Page 19 of What You Own
His cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright. “Come on, let’s practice. I want to try ‘What You Own.’”
“Okay.” I bring up the music on my iPod, and it blares out of the dock speaker.
Adam counts down the beats, then belts out, “Don’t breathe too deep….”
It’s our first time singing alone like this, and it’s glorious.
“EARTHTORyan. Hello?”
Adam’s fingers snapped in front of my face, and I reared back hard enough to send my chair tipping. Larry grabbed the back before I could pitch ass over teakettle and set the chair straight. My heart was pounding a furious gallop, and everyone was staring at me like I was a loon.
“Sorry, what?” I said.
“I’m thinking he doesn’t have anything to add,” Ellie said, “since he wasn’t listening. So I guess this meeting is adjourned.”
We were the last people at the center tonight, so Larry locked up behind us when we all left. Our cars were scattered around the parking lot. Ellie made fast tracks for hers, probably so I couldn’t yell at her yet for the song ambush. She’d get her ears burned at home, so I wasn’t worried about it. Adam’s sleek car was parked one space away from my clunker. He didn’t try to make conversation, though, and I was glad. My brain was still stuck in the past, on the last real Saturday we’d spent together. Thanksgiving had been the following weekend, and everything had changed.
I stuck my key in the door lock and paused. Something wasn’t right. The car was listing a little.
“Fuck me,” I said. The front tire was flat as a flapjack. “Shit.”
“Ryan?” Adam circled the front of his car and stopped when he saw my tire. “Oh. Do you have a spare?”
“The car didn’t come with one, and I never bought one.” I kicked the offensive wheel of rubber. “Lord, I cannot afford to buy a new tire this week.”
He squatted down and ran his hands along the tire. “Maybe it isn’t damaged. Maybe it—wait. Look, your cap is gone. Maybe it’s only flat and needs air.”
Sure enough, the little cap over my valve stem was gone. Shouldn’t be enough to leak that much air so fast, though, but I liked Adam’s idea better than mine. A flat tire could be filled, but a busted tire had to be patched or replaced. “I don’t guess you’ve got an air pump in that fancy car of yours?”
Adam shook his head as he stood. “Sorry.”
“I think my daddy’s got one, but it’s too late to call him.” I’d have to do it in the morning and hope I could get this problem fixed before work. I tugged my phone out of my pocket.
“I thought you weren’t calling your dad.”
“I’m not. I’m calling Ellie to come back and get me.”
“I’ll take you home.”
“After last night? No thanks.”
Adam flinched. “Last night wasn’t so bad.”
I didn’t know if I should shake him or hug him. “Which part wasn’t so bad? The part where you told me you had brain damage because of the bashing, or the part where I acted a fuckin’ fool and kissed you?”
His eyes went hard. “My memory gaps are not your fault, and you didn’t know about them because no one told you. No one else knew because my father told me to tell people I didn’t want to talk about it, instead of admitting I didn’t remember.”
I balled my hands into fists. “Because God forbid Raymond Langley have a less-than-perfect son.”
“Something like that. And you’re no more a fool than I am, Ryan Sanders. Maybe I’m the bigger fool here, because I listened to my father, instead of following my heart. I let him handle me my entire life, because I’m not strong enough to stand on my own two feet.”
“Bullshit. You were strong enough to come find me at Pizza City. Maybe if things had been different, if I hadn’t kissed you, then we’d be strong together now. We were always stronger when we were together.”
“Kissing me didn’t get us bashed, Rye, so stop saying that.” He grabbed my forearm, skin warm and rough, and held tight. “We got bashed because Chad is a bigoted asshole who got drunk with his pals and decided we were easy targets. Everything that happened is their fault, not yours.”
“So everybody says.” I yanked free from his hold, too aware of his touch and his proximity. I needed to get away. Being near him was like poking at an electric fence with a stick. I felt him buzzing all over my damned skin. I needed to pull him close or get the fuck away.
“Who’s everybody?”
