He kissed me softly, sucking gently on my lip before releasing it. “God, I love being able to do that. You should say yes more often.”
Yeah, I really should. “You should go…be Wilder.”
His eyes turned serious. “Leah, we’re trying some new stuff today. People fall. A lot of people fall. Unless you see everyone rushing the ramp, don’t let it bother you. This is what I do, what I’ve done since I was old enough to swing my leg over a Power Wheel. Don’t let the fact that it’s a motorcycle worry you, okay?”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
He kissed me one last time and skipped down a few steps. “Oh, and if at any time you decide it turns you on, just like…wave a red flag or something.” The way he wiggled his eyebrows had me laughing.
“What, are you two together now?” Zoe asked, her voice dripping with equal parts sarcasm and venom. I’d been so consumed by kissing Paxton that I hadn’t even realized she’d been standing next to Bobby.
“Yes,” Paxton answered.
“No,” I responded at the same time.
Paxton just grinned and ran his hands over the hair that I’d thoroughly mussed. “Well, I’m with her. She hasn’t quite decided if she’s with me yet. But I have some pretty convincing powers of persuasion.”
“Oh my God. Just go,” I said, laughing again. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d kissed and laughed and felt…normal. A tiny stab of guilt marred the feeling but didn’t take it away completely. That was progress.
He winked at me once and then disappeared beneath the stands. I headed for the shade of the awning near the center front row. I tucked my legs under me as I sat and opened my physics book, trying to find the correct answers for what I missed in class. I wasn’t fucking up my 4.0 on a stupid physics course.
“It won’t last, you know,” Zoe said, taking the seat next to me and stretching her long legs out on the bar in front of us.
I tapped my pen on the paper, debating my options on how to handle this wench, and then went for it. “How the hell do you know? And besides, I said we weren’t together.”
She lowered her sunglasses to roll her eyes at me. “Right. First, Wilder tends to get what he wants, and given that he just publicly pawed you to mark his territory, it’s a matter of time until you fall. Second, you should know that this is as good as it’s going to get.”
“Because it’s as good as you ever got?” I fired back, done with her intruding on everything.
Her shoulders drooped, and all trace of bullshit cleared from her expression. “Do you see the way he goes after a new trick? He practices so hard that nothing else matters. Everything else doesn’t exist to him until he gets it.”
“So? I think that drive is admirable. And I’m not the type of girl to focus my life on what my boyfriend is doing.” Did you call him your boyfriend? For fuck’s sake, focus.
A wry smile twisted her lips. “You’re missing the point. That’s how he goes after women, with that same drive. But once he nails the trick, gets the girl, the thrill is gone for him, and he’s on to his next trick, the bigger air, the faster bike…the better woman. I’m not saying this because I want to hurt your little feelings. I’m actually telling you because you don’t seem like the kind of girl who would take that well—being fucked and dumped.”
Despite my best efforts to keep her words from touching me, my heart sank, knowing some of what she said was true. If I was going to give in to Paxton, then I had to be prepared for him to walk away…probably sooner rather than later.
Zoe stood. “Look what you’re doing. For someone who wouldn’t focus her life on her boyfriend, you’re sitting at practice while the entire city of Rome is just over that hill.” She shrugged. “Food for thought.”
She walked off without another glance, passing Brooke on her way.
“Everything okay?” Brooke asked, taking Zoe’s empty seat.
“Yeah,” I lied, nodding a little too enthusiastically.
She narrowed her eyes. “Uh-huh.”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
“Thirty-four D, usually 3.1 when my grades are decent, and eighteen months.”
I blinked.
She laughed. “Bra size, GPA, and how long since I’ve had sex.”
“Oh, I was going in a different direction.”
“Shoot.”
“Why do you watch the practices? Follow Penna? Why not go into Rome, or something else that you want to do?”
She studied me for a moment. “I was there the first time Penna broke her arm on the makeshift ramp at the back of Paxton’s house. I put my arm around her and carried her home. I come because there’s honestly no place else I’d rather be. These guys are my family. Plus”—she motioned to the ramp—“the show is amazing. I love to see her fly. That’s her.”
The motorcycle revved at the end of the course, and Penna came flying, hitting the ramp, and then going airborne. My breath held as she flipped the bike mid-air, coming down and landing smoothly on the dirt landing ramp.
“Holy. Shit.”
Brooke smiled. “She’s stunning. One of her medals is in an all-guy category, too.”
I watched a series of jumpers, twisting, turning, flipping in the air. They were amazing, powerful, brave, and ridiculously talented.
When Paxton’s turn came, I watched white-knuckled as he took the ramp, flipping mid-air and then letting the bike go momentarily. My heart stopped, my chest constricting until he put his hands back on the bars and landed gracefully.