Southbound Surrender (3 page)

I wish I could stop in to have a word with Shaman Amy. I think I have a lot to thank her for.

“Big Dave, are you going to help me get this tire on its rim before I have to get the lasagna out of the oven?” I ask. I use his name in hopes of snapping him out of his trance.

“Beef recipe or turkey recipe?”

“Beef, extra mozzarella,” I reply as I turn back to the bike and grab the screwdriver, thankful that Big Dave let the whole college thing go for now. It’s going to be a long year. “Have to keep bulking up.”

“For what?” Big Dave bends down and pretends like he’s being useful. The reality is that Big Dave hasn’t helped with this bike all that much in the last year even though he knows his way around any garage with his eyes closed. Being a mechanic is another one of his passions – he doesn’t call them jobs, they’re passions – along his spiritual journey. He’s taught me everything, at least almost everything anyway, that he knows. I think he’s leaving out some of his best kept secrets just to keep me in this garage, tinkering at this metal monstrosity. Plus, he promised me the Shovelhead once we’re done with it. He could’ve had this bike finished within six months of getting it. I could’ve been driving it eighteen months ago. Instead, I’ve got the dirt bike.

“No single reason.” It’s not a lie. There are two reasons why I need to keep bulking up; the most important has striking green eyes and the most kissable lips. The other reason is that I want to bench my weight by the time I’m eighteen. Pretty lame, I know, but every guy has to have goals. It doesn’t help that my best friend has a body of a god, which he barely lifts a finger for, and consequently, most girls go heartthrob over. He needs to start using his strength to his advantage, and I decide that we should have another talk about it tonight. Boy to man.

“Ah, so there’s more than one reason, but I’m guessing
she
is the number one reason.”

“You’re probably right, Big Dave. You’re probably right.”

Either his spiritual enlightenment crap has actually worked, or I’m an open book for everyone to read. Either way, I’m screwed.

***

I’m waiting for Hudson, like I always do, on the front steps of our white, fourteen hundred square foot ranch where I’ve lived my entire life. Well, almost my entire life. Big Dave and I moved here when I was three, after he quit his high-paying executive job with a ridiculous amount of stress and matching paycheck. He was in his early thirties then, and I guess it’s a pretty big deal to be a Vice President at that age. He paid for the house in cash and his custodian’s salary ensures we have plenty of food on the table, clothes on our backs, internet at my disposal (it took some coercing, but I convinced him five years ago), a regular old cellphone, and the basic necessities of life, which to Big Dave, doesn’t amount to much. Don’t get me wrong, Big Dave isn’t lazy or dumb or unmotivated or some whacked-out hippy. My dad just is.

Most days, I’m okay with his philosophy because I’ve never met any other parent, or adult, like Big Dave. Dad is unequivocally happy without a care in the world, and he’s accomplished what he set out to accomplish: a stress-free life. He’s nothing like my Aunt Linda, whose stress-inducing presence can be felt the second she gets within ten feet of you. Aunt Linda drives a pristine black BMW and is a Sales Manager for a pharmaceutical company in town. She also harbors a serious amount of tension in her neck and upper back. I can tell by the way she walks around, all stiff with quick jerks of her head. Just thinking about Aunt Linda stresses me out. I know I don’t want to be like Aunt Linda, and I know that being a doctor could possibly be one of the most stressful jobs there is, but I
know
I would be good at it.

As the Dodge Neon slows and pulls up in front of our house, I promise myself that I’ll at least apply to a few colleges and leave my options open. In case I decide I want to be good at something in life.

“Have fun and don’t worry about coming home tonight,” Big Dave calls through the window. “Sow your wild oats. Live a little!”

“You know we will,” I mutter before I make my way down the steps. Big Dave and I both know I’ll be home in less than five hours, well before midnight, despite the fact that it’s the first big game for the Xavier football team and the historical last Friday night before senior year, which equates to a huge bash at an undisclosed location. The secret location is told only after the football game and always ends with stories about who snuck in a bottle of vodka or who dropped her underwear first. Year after year, the warnings are harped by the school and parents, and year after year, the party somehow goes on without the cops ever finding the group of a hundred seniors. It’s incredibly magical if you ask me. A Christmas freakin’ miracle minus Jesus’s birth.

