Remember Tonight Page 3

  The first link I click on is a YouTube video of a ride last year at the World Championship in Vegas.

  My obsession gets a whole lot worse right then. It’s not the cowboy hat and chaps that get me, though they’re hot. It’s the confident nod right before the buzzer that sends my heart for a thrill. It’s because I recognized it. I saw it last night as I was getting out of the truck. I’ll never ever forget that nod now. It’s a memory that I will have burned in my mind forever.

  After watching all of two seconds, Jessie gets up on her knees—because she’s inappropriate—and makes a motion with her hand in the air as if a guy’s doing someone doggie style. She throws her left arm up in the air and mimics Callan’s ride. “Do you think he’d throw his hand up like this during sex?”

  Naturally I start imagining it as if my mind hadn’t already went there. There’s a good part of me that wishes I wouldn’t have given him a blow job. I’m wishing I would have taken him for a ride.

  He’s in the chute when the video begins, mounting a bull that’s raging pissed, and messing with the rope that’s around the bull. Two guys are beside him helping him get on the bull and making sure he’s adjusted, he keeps his eyes down and his left hand behind his body. That’s when he gives a nod—a sexy fucking nod—and the chute opens and out comes two wild animals. One with four legs that’s so out of control that a mere mortal isn’t going to tame him. . .and another wild animal with two legs that is hell bent on taming the beast between his legs. My mind is scrambling, but I’m left with one final thought. He’s the sexiest, most confident man I’ve ever seen and this just might be the most intense thing I’ve ever seen.

  The bull he’s on would scare the shit out of most but not Callan. He looks confident and focused right up until the buzzer sounds. An eight second ride flashes on the screen.

  I didn’t know a damn thing about bull riding other than they have to stay on for eight seconds. Both the bull and the rider are scored on the ride, but the goal was to stay on the bull for eight seconds, with only one hand, without touching the bull with the other. All the while that bull is bucking rearing, kicking and spinning underneath them.

  “Oh look, terms that bull riders use!” Jessie and I both get excited about that and immediately start reading down the list.

  As we read through the list, Jessie is impressed with the terms. “Oh God, I’d love to be covered by a bull rider for sure!” And then says things like, “Flank strap? Think he keeps one in his truck? Oh. . .and what about seeded.”

  She looks at me and we both burst out laughing, my body shaking. I point to the screen. “And spinner.”

  We’re having way too much fun with this.

  After that, for some reason I want to know everything about the sport and Callan.

  We find the biography of him next. The picture beside it is one of him in that black hat and eyes are so determined you know his confidence never wavers.

  Callan James is an Amarillo native following in his older brother, Reed James’, footsteps. Callan entered bull riding at the age of fourteen. Since he went pro at eighteen, he’s won over twenty events in his two-year professional career and had sixty-one rides so far. In 2011, he became the first rider in history to stay on all six bulls he rode for the required eight seconds and won his first World Championship.

  We click on the video of his last ride at the World Finals and it’s much like the first one we watched, confident and secure in what he’s doing, riding a beast. Yet almost knowing that he’s a force to be reckoned with. You can see it in his posture, his grip, the fluidity of his muscle movement as he tames the untamable. He knows he’s the man to beat yet refuses to allow anyone to trample on his turf. He walks away with the championship, cocky and self-assured almost taunting those he was up against. That swagger—that smirk—and damn that black hat. After seeing that, I’m left with knowing I need him in my life for longer than eight seconds.

  “I need a cigarette,” Jessie says, her cheeks flushed after that video.

  Laughing, I hand her another beer from the cooler and drop a few ice cubes on her to cool her down.

  I need the same. Believe me.

  Jessie and I didn’t stay at the lake long since there’s a party out at Kasey’s house tonight we’re heading to which is on the other side of this lake. I don’t wanna go, but there’s nothing better to do in this town.

