Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)

“What the hell is that?” My mom is looking sceptically out of the front door into the bed of Mitch’s truck.

He throws her a cocky smile. “Wanna have a go?”

She looks thoroughly mortified. “If that’s yours, I’m out of here right now.”

I look out of the door with her. In the back of Mitch’s truck there is a monstrous black motorbike. I have never seen one this up close before and, from its raised position in the bed, it’s way bigger than I was expecting.

“Not mine,” Mitch replies, and he shoots me a piercing look.

“So what exactly are you doing with it?” my mom asks, arms folded across her chest.

Mitch swaggers to the mouth of the bed and leans against it with his palms behind his body. “I am not doing anything with it.”

I sense the presence of a large warm body standing close behind me so I refuse to turn around. It feels like I have a lighter licking up my spine, and my stomach swirls with heat.

Tate’s arm grips the doorframe above my head and he rubs it with his thumb. I pretend that I don’t see it.

My mom steps out of the doorway but Tate stays positioned at my back anyway. I remind myself why I hate him as my body masochistically soaks in his heated pheromones.

My mom looks between Mitch and Tate.

“Your son rides a motorcycle?” she asks. She has an intrigued look in her eyes now that she knows it isn’t her boyfriend who is going to risk life and limb on the road, but her voice is laced with displeasure.

“He does motorbike races when there are comps on the weekends. There’s an enclosed track just outside of town, but it’s out of use when we get all the rainfall, so this will probably be the last event until next spring. Which means I get him on-site full-time for the next few months.” Mitch winks at Tate, but my stomach jolts as if it was aimed at me.

Tate slides his thumb down the doorframe and then back up. It feels as though he’s pressing it against my spine.

His bass timbre hits me from behind, impossibly deep and chocolate-cake rich. “Are you coming, River?”

I decide to risk my life. “To watch you get beaten by thirty other men on motorcycles? Of course I am.”

I feel his body tense and I get all warm and fuzzy as I watch his forearm flex with rage. I disguise my smile by fiddling with my glasses.

My body sighs with relief as I walk out of the doorway and onto the porch, extrapolating it from the heady mixture of his heroin cologne and my violent hormones. I give Mitch a cheerful look which makes him eye me suspiciously.

“What time are we going?” I ask innocently.

Mitch flicks a glance at Tate and then back to me. “Comp starts at six, so you have all day to do whatever else. Schoolwork or…” He waves his hand around, trying to think of some other things that seventeen year old girls might do on their Sundays.

My mom prods one of the wheels like it’s a lab specimen. “Count me out,” she says, her mouth twisted with concern.

I shoot her a glance. “Can I still go, mom?”

She doesn’t look at me, still absently observing the bike. “You want to watch a bike show?” she asks, her voice dubious. She exhales a light laugh through her nose. “Sure honey.” She wipes her fingers on her pants and then walks back up the drive, heading to the yard.

I’ll take it.

I smile luxuriantly at Mitch and he has an amused glint in his eyes as he folds his arms across his chest.

“You got any clothes to wear tonight?” Mitch asks.

I’m affronted. “Of course I have clothes.”

“Yeah, but clothes for this.” He taps the bike with the back of his hand.

I wriggle a bit.

“I want you to blend in, River. I don’t want it to look like I brought a sacrifice.”

I frown up at him. Why is this always the sticking point? Okay, yes I wear prescription glasses, and clothes are unusually large on my body, but why do other people care so much about what I am wearing? What would they prefer for me to wear?

Tate’s voice sounds from the doorway. “I have some things that she can wear. She just needs her own shorts.”

I shake my head at Mitch. “Absolutely not.”

Mitch holds his hands up and backs away from me.

I spin around to face Tate but my stomach instantly sinks. He’s wearing saw-dust covered jeans and a taut black t-shirt. My chest is constricting more tightly than the cotton wrapped around his pecs. I can’t believe that he was almost mine.

“I am not taking a single thing from you,” I say in as steady a voice as I can manage.

He folds his arms and the tattoo on his bicep bulges. “Tell me whose bed you’re sleeping in again?”

I mirror him and cross my arms too. “I’m sure that you have slept in all kinds of beds, Tate.”

He raises his eyebrows and I swear that his fingers almost go up to touch the cross on his chain. He looks displeased.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he says. It sounds like he’s pleading.

There’s a horrible shooting pain deep in my oesophagus but the words tumble out of mouth anyway before I can stop them.

“I hope that you lose tonight, Tate.”

And then I storm off, stomach churning.

*

After our conversation Tate locked himself in the garage and I heard all sorts of hacking and drilling sounds, so I imagine that he’s making some sort of voodoo doll. I quickly got changed and fled to Kit’s house.

