of a blush and suddenly this pizza place was the last place I wanted to be.  Strike that, I didn’t want to be any public place.  I wanted to be with Reed, alone, anywhere but here.  And by her pinked cheeks and neck I knew that she would go with me if I prompted her.  But she hadn’t seen her friend in a while so I squelched my desires and listened to Farrah tell stories about a young Reed.  They had managed to stay friends through all of Reed’s moves.

              The team began to file out one by one until only the four of us were left.  Maddox wanted to go back to the eighteen and over club they had gone to before and Farrah looked like she would go into an erupting volcano if he went. 

             
“Are you coming Falcon?” Farrah asked me and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go.  But Reed gave me that ‘please don’t leave me with them’ look. 

             
“Yeah, I guess I can tag along.” 

             
I drove my truck even though Reed rode with Farrah and Maddox. If I had to go, at least I wouldn’t get stuck there.  I was the only one who wasn’t asked for an ID.  And when Reed pulled hers out, I saw the other ID that sparked Maddox’s revelation.  We entered, crossing the threshold my ears were barraged with obscene decibels of noise which, according to the people gyrating on the dance floor, was called music.  Mad and Farrah went straight for the pit and it swallowed them.  I looked at Reed and she looked as uncomfortable as I felt.  She grabbed the cuff of my shirt and dragged me to a corner. 

             
“You don’t want to dance?”
Please don’t want to dance.

             
“Ugh—no.  I just wanted to come so I could hang out with Farrah a little bit more but I guess that ship has sailed.”

             
“Nah, I’m sure she just went to dance and she’ll be back to drag you out there too.” 

             
“Maybe,” she shrugged.  We took seats at a sad excuse for a table while she rubber-necked the crowd for her friend.  I mimicked her, trying to spot Maddox to no avail.  Then I spotted someone I didn’t intend to and turned my gaze elsewhere as fast as I could, but I was afraid I wasn’t fast enough.  It was Kate, dancing with not one guy but two and it was definitely not the tango. 

             
“Who is that?” Reed asked beside me. 

             
“Um, that’s Kate.”  I shrugged. 

             
“Really,” she said and went back to her search.

             
“You wanna go into the crowd and see if we can find them?”

             
“Yeah, let’s go.” We got up and searched.  It turns out the club was divided into different rooms and every room had a different theme, but the music was all the same.  We finally found Farrah and Maddox in the corner of the ‘black light’ room and they were not dancing.  I didn’t have to ask her what she wanted to do.  We both turned at the same time and headed for the exit. 

             
We got into my truck and I drove us both home.  I could tell that she was preoccupied.  We climbed the steps to the apartment; I unlocked the door and she went in before me without a word. 

             
“What’s the matter?”  I laid down on the couch, my head in her lap.

             
She ran her hand over my faux-hawk, it was now growing back, and answered. “I don’t know.  People change I guess.  I really don’t have anything in common with Farrah anymore.  She’s all about partying and guys now. I don’t know; it’s just weird.”

             
“I guess they do.  I use to have some friends in high school who had been my friends since we were little but then they went away to colleges and we e-mail sometimes.  Mostly I just hang out with my brothers.”

             
“And me.”

             
“And you, of course.  I’m just glad you’re not upset about me seeing Kate there.”

             
She laughed a little, “No offense Falcon, but that girl looks like she’s been rode hard and put up wet.”

             
“She didn’t look like that when I dated her.”

             
“I hope not.  And apparently your taste for women has changed significantly.”

             
“Definitely for the better,” I said and turned towards her, my face now against her belly.

             
She ran her fingers over the outer rim of my ear, down my jaw line, down the side of my neck.  I couldn’t imagine lasting very long if I was ever deprived of her touch. 

Chapter 24

Reed

I want to wear flip-flops for the rest of my life.  They’re not just mere footwear.  They can act as makeshift fly swatters, they clap for you when your hands are tired.  And once I saw a lady take off her flop and swat her kid on the butt.  Yeah, that was probably going to be me one day.  ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves.’

              Monday, Nellie and I argued about hair color.  I desperately needed to color mine and wanted to keep my orange.  Nellie had a different idea.  We took off after work, before the family dinner, and went hair color shopping.  Well, we both shopped for me.  She read something about coloring your hair while you were pregnant, something about the chemicals getting to the baby, so she wasn’t going to color her hair until she had the baby. 