  Callan’s truck is still in the driveway when we get back. Jessie grins. “I’ll pick you up at eight. Meet me by the road. I’m washing my truck and I don’t wanna get it dirty.”

  That truck is the only possession Jessie has that’s hers and her mom can’t sell out from under her. Her mom and her both work at the diner downtown and make just enough that they live in a double-wide and can barely afford to keep the electricity on.

  All I’ve ever done is work on this farm. All Jessie’s ever done is fight from each day to the next just to make it through life. We both have shit we’re running from and it seems that staying in this hell hole isn’t going to make it any easier.

  If we don’t leave, we’ll be here forever.

  When we get up to the house, Jessie’s eyes are on the barn as she gawks at my rusted Lincoln Continental painted—and I say that loosely—primer black. It’s covered with a thick layer of dirt and grass growing up over the wheels, untouched by anyone in the last four years. The car was given to me as a gift, but I don’t want it and will probably never want it. I don’t even have my driver’s license so what the hell would I do with it? Who knows if it even runs any more? Let’s face it, my dad is thrilled, I’m sure, that I don’t drive because he knows he’d never see me again if I had a way out.

  My parents are inside so I sneak through the corn field and into the barn hoping Callan’s in there.

  He is.

  My heart thuds loudly in my ears, visions of last night come to mind.

  His back is to me, no shirt, shuffling hay. At this point, when I see him in that barn, the sun filtering through the cracks in the wood, I know one thing. There is nothing to keep me from wanting him and having him again.

  My boots hitting the wood floor announce my presence.

  “What are you doing in here?” He’s not looking up, and I think he’s trying really hard not to.

  “Looking for you,” I say strutting toward him. I’m standing in front of him, but he’s not looking so I take my shirt off leaving me in my string bikini.

  I’ve resorted to less before. I have. But I need Callan. I need him right now in this barn. Look at him! His shirt is off, hanging on the stable door, he’s sweating, muscles rigid and defined in every aspect, that hat, those jeans hanging low. . . damn. I’m immediately reminded of the way he rode that bull in the video and that nod. . .God!

  I imagine in every detail what he can do to me. The ways he can make me feel and make me forget my life in this damn place and that in a few days I want to be so far gone from here that there’s no clock that can tick fast enough. I want to leave. I have to leave but being here with Callan could make me stay for now. Makes this place seem bearable with him here.

  “Please. . .” I whisper into his neck, my hands on his bare shoulders. “Please just take me.”

  He isn’t having it and pushes himself back creating distance between us, my hands falling away. “No! I can’t and you know that. You lied to me.”

  “You don’t want me?” I cross my arms, arching an eyebrow at him.

  Is he serious?

  “Jesus, Alanna, you know that’s not it.” His eyes rake over my body, and then find mine again. He’s right, that’s not it at all. By the way he’s looking at me, he’d give anything to untie these bikini strings. But then he says with a bitter tone to his voice and a cold edge that is reserved only for me right now, “I’m twenty-one. You’re seventeen. I can’t do that.”

  “You’re barely twenty-one and I’ll be eighteen in a few days,” I say trying to give him a reason. “Our age shouldn’t matter.”

  “You lied
to me,” Callan repeats lifting his chin, his eyebrows knitting together, looking at me. “And, yes, it should and it does in the eyes of the law. It matters a lot.” I can hear the edge of anger in his voice as he arches his eyebrow, waiting to see what I’ll say next.

  “So would it have really mattered if I told you my age last night?” I taunt.

  He laughs, it’s a hollow derisive sound I hate. “I wouldn’t have let you come within twenty feet of me and we certainly wouldn’t have done that.” His eyes drift south.

  “You’re lying.” He knows he is. He was drunk last night, maybe not drunk enough to allow me to do that, but I think maybe just enough that he’d make an exception.

  We stand there, our breaths heavy mingled with the comforting smell of the bales of hay when he looks at me. “I just came to pay off a debt for my dad. That’s all this should be and that’s all this is going to be.” He’s walking away from me, his dirt clad boots mimicking the steady thump of my heart.

