Taking Risks (22 page)

             
Remi awkwardly came to hug me and asked me if I was alright while Jane stood back and listened to our short conversation. After I assured her that I was fine they both gave me an anxious look and took off. I was probably better off with no friends anyway. People who hung out around me seemed to always end up hurt. I was like the plague.

             
When the police were all finished with me, Risk took me back to the school to pick up my car up so that it couldn’t be further vandalized by Gillman’s friends. He dug a small pocket knife out of his pocket and it didn’t take too long before my poor car was free. Risk shoved his knife back into his pocket and turned to me.

             
“I’m glad you knocked that dude out. If I would’ve gotten a hold of him, I’d be in jail and he’d be in the morgue.”

             
I smiled up at him and wondered how far he would go to defend my honor.

             
“You can’t stay with me tonight, my mom is going to be home in the morning.” I said as I pouted. Risk chuckled a little and assured me that I wouldn’t even miss him. He told me he would see me at breakfast and kissed me softly on the lips. When I got to the driver’s side of my Delray, Risk turned around to look at me. His eyes were glowing green as I saw the emotions running through him. In that moment I realized how much he really did love me. I smiled my warmest smile at him and tried to pour my heart out through my gaze like he had just done for me. After he smiled and turned away I muttered to myself, “I probably just gave him crazy eyes and that’s the last I’ll be seeing of him.”

             
Gray, who had been waiting in the car for me, heard what I said and started laughing at me, of course. When he got himself under control he asked me, “So are you done wrecking the town yet? I think the fuzz is catching on.”

             
“Seriously? The fuzz? How old
are
you?” I said.

             
Gray laughed and shrugged his shoulders at the mystery. I figured that Gray had to have lived in the eighties. His hair was definitely a similar style to the eighties in that it was nearly buzzed on the sides and was a few inches long on top and in complete disarray. He also, almost always, sang eighties songs and the few times I had seen him dance he busted out some pretty ancient moves. Sometimes I got really curious about Gray’s past, but lately the mystery had been killing me.

             
Risk must’ve liked Gray’s hair because he just recently got almost the same haircut. I heard that the eighties were making a comeback though, so maybe he just followed the trends. I was completely the opposite. My outfit usually consisted of a stretch cotton t-shirt with skinny jeans and flats. My hair was never done in any fancy way and my makeup was modest and simple. I just couldn’t wrap my head around why someone like Risk would want anything to do with someone like me.

             
I stopped my daydreaming as Gray and I pulled into the driveway. The house seemed quiet and it was a welcoming feeling. Mom would be home in the morning and we were going to get my hair done for prom. Even though I had driven a wedge between Risk and his family, he had brought my mom and me closer together and I loved spending quality time with her. When my dad died, Mom threw herself into this new job and kind of left me in the lurch to deal with her own grief without realizing what she was doing to me. I was always pretty self-sufficient though and I always had Gray’s company so I never felt completely alone.

             
When I got ready for bed and snuggled into my super soft comforter my phone chirped with a text message.

             
“Can’t wait to twirl you around the dance floor tomorrow. Every guy there is going to be jealous of my gorgeous date.”
Risk said.

             
I seriously laughed out loud at that. I’m completely uncoordinated and I was made fun of by our classmates on a daily basis. No one but Risk was even going to notice that I was there. I sent him a message back that said,

             
“I guess I forgot to mention that I’m sort of a klutz. Dancing with me is going to be more of a chore than you think.”

             
A few minutes later my phone chirped again.

             
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. Get some sleep and I’ll see you in the morning before you and your mom leave for your hair appointment. I love you Spud.”

             
UGH! I looked around the room and, just as I suspected, Gray was nowhere to be found. I’m sure he and Risk were hanging out and Gray conned Risk in to calling me by my nickname. My face was a little red with embarrassment and I typed a message back to Risk.

             
“I’m gonna kill that fucker. No one was ever supposed to have to deal with him besides me anyway. Tell Gray I said goodnight. I love you too…Jerk Face.”

             
I felt as if I could almost hear them laughing at me from afar as I watched my message send. Those boys were really going to give me a run for my money. I shook off the embarrassment, deciding that I needed to get used to it, and put a Cindy Lauper CD in my radio and turned it down low. Even though Gray wasn’t with me I still needed my music to get to sleep and I needed the sleep to hopefully rid my eyes of the purple bags underneath them. 

              I woke up to a tingling sensation on my nose. When I opened my eyes I saw Gray rubbing his hand in my face like a brother would do to his sister to annoy her. I groaned as dramatically as I could and flipped over so that my face was buried in my pillow. I thought that he was actually going to leave me alone but then I felt a huge body fall next to me and I was flopped around on the bed. I was surprised, at first, thinking that Gray couldn’t have done that but I uncovered my face and saw that Risk was also there. Risk and Gray as a team were really starting to become an issue for me. After all, I needed my sleep to survive and I needed it more now than ever.

             
Risk nuzzled himself in beside me and I felt my annoyance towards him melt away. He kissed me lightly on the temple and said, “Your mom is downstairs practically making wedding plans for us. You’d better get down there if you want a say in floral arrangements.”

             
My eyes shot open and I quickly looked between Risk and Gray to see if they were joking. Clearly, they weren’t. Gray laughed and said, “What’s the matter, Spud? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” He laughed harder then and Risk whispered in my ear.