I am naturally artsy and Kit is naturally morbid so the Halloween dance banners are coming along exceptionally well. Everything is orange, purple, and black, and I’m actually looking forward to being at some kind of social gathering.

Which reminds me.

I roll over so that I’m directly in front of Kit and I stare at her until she looks up. She yelps when she sees the intensity of my gaze.

“Oh my God, what?” she exclaims, a shiver rumbling through her.

“I have a fashion related question,” I say.

She is thoroughly astounded. She adds a final leg to one of her dangly black spiders and sets down her brush. “Go on,” she encourages.

“It is purely for malicious purposes,” I confess.

She nods. “As it should be.”

“I was wondering…” I swallow, my stomach fluttering with butterflies. “Do you have a top that is super cute… but also violently inappropriate that I could possibly wear this evening?”

She blinks at me. Her eyes roam over my slouchy jumper and wide leg jeans. She nods like she’s dreaming.

“Are you sure?” she asks as she pulls out a secret, hidden garment from one of her under-the-bed drawers.

“Yes. Just for tonight,” I add.

Kit bids me to close my eyes and then she places the item in my hands. She actually puts it on a cushion first, for extra drama.

I look down at it and then give her a shy smile.

“Thank you, Kit,” I say. “It’s perfect.”

*

Mitch and Tate pull up to collect me from Kit’s house at five, and then we reach the race location with time to spare. I have my secret top on underneath my jumper and it’s making me emit a devilish glow.

Tate can sense it. He keeps looking at me in the rear-view mirror because he knows that I am up to something.

But I can also sense something secretive shimmering beneath his unyieldingly composed façade, piquing my interest and annoying me senseless.

He hasn’t said anything to me since my volcanic eruption on the driveway and, if I’m being honest, I don’t blame him.

As we pull up I look down at the lit-up track. Now I understand my mom’s hesitance: this looks dangerous. It doesn’t seem as though it would fit many racers, so maybe only a few bikers race at a time. There’s a crowd all the way around the track, and behind that I see stalls set up by sponsors and merchandise vendors.

When we get out, Tate dismounts his bike and disappears without a second glance.

Now I feel like I’m Mitch’s daughter. He takes me to a food stand where he gets a hotdog for himself and fries for me, and then we make our way over to join the rest of the audience.

It is really hot near the stadium lights. I keep pulling at the neck of my jumper but the air is so still that it isn’t helping. Now that I’m going to have to expose my stupid little revenge ploy it doesn’t seem like such a good idea.

“You wanna take that off?” Mitch is watching my tussle with the jumper with a dubious expression. “I’ll hold your fries.”

I surrender. I hand him the fries and shed the jumper, sighing at the relief of having it off my skin.

“Jesus Christ!”

It seems that Mitch cannot be trusted to hold my fries. The fries are everywhere. They’re on the ground. They’re on my jumper. Mitch is looking at me with such a dismayed expression that it confirms that this top was an excellent choice. He picks my jumper off the floor, not even bothering to wipe it off.

“Put this back on. Right now.”

I pluck the jumper from his hand and then drop it back to the dirt.

“River, what the fuck are you thinking?”

Wow, he really is like a dad.

“Tate cannot see you like this,” Mitch says. “In fact, Tate cannot see other people seeing you like this. He’s going to go insane.”

I narrow my eyes at Mitch and everything becomes clear.

Mitch knows.

I never told my mom anything, but from Mitch’s expression I know that he knows.

And that makes his concern even more absurd.

“I can wear what I want Mitch,” I say as I collect my droopy little fries from the dirt and put them back into the carton.

He has his hand over his mouth like he’s trying to decide which neuro-pathway to take in his man-brain. A or B.

“After Tate’s race I want you to put that back on,” he says, his voice stern and authoritative. Then he turns away from me without another word, waiting for the race to begin.

I can’t tell which one is Tate because everyone on the track is riding a big black bike, but when I hear Mitch yelling I realise that he’s right behind the lead. Mitch is shouting something about “cat and mouse” as the bikers skirt precariously over the twisting bends, and then when the first racer speeds over the finish line Mitch is vehemently fist-pumping the air.

I watch as Tate takes off his helmet. His hair has stuck against his forehead in a sweaty tousled mess and his perfect smile is visible all the way from here.

I turn around and head back to Mitch’s truck.

I’ve only been walking a minute when I hear it.

“Hey, I know you – whoaaaa, how’s it going?”

I look up and I’m met with the sight of Tate’s friend from the house the other night. Caulder. So he must be one of Tate’s motorbike buddies.

His shirt is off – it really is hot under these lights – and he’s wearing heavily branded biking pants. There’s a rigid V slicing up either side of his abdominals, and, most obviously of all, Caulder’s eyes are magnetised to my chest.

