Girls Love Travis Walker (16 page)

Ordinarily I would have said
she’s fine,
but I found myself telling the truth. “She’s too sick to work these days. We were told it was depression, but I don’t know. The pills don’t seem to help her.” I took a deep breath, feeling lighter.

We came out onto a wide, paved path that offered shade and let us walk side-by-side. Other than passing an occasional walker, we were alone.

“Antidepressants don’t always take effect immediately,” Zoey said. “I’m helping Hilda remember to take hers, but I don’t think they’ve kicked in yet.” She sighed. “It’ll be easier once I get her into The Haven.”

I was multi-tasking, listening to her talk while enjoying the slight bounce of her breasts as she walked. “You want to save the world, don’t you?” I teased.

“Not the world. A few people maybe.” Smiling, she put her hand on my arm and gave me a small, playful shove. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“Never.” I grabbed her hand and wove my fingers together with hers, then held on when she tried to pull away.

“Are you going to give me my hand back?”

“No.” We stopped walking. Teasingly, I drew her slowly toward me.

“Travis,” she said, trying to act mad.

“In fact, I think I’m going to kiss you.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” I drew her closer.

She yanked her hand from mine. “You have to catch me first!”

If the way she took off was any indication, she must have been a sprinter when she ran track in high school. But I was in great shape, with much longer legs than hers. And I was motivated.

 I pounded after her, passing a couple of dog walkers and slowly shortening the distance between us. “Give up,” I panted as I drew up behind her.

“No!”

One more long stride and I was close enough to reach out an arm and grab her around the waist. I pulled her to a stop, both of us stumbling a little as our feet tangled together, but managing to stay upright.

“We almost fell!” she said into my chest, while I held her up.

“Never woulda happened,” I said. “Not with this core.” I pointed to my six-pack abdomen.

“Spare me,” she groaned, but I was not going to be sidetracked.

“I caught you. Now I get to kiss you.”

She got that impish look. “That’s not how it’s going to happen.”

“No?” She was so close to me, I could feel her breath on my face, the warmth of her body. My arm tightened around her waist.

“I’m going to kiss
you,
” she said.

Instant turn-on. Talk about getting my attention. I’d never had a girl give me the first kiss. Later kisses, yes, but not the first.

“Okay,” I said, marveling at the awesomeness of this girl.

It felt really strange to stand there, waiting, passive, getting harder by the second, as she ran her hands up my chest and rose up on her toes. Her lips came nearer and nearer to mine until they met in this soft miracle of a kiss that had me instantly on the edge, breathing hard, needing her, gathering her up and holding her as close to me as I could.

She responded, pressing her body to mine, her heart pounding against my chest. She tasted like vanilla, and her hand stroked the back of my head . A strange ache settled in my throat, an intense emotion that made my eyes prickle. Her lips went away for a second and then came back, and our mouths opened and now I was exploring her mouth with mine while my hands longed to do some exploring of their own. I let them wander safely along her back and through her hair.

I’d kissed so many girls. I’d liked doing it. But this was in a whole different league. I was on fire. We started to walk, slowly, leaning against each other, but had to stop every few steps to make out. Zoey pursued kissing with the same single-minded intensity she did everything else. I wondered what she was like in bed, my mind running wild with possibilities.

The sun was setting, and the wind had picked up, sending Zoey’s long hair streaming  out behind her. The two of us laughed as I helped subdue her windbreaker, which billowed and flapped like a living creature, holding it so she could slide her hands into the sleeves and zip it, capturing her hair beneath its collar. “Don’t you have a sweatshirt or something?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Nah.”

“Let’s go back to the car then.”

Exhilarated, we ran through the wind, holding hands, and jumped into the car, which felt warm and comfortable compared to the air outside. As I circled my chilly arms around her, I had a fleeting thought of my mom, stuck in that apartment, all alone, with no heat or light, while I was out on a date.

I deserved to have some fun. I put Mom out of my head.

We watched the sun set as I drove home. As trees whipsawed back and forth in the wind, the sky’s angry salmon color faded until all we could see were lights twinkling against the black background of the city.