“You ready?” Hudson asks as I rattle the passenger door shut. As much I hate riding in the Neon, the heralded girl teenage car, it’s better than riding tandem on my Yamaha. Nothing screams “pansies” more than riding a dirt bike together, so we take the Neon in stride.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I reply as he veers onto the road.

“Damn, Cash. What is that smell?”

“What smell?”

“The smell like you marinated in smoked leather and lavender. Throw in an orange peel and a dirty sock and that’s what you smell like.” Hudson rolls down his window with a low laugh. “What did that girl do to you? I think I’ll need to have a word with that Piper Sullivan.”

“Just drive.” I roll down my own window to feel the breeze of the waning summer air blow between us. Okay, I admit, I was probably a little heavy on the cologne, but Piper has stirred something primal inside I don’t want to talk about with another living soul. Not even Hudson, my single-most trusted confidant.

“Does your dad know where we’re headed?”

“No, do your parents?”

“Of course not. You know they want me at the game, but there’s no way I’m setting foot on that field again,” Hudson replies as he leans his elbow out the window. “They’re still on me about it. My mom goes around sighing and pretending to dust the house every Friday night during football season. And my dad, you know him, he’s just silent most of the night. If I pretend to go to the game, at least they find a little comfort in that.”

***

I don’t ask if Hudson wants to go to the game because I already made that mistake two years ago when Hudson quit. He stormed off the field based on “principle” he said, but the rumor was that he told the coach to go to hell. Seeing as we attend a Catholic high school and everything, it didn’t bode well with the coaching staff or the administration. He was lucky, according to Principal Watkins, and was asked to stay on the team as long as he apologized. He was their star quarterback after all, but Hudson declined. I got a forearm in the throat when I asked him if he wanted to go to the home opener. We don’t talk about football anymore. As for the rumor, I know Hudson well enough to know he didn’t say it. Rumors, after all, are just that.

The forearm against my throat is the closest Hudson has been to hurting anyone, at least that I know of. I’m pretty sure I’m right because it’s hard to hide anything from someone you spend most of your waking time with, other than school or work. Hudson helps woodworker John while I clean toilets with Big Dave. I drew the short end of the father-son bonding stick on that one.

“What’s on your list?” I ask to get Hudson’s mind off football.

“Pens and a notebook,” he replies. “And a flash drive. I think I lost my other one.”

“Nothing’s lost until you know the exact moment that you lost it. Otherwise it’s simply misplaced,” I say, eyeing the glow of the clock on the dashboard.

“Your theory about losing crap is ridiculous.”

“It’s not a theory, it’s true.”

“Whatever. Then I misplaced it. All that matters is that I need to replace the stupid thing,” Hudson says as he flips the turn signal. We pull into the parking lot at exactly 7:30 p.m., kickoff time, but I don’t mention it to Hudson because I’m sure he already knows. The red Target bull’s-eye zooms in on us, calling us out as the losers that we are. We’re two seventeen-year-old dudes out back-to-school shopping instead of getting drunk and losing our virginity. We pass the sign and park only a few stalls from the building because nobody else shops at Target on a Friday night during football season. Most of Appleton is at the Xavier game, or the North, East, or West games, the three public high schools in town. This town breathes for Friday night football because there isn’t much else to do in the sleeper town of Northeast Wisconsin unless you’re a farmer who is undoubtedly birthing some calf in a back field, Big Dave who doesn’t watch any sports, or Hudson’s parents who are too heart-broken to attend any more games. Or unless you’re a guy that got kicked off the team and that guy’s best friend.

***

We ceremoniously walk up to Target, like we have for the past four years of high school together, and embark on our final trip of school shopping. Yeah, we really need to work on that badass image.

The fluorescent lighting beams us into the store, and we each grab a red basket. Hudson is already swinging it at me before I can move, and it smashes the back of my legs. I lift my basket higher and threaten him with it before I catch a glare from an elderly woman heading toward us. I drop my basket down and give old White Hair a smile as she passes us.

“Wuss,” Hudson coughs as he leads us to the school supply section in the back of the store.