“Hey,” I say, putting my hand on my hip. It feels different talking to a guy who isn’t at school with me. He doesn’t have any preconceptions and therefore I can be whoever I want to be.

“Hey,” he says again, before blinking hard and looking up. “Caulder,” he blurts out, hand outstretched. Obviously he doesn’t remember telling me his name.

“River,” I say, and I brush past him, leaving him hanging.

“Hey, wait!”

I smile as I hear him chase after me. Tate is going to looooove this.

“What are you doing here? If you tell me that you ride I’m going to have to marry you on the spot.”

I roll my eyes, ascending the hill to get to where the truck is parked.

“Let me get you a drink. You’re not here with Tate are you? Doesn’t matter, we can hide from him.”

Some friend he is. I wonder if all of Tate’s friends are this shitty.

He sees me stop next to Mitch’s truck and he nods his head.

“So you are here with the Colesons. Damn. Come hang out with me for a bit anyway.”

I lean my stomach against the side panel of the bed, looking out at the post-ride track, and Caulder leans next to me.

“Cute glasses,” he says, and I can feel the heat radiating from his skin closer to me than before.

I turn to look at him, eyebrow cocked, but he really is cute. His eyes are sapphire blue and his hair is Californian gold. He senses my appraisal and he tilts a little closer, a knowing twinkle in his smiling eyes.

It only takes five seconds and then he’s on the floor.

Tate hauls him by his shoulders and Caulder’s back hits the dirt with a painfully loud thud. Tate’s thighs straddle Caulder’s hips, one hand pinning down his collarbones, and he smacks his palm across the side of his temple. I watch them over my shoulder with science-experiment curiosity.

“What the hell did I say to you the other night, Caul?” This is a voice that I have never heard before. It’s so calm that it’s scary. My stomach dips knowing that this display is for me.

“Nothing happened, bro!” Caulder is confused which is understandable. There is no logical reason as to why Tate would be acting out like this over me, especially given what he did three years ago. But, for some reason, I can sense it. I can still feel it deep in my bones on the most innate primitive level that this is for me.

Tate shoves Caulder’s shoulders into the ground as a departing warning and then he stands, brushing the dirt off his knees with big tense hands.

I twist back towards the truck and I look straight ahead so that my back is to him. The truck bed dips with a groan as Tate’s hands grip the panel on either side of my waist.

“River,” he says, in a low and deadly voice. “Look me in the eyes, right now.”

I ignore him because I know that that’s what will annoy him the most.

I feel the hot firm grip of his palm on my shoulder and then he turns my body with ease to face him.

His brain explodes.

The thing about never showing your skin? When you do show it, it’s a really big deal. Tate’s chest swells on impact and he bends slightly at the middle, as if I just punched him in the gut. His hands have curled into fists on either side of me, forearms stiffening as he swallows hard. His eyes flash to mine and they are frenzied, desperate, wild.

Then Caulder shuffles to his feet behind him and the light goes out like a switch.

Tate spins around a launches a fist into the side of Caulder’s jaw, his head snapping to the left and sending him stumbling into the side of someone else’s car. Tate stalks him like an animal, grabbing his shoulder and swinging his arm back as if he’s going to punch him again, but suddenly the little crowd around us gets involved, and guys are pulling them apart, restraining their arms and wrists.

Mitch appears and he grapples with Tate until he’s on the passenger side of the truck. He shoves him through the door, slams it shut, and then hauls Tate’s bike into the back. Mitch comes to stand in front of me, eyes livid and steam practically oozing from his tan skin.

“What the hell are you doing to him, River? He could get disqualified for that,” he bites out, arms shaking at his sides.

I stand my ground. Nothing compared to what he did to me, Mitch.

“Just get in the truck, and don’t say a word.” He storms to the driver’s door and heaves himself inside.

It’s officially the tensest ride of my life. When we arrive back at Mitch’s, Tate whips out of his dad’s truck and quickly gets into his own, kicking the vehicle into reverse and racing off the driveway with dangerous speed.

Mitch turns to me, his face candy-apple red with a syrupy sheen.

“For that, you’re grounded. Forever,” he commands, and then he thunders into the house, shoulders rolling like a Viking.

I feel smug with satisfaction as I enter the house after him, all until I reach the bottom of the stairs to my room in the attic.

There’s a pain in my gut as I see something sat carefully just outside my door. Mitch and my mom are in his room now and the landing is totally silent. I slowly ascend the steps, my eyes locked on the object, and my stomach sinks deeper and deeper until I feel nothing but emptiness inside.

Please don’t be what I think you are, please don’t be what I think you are.

My hand flies up to my mouth and I feel a horrible prickling behind my eyes.

Now I know what he did when he locked himself in the workshop all day.

At the top of the stairs, wrapped up with a little ribbon, there is a tiny perfect wooden bookcase.