Running Lean (26 page)

C
alvin gawked, his arms held wide in question, while Tyler and Flannery wrestled over the cell phone. Flannery squealed as Tyler wrapped his arms around her, having fun at Calvin’s expense. “No—Ah! No cell phones!”

Tyler caught her wrists and pulled them above her head. “Give. Me. My. Phone back!”

“I’ll drop it. I’ll drop it!”

“Do it, and I’ll drench your bike seat in motor oil. Give it.” Tyler slipped his grip higher, got his fingers around her hand and the phone.

Calvin lunged forward, reached up to grab the phone himself, but the wrestling pair skittered away from him. “Y’all, come on. I’m dying over here.”

Flannery bent forward, stretching Tyler across her back. His feet slipped in the pine straw-covered ground, nearly toppling them both.

“Promise you’ll turn it off,” Flannery demanded, squirming but trapped.

Tyler snatched the phone away. “Relax. No good signal out here anyway.”

Flannery’s father came around the side of the family’s twenty-one-foot
camper trailer, where he’d been hooking up hoses. “You can get a signal when we make our food run.”

“Da-ad! What about getting away from it all, enjoying nature, peace and quiet, and all that stuff?”

Dave barked a laugh. “Peace, quiet, and dirt bikes? ‘Sides, with the ruckus y’all are making, you done scared away all God’s creatures already.”

With a victorious smirk, Tyler shoved his phone into his pocket.

Calvin huffed and dropped his arms to his sides. He ignored Flannery and confronted Tyler. “So? That was Stacey, right? What’d she say?”

“She asked for you, but I couldn’t make out anything else. I lost the signal and then
somebody
grabbed the phone away.” Tyler squatted next to the tent they had just spread on the ground before his cell phone rang. He picked up a pole and started assembling it.

Calvin tugged his hair. “I should try to call back. Might be important.”

“I don’t have any bars. I’m surprised she got through at all.”

“No phones!” Flannery yelled from the door of the camper.

Calvin groaned. “We
heard
you the first time.”

She went inside, leaving the camper door swinging. “Who was that, anyway?” she yelled.

Tyler turned back to the tent. “It was your nana. She wanted to make sure you didn’t forget your jammies and pookie bear.”

Sudden movement rocked the camper. An instant later, Flannery’s arm appeared through the door, a stuffed bear in her hand. “Ta-da!”

“Hey!” More scrambling inside the camper. “That’s mine!” her little brother Nigel cried.

Tyler fed his tent pole through the pockets of the tent. “Ah, yes. Peace and quiet.”

Calvin gave up, dropped to his knees, and found another pole.

Why did Stacey wait until now to call? Did she lose her brain and forget about the camping trip? Or did she do it on purpose just to drive him crazy?

He shoved his pole through the top loop. The metal tip snagged on the nylon.

“Easy. You’ll rip it.” Tyler freed the fabric and straightened the pole. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Forget about it. I just need to get out on those trails.”

“I hear ya, bro.”

Setting up Calvin’s dome tent took less than five minutes. Organizing the camper took longer, as Flannery’s mother traipsed back and forth from the trailer to the SUV, carrying plastic bins filled with household stuff. Calvin and Tyler unrolled their sleeping bags and tossed their duffels and riding gear inside the tent, eager to get the important stuff taken care of. As if on cue, Flannery dropped the tailgate on the pickup truck and scrambled up with the bikes.

“Food run first.” Dave waved his daughter down. “Help your mama at the store.”

“I thought we were going to feast on all the humungous fish you catch.”

Dave lunged for Flannery and got in a single noogie before she squirmed away. “Tomorrow. Prepare to be stunned and amazed.”

Tyler opened a canvas camp chair then held his phone out toward Calvin. “You want to call Stacey back? Take the phone and go with Flannery and her mom.”

Calvin looked down at the chair, at the tent behind it, at the green woods around him. No, he really didn’t want to call Stacey back. This trip was supposed to be his escape from all the drama, the only chance he’d have for some fun before starting work on Thursday. Stacey had no right to ruin it for him. She could wait.

At least that’s what he tried to tell his heart.

“I’ll hang here with you and Dave.”

“No riding while I’m gone!” Flannery called as she followed her mother toward the SUV. Her little brother rushed past her to claim the front seat.

No sooner were they gone then Dave set his tackle box on the picnic table and started sorting lures.