  I reach for my shirt, throwing it over my shoulder. “That’s what you think, eight seconds.”

  He says nothing to that.

  When I get back to the house, dad’s at the door leaning into the frame and giving me that look. I see it so often I know the words he’s going to say next. “Stay away from that boy, Alanna.”

  Yep, exactly what I thought he was going to say.

  I don’t even bother responding as I make my way inside the house. There’s no sense in arguing anyways.

  Who is he to tell me who to stay away from? If he only knew half the people I hang with, he’d have a coronary.

  When Callan ignores me Saturday night, I’m more determined than ever to find a way to get him to pay attention to me.

  I’ve never had someone turn me down and it throws me a little. I start going over everything I’ve said to him, and it really does come back down to my age. I mean, I’m attractive. I can say that because I’m confident enough to know I am. Long legs, curvy, a little to grab onto, thick long blonde hair with the slightest curl to it, big blue eyes, and a good sized B cup. I know I’ve got what men want. Hell, even Jessie has—on more than one occasion—said if she were a lesbian, I’d be her bitch. I’m also very determined. Don’t tell me that I can’t do something because that’s the very thing I need to hear to prove your ass wrong. Tell me I won’t and I will.

  When we get to Kasey’s house on the lake, Jessie asks me how my barn encounter went. “What’d eight seconds say?”

  “Wouldn’t even look my direction.” You can hear the annoyance in my voice.

  “What?” Jessie looks at me as we make our way toward the party down by the lake. “Why?”

  “See. . .” I raise my eyebrows, still not believing that happened. “That was my response too.” I laugh lightly removing my flannel tieing it around my waist, leaving me in just my bikini and shorts, the spitting image of Jessie. “I don’t get it.”

  Jessie laughs and gives my shoulder a nudge. The thought that a guy turned down Alanna Rodger is amusing to her. Probably because it’s never happened.

  As we walk, her wind-blown hair falls from her hat. She stops to adjust it, a flawless movement that makes her look even more amazing, and then continues to walk with me.

  “Looks like Ashley’s busy tonight,” Jessie says nodding toward the lake.

  My eyes follow hers to Kasey sitting on the dock, drinking with Harrison. They’re sitting on the edge, throwing a line in the water with empty cans surrounding them. The cans a product of a lot of fishing, not a lot of catching and a lot of bullshit tonight between two friends.

  Part of me wants to turn around and leave because I know where tonight’s going when I see Ashley’s not with Kasey. He’ll want to fuck me because his precious girl’s busy. She’s still a virgin too and he keeps her that way. A prize I guess but a little too much like Elvis and Priscilla if you ask me.

  If only Ashley knew what he was doing to her. He’s destroying her because if she ever finds out, her world would be shattered. I should know, I was her once. But not anymore. I’m the complete opposite now, someone who can never go back to that “good girl” status thanks to guys like Kasey.

  Jessie and I join them on the dock—for what I’m not sure—other than a direct result of our complete boredom. It takes Kasey a 6-pack and two hours until he’s begging to take me upstairs to his room. I’m not feeling it, I see through him and I don’t want it anymore.

  I shove him away and make my way to the bonfire down by the dock. I’m surprised to see Callan there with what looks to be a few friends he hasn’t seen in a while. There isn’t shit to do in this town so it’s not all that surprising to see him here, it’s the same people who congregate at these gatherings. A group of friends hoping to spark a fire somewhere, anywhere, in this town just for a few moments of excitement.

  It’s frustrating seeing him here though after our encounter earlier.

  I take a seat in a white plastic chair near the trees. On one side of the fire, there’s Kasey and he’s sulking that I won’t fuck him tonight. On the other side is Callan and his buddies. He’s not even acting like I’m here, but he knows I am because I see the way his eyes shift to mine when he thinks no one is looking. Whether he knows it or not, it’s my turn to try for that eight second ride tonight.