             
We went back and forth until she bribed me with a milkshake.  I was such a sucker for anything that contained ice cream.  It was ridiculous.  So we settled on teal—teal!  It was the color of Cyan wool blocks in Minecraft.  Nellie, of course, likened it to the color of Uranus. 

             
“It is not the color of Uranus, give me a break.”  I laughed as we drove back to the bookstore.

             
“Dude, how do you know what color my butthole is?  I might have some kind of mutant mermaid ass that’s teal, like Uranus.”

             
“Wait, do mermaids have buttholes?”

             
“Gross Nellie—well, otherwise how do they—I mean they have to—ah Hell, I don’t know.” 

             
We laughed all the way to the restaurant.  We went in through the front and the guys were already seated, waiting for us.  I kissed Falcon on the forehead and sat down to my plate.  While we ate we found out that Chase and Sylvia were going to Italy exactly three weeks from that day.  And then as Owen announced he was also leaving on some research trip the same day, all eyes turned to Falcon. 

             
Owen spoke up first. “Falcon, you’re gonna keep an eye on Nellie, right?”

             
That fired Nellie up fast.  “Owen, I’m
having
a baby, I’m
not
a baby, jeez.”

             
He turned to her and after only a few seconds of whispering in her ear, her entire demeanor relaxed and she smiled up at him as he caressed her cheek.  I guessed that was the end of that argument.  Owen gave Falcon a look across the table and Falcon nodded slightly, no one else probably noticed it.  And just to show him that I did, I reached under the table and squeezed his thigh.  I tried to pull my hand back but I wasn’t quick enough.  Falcon reached down and put my hand back where it was.  I cut my eyes sideways at him as he tried to suppress a smile. 

             
We finished our meal and made our way back home.  We both showered and I sat on the couch while he studied next to me.  He took a deep breath and exhaled it.  And then a few minutes later he did it again.  I turned off the TV and turned to him. 

             
“Ok, spill it.  What’s wrong?”

             
He smiled at me and slammed his books closed and put them on the table beside him. 

             
“I love my family.  I’m just gonna put that out there before I start.”

             
“Of course you do, Falcon.  You’re preachin’ to the choir.”

             
“Ok, so I just feel the pressure sometimes to be this upstanding guy all the time.  To be the one who takes care of things.  The one who handles situations.  The one who cleans up messes and the one who is left in charge of protecting.  I know I’m responsible by most people my age’s standards but that doesn’t mean that it’s the only thing I want to do.” 

             
So there it was.  Yes, he loved his family but they assumed and expected him to take on these roles.  It was dragging him down.

             
“What do you want to do?  Just say whatever is on your mind.”

             
He rolled his eyes at me.  I would have to persuade him a little.

             
“Ok, for every thing you confess, you get to hear a confession from me.”

             
“Now we’re talkin’.”

             
“Ok, so talk.”

             
“I haven’t paid myself a salary from the restaurant or the bookstore in two years.”

             
“You what? You mean you’re working for free?  How do you afford to live?”

             
“Oh, no, those were not the rules, Poppy.  I confess, you confess.  No questions.”

             
Well, just aggravate the piss out of me why don’t you?

             
“I first started skating when I was thirteen because some kid at school called me a fat lard. No comments, your turn.”

             
“When you said you couldn’t see me anymore I came home and cut off my Mohawk.”

             
I gasped and then slapped my hand over my mouth.

             
“I was wondering what happened.  Ok, let me see.  At my last foster home I had to sleep on a blow up mattress in the laundry room.”

             
You could practically see his blood boiling at that one.

             
“I had planned to take you to Avery Island after my parents’ wedding thing.  But now I have to stay here and keep an eye on Nellie while Maddox takes a road trip with his friends.”

             
“I’ve never been to Avery Island,” I cooed at him.  I had no idea—none.

             
“I wanted to surprise you.” 

             
“Not this weekend, but next weekend, I have no team dinner, no bout, and I’m off work on Sunday.  I can ask Nellie if I can have Saturday off too.  But I don’t know if I’ve been there long enough for that to be ok.” 

             
He smiled the biggest, broadest smile I’d ever seen and pulled me into his lap.  Again, I had gotten past his walls and got to the real Falcon.  The Falcon, I realized, that not very many people took the time to see. 

             
“I will make sure you have Saturday off.  I have to call tomorrow and make reservations.” 

             
“You were really upset.  I wish they could see this Falcon.”

             
His hands on my hips dragged me closer. “And which one would that be?”