Calvin slouched down in the camp chair until his neck rested against the canvas. He stared at patches of blue sky poking through the tree canopy. A breeze cooled his face. His muscles relaxed, and his arms flopped over the sides of the chair. But his fingers twitched and his brain refused to switch off. It had been six days since he’d spoken to Stacey. He’d accepted the idea that it was over between them, and had hoped the camping trip and riding would be the thing to start him on the road back to normal.

Thanks a lot, Stace
.

At the sound of a pull tab, he lifted his head. Tyler swigged a can of Mountain Dew.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Bought it when we stopped for gas.”

“Got any more?”

Tyler held his can toward Calvin.

“No way. Not with your backwash in it.”

Tyler shrugged. “
Flannery
would take it.”

Calvin snorted. “No doubt.”

Tyler settled into another camp chair. He leaned toward Calvin, turning the aluminum can in his hands. “What am I going to do about her?” His voice was almost a whisper.

Oh, great
. “Don’t ask me about relationship stuff right now.”

Tyler smacked his lips and stared at the ground.

Calvin sighed and sat up. “Sorry, that was rude.”

“Forget it. It’s not that big a deal.”

“It’s a pretty big deal to her.”

Tyler lifted his eyes toward Calvin. “I don’t want to change
anything, you know? We’re friends, and, um, like, you and Stace were together for months, and now you’re not even talking to each other. What if that happened with me and—” He glanced at Flannery’s father, still busy with his fishing gear. “Know what I mean?”

Calvin wanted to say things didn’t always end up that way. But what did he know? His one and only real relationship with a girl had taken a high-side spill into a drainage ditch. “All I can say is to be straight with her.”

“Yeah. But—”

“But what?”

Tyler shook his head. “Not yet. Not while we’re here.”

Calvin leaned back again and stared at the sky. Conflict at camp? “Yeah, that’d be
bad
.”

His chest rose and fell as if he’d been running. His knee started bouncing. Why did Stacey call? What if she had gone to the doctor and found out she was actually sick?

She had her family and Zoe to watch out for her.

And
Noah
.

Calvin’s stomach clenched. “I can’t just sit here.” He pushed out of his chair and strode to the pickup truck. “Let’s get these bikes unloaded.”

Dried mud spattered his goggles. The muscles in his arms, legs, and shoulders burned with exertion as the Enduro surged up another ridge and gave him what he’d come for, a ride through open air.

Not far off Tyler’s tail, Calvin skidded around one of many boulders in the trail and accelerated. Tyler must have heard him coming. Without looking back, he popped a little wheelie on his Kawasaki and tossed more dirt at Calvin’s headlight.

A mud patch split the path ahead. Tyler might slow down. Might. To the right of the puddle was a narrow dry strip. Calvin took it.

There was a reason that path was the way less traveled. A thick tree limb jutted out at eye level. Calvin ducked, hugging the gas tank. Adrenaline flooded every muscle. He came off the path just ahead of Tyler but moving so fast that he struggled for control.

Calvin cranked his throttle. The engine stuttered then accelerated. That tiny hesitation made Calvin’s heart jump as much as the tight space between him and the other bike. A glance in his rearview mirror showed him how close he’d come to slamming his rear end into Tyler’s front tire, which would have dumped them both. He sucked in a hot breath. Part of the game. He’d apologize later.

Calvin accelerated, but the Yamaha coughed and the exhaust popped before giving him more speed. Heat radiating off the engine cooked Calvin’s knees.

No problems. Not now. Please!

He powered the Enduro up another rise. His body and the bike moved in concert. Calvin felt every tree root, pebble, ridge, and trench passing beneath the tires. Though the engine struggled, the bike responded to the smallest press of his hands and shift of his weight.

A powerful four-stroke engine roared in his ears. Calvin glanced left in time to see Flannery’s Suzuki 450 fly past. He hissed. Flannery was going too fast for a blind turn ahead. She hit the brakes, and her rear tire skidded. Her boot made a scrape in the dirt as she tried to save herself.

Calvin lost sight of her around the corner. He eased way off his throttle. Tyler caught up to him and did the same. They puttered around the turn together and found Flannery flat on her back, limbs splayed out, her head resting in a fern bank. The Suzuki silent six feet away.

Calvin killed his engine and jumped off, almost forgetting the kickstand.