  There’s a girl about the same height as him standing next to him. I’m assuming it’s his sister, Dani, by the way she has her arms wrapped around him.

  “You’re my favorite brother, Callan,” Dani says, clinging to his side.

  “You say that to all of us.” He says, laughing but hugging her. There’s a bond there that even a four-year absence in time isn’t breaking. It’s fairly obvious he’s close with his family.

  “Yeah,” Dani smiles, blue eyes that match her brother plead with him, “but this time I mean it.”

  “Uh huh.” Callan removes his keys from his pocket holding them high above her head with a smile. That smile. It still gets me.

  He makes her jump of few times to reach them, but eventually hands them to her. She takes them, sticks her tongue out at him and leaves.

  Across the fire, his eyes are on mine. I feel the warmth and the questions even when I’m not looking. When I do, his cobalt blues dip to the ground never giving me the sight I want. He’s refusing to give me anything.

  As I sit cross-legged cracking the top to my third beer, Callan’s friend beside him points to me, more than likely saying something vulgar. I can already guess what he’s saying. Callan discards whatever it is and turns away giving me a view of his back. The fact that he turned his back on me upsets me a little more than it should. Who was he to ignore me? It’s just like every other guy I know. I give and get nothing in return and it sets my mood for the night.

  Twenty minutes later and another few beers, Dani’s back and hands Callan his keys. In that twenty minutes, I’ve stayed exactly where I was earlier, that white chair. I might not move the rest of the night. Jessie’s gone, she found someone she hadn’t seen in a long time but promised to be back in a little while. I’m not worried. She never breaks a promise.

  My eyes follow Dani as she approaches me, walking around the fire and to my left. Dani and I’ve had a couple classes together, she’s the only James kid left around these parts. She doesn’t talk to many people and I can’t say I’ve ever had any interactions with her. Until now.

  She saw me watching Callan from across the fire and I think I know what she’s going to say to me.

  “So you’re into my brother, it appears.” She sits down in the empty chair next to me.

  “I’m transparent.” I cross my legs leaning away from her, but I give her my attention with a twist of my head in her direction. And the only reason I do is because she’s his sister and I kinda want to hear what she has to say.

  Dani looks at me, her eyes assessing and already judging. “I’m only telling you this because I want you to leave him alone.” It shocks me how blunt she is, but I’m not surprised after being aro
und Callan. He’s the same way. “He’s trying to keep focused and he doesn’t need someone like you around. He’s been through enough.”

  She is probably right about it, but it’s not going to stop me regardless of her warning.

  I give her a nod, it’s not convincing her and she knows it. “You remember Katie Thomas, right?”

  I nod, again, remembering the shy girl from my freshman English class who left town abruptly right after the James brothers did.

  Dani sighs taking a drink from the red plastic cup in her hands. “Well, she was raped when she was sixteen. We all knew who it was but it wasn’t like a girl like Katie would actually tell anyone who did that to her. Being the mayor’s daughter and all, she basically freaked out and blamed it on Reed and Callan who were eighteen and twenty-one at the time. She said they both raped her one night at a party. My brothers have always been trouble. Especially Callan. But they’d never do something like that. Ever. That year was the first year Callan rode as a pro and Reed was competing for the championship. It was right before World Finals and Reed lost his championship and was suspended from competition for six months. Same with Callan. Then the little hooker comes out some six months later and said she lied, then left town, but it was too late at that point. The damage was already done.”

  My eyes drift to Callan, his back to me still. No wonder my age is a problem for him.

  “How come they haven’t been back since if everyone knows she lied?”

  Dani gives me a look, one that has me regretting the question. My stare flickers from her to the setting sun over her shoulder. The light reflects off her golden hair. “Would you come back after something like that?”

  There is a part of her that seems uninterested in the conversation by that point and looks as if she’s going to stand up, her hands on the arms of the chair, body leaned forward.