In the distance, a faint wail grew into a siren, got louder for a moment, then softer until it disappeared. Then a second siren started up.

“There must be a fire somewhere,” Zoey said.

I thought of the guys I knew at the station, thought of them leaping into their gear and rushing off, leaving behind half-eaten plates of spaghetti and unfinished card games. A part of me tingled with excitement, wishing I could go too. “They’ve got a long night ahead of them,” I said.

I headed the car back to Perdido, sorry that the day had to end. My eye fell on the gas gauge. It was empty—really empty. Fortunately, I knew a cheapo independent station that was on the way to her house.

“I’m gonna stop for gas real quick, okay? Then I’ll take you home.”

“Hey, I cooked for my family this weekend and have all this extra food. Do you want to come in for a while?”

I grinned at her.

“For dinner,” she added pointedly.

“Yeah, dinner’d be great.”  I was stoked. It wouldn’t happen tonight, but it would happen. It was just a matter of time before Zoey fell for the Travis Walker charm and I would get the girl I was crazy about.

I pulled in at Vince’s Gas, wheeling up behind a car that was using the station’s single pump. A girl had just put the nozzle into her car.

“Might as well wait in here,” I said to Zoey, running my finger across the palm of her hand. She pulled me toward her and we made out across the cup holders, my hand on her face, touching her silky cheek, not caring who saw us, going in for a deep, mind-blowing kiss that I never wanted to end.

KABLAM! Something hit my windshield, hard. Zoey and I jerked apart, with me half-convinced we were being car-jacked or mugged in this shithole establishment I had brought her to. Something foul, lumpy, and orange drizzled its way down my windshield.

“Stay here!” I commanded Zoey as I jumped out, ready to battle the criminal elements outside. She ignored me, popping out on her side as well.

“What are you doing here?” It was the girl at the pump, an infuriated redhead. It took me a second to realize that she was yelling at me. Another second to register that it was Suki, the wild girl from Chick’s.

“You
asshole!
” She launched her cup of Coke in my direction. It cartwheeled through the air, spewing its icy contents on my t-shirt. That’s when I realized that the weird stuff on my windshield was nachos and chips, probably from the station’s Fast Mart. She’d nailed me with her dinner.

“You don’t have to throw things. Chill out!”

Suki pointed a long fingernail at me. “I talked to some of the other girls at Chick’s, you know. You did the same thing to all of us.
”

My stomach turned over as I noticed Zoey, standing motionless on her side of the car.

Suki saw her too. She yanked the nozzle from her car, spilling gas on the ground. “On to the next one, I see,” she snarled. “That’s great, Tyler.”

Zoey’s head jerked toward me, a question mark on her face. I shrugged helplessly.

“Listen, honey,” Suki said to Zoey. “This guy’s a total jerk. He’ll leave you high and dry—count on it.”

She wheeled in my direction. “I don’t ever want to see you again!” After two or three attempts to start her little crap car, she chugged off, leaving us standing there speechless.

After a minute of horrible silence, Zoey got into the car, slamming her door shut. Numb, I pumped five dollars worth of gas. I would have liked to fill it up, just to postpone getting in next to Zoey, but five was the exact number of dollars in my wallet.

Moving with maximum slowness, I managed to stretch out the process of gassing up by at least a few more minutes. By now, I’d been outside for hours without a jacket and felt like a human popsicle. Despair and anger were fighting it out in my gut. Did I really deserve this?  Was I really such a jerk?

I must be.

Everyone seemed to think so.

Setback

I got in the car and sat there, my shoulders slumped, my insides twisting together, too out of it to say anything or start the ignition.

Finally, Zoey turned to me.
“Tyler?”
Her voice held disgust and disbelief.

“Hey, I know
her
name!”

“Whew! For a minute I was starting to think you had no standards.”

“We… we went out one night. She got the wrong idea.” I was still freezing in my Coke-soaked t-shirt. I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to get warm. “But I never lied to her or led her on.”

“Let me guess. You slept with her and never called her again.”