“You just wait,” I say, but we both know that Hudson doesn’t have anything to worry about. We stop in front of the expansive back-to-school area with too many options and products for any normal student. A pencil is hanging overhead like a rocket or penis, whichever you want to envision.

“Ha, I’ve been waiting for ten years –” Hudson stops mid-sentence while I peruse the pens. I like the ones that have a nice flow with a decent grip, not too inky so it will smear across the paper, but not too dry so it won’t work when you need it to. I have a thing for finding the right pen.

“Yeah, it’ll come when you least expect it,” I say as I set my eyes on a BIC Select Roller. It’s five dollars and the last one left, but I know it will be worth every penny so I reach out to grab it when a hand tipped with a set of pink nails appears out of nowhere and snatches it before me.

“Hey, I was – ” I turn to face the culprit that is about to snag my pen. My mouth drops, and my arm is still hanging in the air. I feel Hudson’s hand pull my arm down as he lets out a small laugh.

“Going to buy this pen?” Piper Sullivan finishes my sentence as she holds the package in the air. She waves it back and forth in front of her pink V-neck shirt that’s plunging way more than my hormones can handle before she throws it in her basket. “Such a gentleman for offering to buy a pen for me. First he stalks me, then he offers to buy me a pen. And to think, we haven’t even gone on a date yet.”

My heart pounces in my ribcage as I take stock of the magnified view from earlier today. If anything, it’s better than I imagined. Her lips have a light sheen to them, plump, wet, and ready to attack. And her eyes are more ferocious with a green strike that tears through me. My face flushes every shade of red in a Crayola box while I look to find the right words to respond with. A date? I would die for a date with Piper Sullivan.

“Okay, stalker boy. This is where you ask me how I found you,” Piper says with a cock of her head. Her blonde waves fall to one side, dragging across her breasts. I stare a little too long before my eyes shoot up to her face.

“Excuse me, let me scrape my friend’s mouth off of the floor,” Hudson jokes as he elbows me.

“Yeah, how did you know it was me?” I finally manage to stutter. The hole in the fence was only an inch or two in diameter. There’s no way she could have seen me.

Her lips turn up into a knowing smile before she points down at my shoes. All three of us look down to see my knock-off white Chucks with fluorescent laces.

“I saw your shoes underneath the fence,” she says. “And then I saw another pair of shoes just like your friend’s over here.” She points to Hudson’s black Nikes. “Stalkers found and apprehended. Case solved.” She curtsies and then blows a kiss at me.

Oh God, those lips
.

“Don’t look at me,” Hudson says as he raises his hands in surrender. “It was him. I just happened to be delivering some cabinets with my dad down the street when I saw his bike. I decided to come check it out. It’s not every day that Cash Rowland is on the north side of town without me.”

“Cash Rowland, huh?” she says, eyeing me. I stand up taller and puff out my chest even though, at this point, nothing is going to help me when I’m standing next to the man-child.

“Piper Sullivan,” I say as I reach my hand out to hers. Shaking hands feels like a formality lost on my generation, but I do it anyway because I would do anything just to feel her skin against mine. She reaches out and meets my hand.

Her skin is so incredibly soft.

“I see you’ve done your homework to find out who I am,” she says as she continues to shake my hand. Her hand is warm and smaller than I would have guessed, but the grip is firm. It’s full of meaning like she has something to prove to me. She’s not the type of girl to go down lightly.

Somehow, a handshake is turning me on.

“Yeah,” I say, not moving my eyes away from hers.

“This is awkward,” Hudson mumbles as he moves a few feet away from us and pretends to look at notecards even though he has never taken a note in his life.

“That’s Hudson, by the way,” I add, nodding toward him. He’s behind her now, but she doesn’t move her eyes from me, which is surprising and completely abnormal. Ten out of ten girls would choose Hudson over me. Hell, I don’t blame them. But this gorgeous girl, she’s looking at me. Hudson violently shakes his head, waves his arms, and silently screams no. Then he points at me.

“Good to know. Why were you watching me earlier today? Did you like what you saw?”

“Um,” I stutter and her hand finally stops moving up and down in our handshake. And I realize that I’m standing in the middle of Target, in front of the pens, holding a girl’s hand I’m confident will fill and break my heart at the same time. I don’t ever want to let go.