Tyler was one step ahead of him reaching Flannery’s side. “Flan, are you all right?”

The riding armor covering Flannery’s chest vibrated. Her upper lip and a flash of teeth appeared above her chin guard. She was laughing. She lifted her arms toward Tyler. “My hero!”

Calvin groaned and pivoted away. No worries. Nothing to see here.

Tyler helped her to her feet. Still, Flannery rose with the grace of an old lady getting out of bed. She pointed at the bike. “I rolled over here. I was almost stopped but lost my balance.”

Tyler let go of her hand and thumped the back of her helmet. “You’re like a squirrel on caffeine. We need to put you on a tricycle so you won’t hurt yourself.”

“Ha. Beat you.” Flannery slapped dirt from her riding pants as she walked to the Suzuki.

A big engine revved in the distance. Calvin looked back the way they’d come. “Four-wheeler alert. We need to fly outta here.”

“Mom’s probably getting supper started anyway,” Flannery said. Her bike started on the first kick. Just as quickly she sped down the trail.

Tyler’s helmet rocked side to side on his shoulders. “Girl’s insane.”

“That’s Flan for ya.” Calvin swung his leg over the Yamaha.

Dave had a fire going when they glided back into their campsite. Tyler won the toss for the shower, so Calvin had to be content to pound the dust from his jacket and deal with his sweat-soaked T-shirt. While he waited, he took a bristle brush over to his bike and knocked off the worst of the mud clumps. He thought about asking Dave to check his carburetor, but daylight was fading, and Patty brought burgers to the iron grate covering the fire. Tomorrow morning.

The air cooled quickly with nightfall. They gathered around the fire eating hamburgers and potato chips. In the darkness beyond the firelight, singing frogs seemed so numerous that Calvin envisioned them jumping over each other among the tree roots. Laughter from another campsite carried over, but Calvin’s group settled down, happy and exhausted. Nigel burned a marshmallow and ate it anyway. Calvin sat cross-legged on the ground next to Tyler, who slouched in a camp chair, softly snoring, one hand hanging limp over the side.

Flannery snickered. “Got a bucket and some warm water? We can dip his hand into it.”

Calvin grinned, imagining Tyler jumping wide-eyed from his chair and scurrying off in the dark to find the toilet. “Alas, no bucket.”

Dave laughed. “Yo, Ty. Get to bed, boy,” he called across the fire.

Light flashed across the tree trunks, lighting up the whole campsite. Car tires ground to a halt in the dirt. Calvin blinked at headlights and heard a car door slam.

“Calvin!” A figure danced in the light, wildly maneuvering around the parked bikes.

“Oh no,” Flannery groaned.

Calvin pushed to his feet. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

There’d better be a real good reason.

Stacey staggered into his arms. She shook violently and sobbed against his chest. “I couldn’t find you! I’ve been looking forever for you.”

Voices and questions arose around them. Calvin tried to push her back, but she wouldn’t let him go. “What are you doing here?”

“I-I thought you were staying at Badin Lake. You weren’t there.”

“Badin Lake is the name of the whole area, not this campground. Stacey—” He managed to pull away and look at her face. Dark streaks stained her cheeks.

“I went to Badin Lake Campground. I looked for motorcycles, but only saw big RVs. Someone told me about this place, but I got lost in-in the dark. I was so scared!”

“Stacey, what are you doing here?”

Dave appeared beside them. “What is going on?”

Calvin looked over his shoulder. Awake now, Tyler stood and pitched something into the fire. Flannery glared with her feet wide and arms crossed. Patty stood with her hand pressed to her lips. And Nigel just stared with his mouth open.

Stacey clasped Calvin’s arm, her fingernails sharp on his skin. “I’m sorry. I just had to talk to you, Calvin. I
need
… I need to talk to you.”

“Oh, come on!” Flannery cried. “Couldn’t it wait until we got back?”

Calvin pulled his hair. “Oh man. I so don’t need this. Flan, just—”

Stacey took a step back and hugged herself as if she were cold. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I won’t be any trouble. I-I can … s-sleep in my car.”

“Oh, now, I don’t think we’ll make you do that,” Dave said. “Flannery can share her bed in the camper, if necessary.” He raised his hand against Flannery’s complaint. “First, let’s hear the story, then we’ll decide what to do. Stacey-girl, do your parents know you’re here?”