I didn’t answer. Not only was I a jerk, but I was predictable as well, a walking cliché. The processed cheese on my windshield, studded with soggy tortilla chips, had coagulated into a depressing lump around the windshield wipers.

“I better clean that off.”

“Yep.” She tilted her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

So out I went into the cold again. It took ten minutes of scraping with my fingernails and those chintzy paper towels they have at service stations. My windshield wasn’t exactly clean, but I could see to drive. By now, I was a solid block of ice.

I drove to her home, where I pulled up in front and hazarded a feeble joke. “I guess this means no dinner… ha ha.” 

“This isn’t funny, Travis.” She jumped out of the car, slamming the door, and disappeared into her home.

Trying not to, I shivered from cold, while my empty stomach grumbled. I thought of going home alone to my unheated, dark, foodless apartment, knowing Zoey hated me. I put my forehead against the steering wheel.

After a minute, I started the ignition and put the car into drive. Then I put it back into park and turned it off. I ran up her stairs and knocked on the door. Politely but firmly.

The door opened a crack. “Go home, Travis!”

“Hey, look! If you want me to feel like shit about myself, well, okay. I do.”

She didn’t answer, but the crack opened an inch.

“A guy can change, you know. But you have to be willing to give me a chance.” My teeth practically chattering, I crossed my arms over my chest and tucked my hands into my arm pits.

Silence. At least she was still standing there. Finally, she said, “Travis, I don’t know what to think. You’re so nice at work. I couldn’t even manage without you.” She threw her hands up. “Then,
this
happens.”

“I don’t want just one night from you,” I said, my voice gruff. “I want more.”

“That’s really hard for me to believe.” Her eyes fell and her mouth turned down. “I can’t deal with this. Let’s just give it a rest and be friends, okay?”

“But you like me! You’re attracted to me!”

Her cheeks flushing hot red, she gave me the tiniest nod. “But, that’s not all there is to it.”

“What else is there?”

“Please, Travis, let this be.” She shut the door in my face, leaving me once again rejected.

The Pole

On Monday, I showed up to work with roses, which I had secretly cut from the fence side of a neighbor’s bushes, and covered not only my own work, but Charlotte’s. She had pulled another no-show. On Tuesday, I strolled in the park with Zoey after work and Wednesday gave her a ride to pick up her car at the shop.

 I didn’t reach for her hand or try to kiss her, although it was hard to be just friends now, when I knew what it felt like to circle my arms around her body, feel her lips against mine, nestle my face into the hollow above her collarbone.

Saying goodbye after work on Wednesday almost hurt. Even Zoey thought so; it was obvious. “All right, see you tomorrow,” she said, her eyes drifting over my lips, chest, and arms in a way that didn’t read friendship to me at all. There was nothing I could do about it.

On Thursday I said, “You wanna go to the fire station with me tonight?”

She set down a pile of napkins and bit her lip. “Would that be okay?”

“Yeah. The Chief told me I could bring a friend.”

 Her face lighting up in a smile, she finally said, “I’d like that.”

I picked her up at eight o’clock. The first person we saw at the station was Brandon.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” I asked. Knowing how he felt about firefighting, I wouldn’t ordinarily think he’d waste an evening at the station.

“My dad made me come. Hi,” he said to Zoey, his resentful expression saying clearly
There’s Walker with another incredible babe.

I gave him an apologetic shrug.

The regular guys were all there, but quiet and tired after weeks of almost constant firefighting up in the hills. Perkins’s eyes warmed as he shook Zoey’s hand. “So you’re Travis’s girl?” His long mustache hung down over his front lip like an old cowhand in the Wild West.

“We’re friends,” I said. I introduced Zoey to Garret, Jason, and some of the other guys on duty. We settled onto the sofas in the Day Room, while Garret scrolled through the TV menu, complaining that nothing was on.

We drank the usual waters and sodas. Sprite, Coke, Orange Crush. I’d given Zoey a bottled iced tea. She took a little sip and surveyed the room around her, smiling at the guys. In a simple sweater and jeans, she looked perfect—hot yet classy. Her hair was down in this gorgeous platinum waterfall that they were checking out behind her back.