             
“I didn’t mean to freak you out, I just know what’s in the cards for us. I think your mom and Gray know it too. You’ll figure it out soon enough.” Then he kissed me deeply and I heard Gray groan. I wrapped my hand around his neck and started to raise it to his head when he pulled away. A quick look around the room showed me that Gray had gone and Risk was dark eyed.

             
“Come on.” He said. “Your mom is waiting for us downstairs.”

             
I shook my head as if it would clear my dirty thoughts and smiled slyly at Risk. I pushed myself off of the bed and stuck my bottom lip out in a pout while walking away from him in a way that would pull his attention to my ass and get his juices flowing. When I had cleaned up enough so that I would be considered acceptable to go out into public, I went to meet everyone downstairs for breakfast.

             
Mom already had the table set for three people because Risk had become a regular at our house for breakfast. I went to the table and plopped myself down in my usual chair, which just happened to be between Risk and Gray. When I sat down I heard Gray mumble, “I’m surprised you two got your hormones under control and made it down here.” That made Risk laugh and I was blushing. Mom noticed that I had made it down to breakfast and beamed at me, obviously excited that we were going to be having a girly day.

             
She set a plate of eggs and sausage down in front of me and said, “I thought it would be exciting for you to have your
boyfriend
wake you up today.” My cheeks grew redder when I thought about how she had no idea just
how
exciting it had been.

             
“I can’t wait until I can wake her up every day.” Risk said and I starting choking on the eggs I had just shoveled into my mouth and Mom’s grin grew wide.

             
She made matters worse when she said, “Oh! Am I going to be planning a wedding sometime soon? I love a good wedding!”

             
I started to feel queasy hearing the conversation spiral out of control. I couldn’t shake the thought that Risk was way too good for me and sooner or later he would realize it and toss my ass to the curb. I kind of thought that maybe he was with me because we were both the freaky kids in school and I made him comfortable. Either way, I had never planned on having a man living with me, or
marrying
me before. Especially someone who was as amazing as Risk. My inner self was biting her fingernails down to nubs.
What’s with all this long term commitment talk all of the sudden anyway?

             
Risk was patting me on the back trying to help me get the food out of my throat and laughing along with Gray and Mom. I barely caught the moment when he looked up at Mom and winked.
What the hell was that?
My face was turning blue before I could get my coughing to slow. I took a huge gulp of water from the faucet and then returned to my seat, scowling at Risk all the way. Gray was sitting at the other end of the table being quiet and smiling to himself. He looked as if he were deep into a good thought.

             
My own mind started wandering to Joey. He had given us three days to reunite him and his mother, and if we couldn’t get her spirit under control than it was going to be a disaster. Joey and I were supposed to meet up the following day so that I could bring him to his mother. While Risk and I were at prom, Gray was going to to the old town square, behind enemy lines, and try and reason with Roletta. We had all tried to work out a plan, but when dealing with emotional people you can never predict what’s going to happen and that made our situation hard to plan for.

             
When breakfast was done and Mom and I were ready to leave, Risk volunteered to stay behind and clean up the mess. He said that he had to go to town and get my dress steamed (not that I saw any wrinkles on it) and then he would meet us back at the house. As we were walking out of the door Risk blew me a kiss and I heard a longing sigh from my mother. I rolled my eyes at her and blew him a kiss back. He acted like he caught it in mid-air and proceeded to pretend to stick my kiss in his pocket. The entire gesture made my stomach do a backflip. I wasn’t used to being so cheesy, but Risk made me feel things that I had never felt before. I felt like I came alive when I was around him.

             
While in the car my mom made me scroll through pictures of up-do’s that she had found on the internet and asked me to choose one. After carefully looking at each one I told her that I thought that all of them were really nice and that I couldn’t possibly decide which one was better than all of the rest. I gave the decision to her and she was over the moon about it. She decided on a style that was loose and elegant. There were a few random small braids that brought the bulk of my hair around to the side and it all gathered there as a bunch of loose hanging curls. It was unique, which made it the perfect choice for me, and I found myself getting excited about playing dress up.

             
After my hair was done we headed straight home. When we pulled into the driveway I saw Gray sitting on the front porch with a solemn look on his face. I remembered that he was quiet at breakfast and I wondered out loud.

             
“I wonder what’s going on…”

             
“What do you mean?” Mom answered my noisy thought.

             
I realized what I had just done, again, and scrambled to try and think of an explanation. “Oh nothing, just talking to myself…again.” I muttered. She gave me a sideways look and went into the house without another word. When she was out of earshot I asked Gray what was on his mind. He shuffled his feet for a minute and I watched patiently, noticing the dirt beneath his shuffling feet wasn’t moving.

             
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just being a girl about this whole thing, I guess.” He said.

             
“The Joey thing? You’re not scared, are you?”

             
“I’m just scared that it’s not going to work. He has your life in his hands! I mean, look at yourself. You look like a zombie! Your clothes are baggy and your eyes are sunken in. You look like you haven’t slept in days. I don’t think you see how bad it’s getting.”

             
I let all of his worry roll off of my shoulders. “I don’t
feel
bad though. I’m fine. I might be getting a little rough looking, but I don’t think it’s taking as big of a toll on me as you think.

             
Gray hung his head low and gave me a look that showed me that he was irritated and thought that I was crazy. I rolled my eyes and then he turned and walked into the house, motioning me behind him.