Chapter 6 Wes
SIX
WES
My school year was officially over. Being homeschooled had a few perks, and ending a whole week before the public school was always one of them. Usually, I was already busy with fishing and swimming, but this year, I found myself riding my bike down to Rose Ridge Middle School.
Red brick surrounded the one-story school, guarded by a chain-link fence. A few trees were spaced out along the property, edging around the parking lot. I rode, watching the double doors for students. The bell rang, and kids streamed out the doors. There were so many faces I didn’t recognize.
How could I live here my entire life and not know any kids my own age?
I knew the kids from the homeschool group, but most of them were from a different county.
That left the girl who still snuck into my treehouse on hot summer nights when her dad’s clubhouse got too wild.
Her visits were becoming less frequent—at least they were last summer.
The first time she popped in wasn’t until July, and we only had a few times to hang out before school started up again.
I didn’t particularly like it.
Which was why I was here, inserting myself into Callie’s summer so she had no other choice but to talk to me on my terms and not hers.
I waited on the curb outside as guys my age came out, pushing, laughing, and joking.
Girls came, too. They all wore shorts so small I could see all the way up their legs to the crease of their butt cheeks.
It made my face heat, for some reason. Maybe because girls didn’t dress like that in the homeschool groups, or at church…
Still, none of these girls were Callie, so I didn’t really care.
I waited until I saw that glossy dark hair, and that familiar expression. Her pink lips always tugged down, like she was thinking about something sad. Her hazel eyes focused on the ground as she walked, until she reached the bike rack.
She didn’t even put a lock around hers, which, with how much rust was on it, didn’t surprise me.
I watched her every move, especially how she looked in real clothes.
Every time I had ever seen her, she was wearing an oversized T-shirt.
Now, she wore shorts that went just as high as the other girls, but on her they looked different. Better.
That firecracker-in-my-chest feeling came back as I took in the shirt hanging off her shoulder, revealing more skin on her than I had ever seen. Her long hair hung down her back in a slick sheet of silk, and a horrifying realization settled in my chest: she was breathtakingly beautiful.
Callie walked her bike along the sidewalk, away from the school and toward me. My throat suddenly felt dry, and my face felt too warm. It was hot out, but not that hot…it was still only May.
How had I not noticed it before, how stunning she was? It was like I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Perhaps that was why I didn’t care if the other girls wore shorts, because Callie was all I could see.
My hands sweated on the handlebars of my bike as I held it up. Callie didn’t see me yet, but she would as soon as she cleared the gate. Panicked anxiety made my mind spin with ideas of what I would say to her.
Hey, how was school?
No, that would be stupid.
Nice to see you outside of the treehouse. You look really pretty in the daylight.
I blushed, hating myself for feeling so anxious. She was just Callie the tree house girl, nothing special about her.
But then some guy my age ran up next to her and covered her hands with his on the handlebars, and suddenly she wasn’t just Callie.
She was the girl I was supposed to keep safe.
The one who trusted me to give her a place to sleep.
The one who smiled when I told her Disney stories and acted like they’d really happened.
She jolted to a stop, a look of alarm forced her eyebrows up and her lips down.
They were saying something, but I couldn’t hear. She tried to move her hands, but he wouldn’t let her go. The guy lowered his face until he was whispering in her ear, then laughing at her as she pulled her face away and blushed.
There was a fire in my chest, burning my lungs to ash, as I shoved my bike down and began walking forward.
My eyes focused on the distance between me and Callie, and how tears began to trail down her cheeks.
I was in front of them within seconds. I guess I had started running at some point.
Then my fist flew.
The fire came out, and all I could see was red. He had made her cry.
He made her blush. He touched her.
I swung again and again. My fist hurt, but I couldn’t process it.
“Wes!” I heard Callie yelling, but I couldn’t stop.
I’d never been in a fight before, didn’t even know how to throw a punch, but all I knew was that he needed to remember this moment. He needed to remember me, and never go near her again. I felt my knuckles slam into his jaw, heard him cry and beg me to stop.
I couldn’t. I knew there was a crowd of kids around us, and one of them tried to push me. Callie was screaming my name now, her voice sounding hoarse.
I still couldn’t stop. Not until someone much bigger than me was pulling me away.
“Come here, little man…you’re going to break your hand. This little asswipe isn’t worth it.”
I blinked and saw chrome, leather, and Callie.
She was following us, pushing her bike as I was being guided back to mine.
“Callie, this a friend of yours?” the man asked, and that’s when I looked behind me at the kid I’d hit. He was sitting up on his elbow, staring at me, his nose busted and his eye swollen shut. Teachers were starting to huddle around him, their eyes landing on us as the kid pointed.
Crap.
“He’s my friend,” Callie said softly, and it put my focus back on the person leading me to my bike.
The guy grunted and then laughed. “He’s got heart. I’m going to mention him to your pops, see if he can be the new detail.”
“Don’t say anything about this to my dad!” Callie snapped angrily.
The guy laughing at us was just a few years older than us…he looked like a high schooler. He had a leather vest with a skull and roses blooming out of the eye sockets on the back, and a motorcycle just like the other guys from the club.
He mussed Callie’s hair then let out a sigh.
“Calm down, Little Fox. You’re gettin’ all red in the face. Take your friend to get some ice. His knuckles are going to swell up tomorrow. Clean him up so his parents don’t get pissed.”
Callie’s hazel eyes finally shifted to me, and the air seemed to get caught inside my lungs.
“I’ll take him.” She paused as the guy nodded and then straddled his bike. “Thank you, Killian.”
He smirked at her then winked at me and started his bike. I watched as Killian twisted the handle, forcing the engine to rev louder and louder, then he pushed the kickstand up and darted off down the road, kicking up dirt as he went.
Once he was gone, I picked up my bike and waited for Callie to lead the way. I had no idea where she was going to take me, but I liked the idea of icing my hand. It throbbed, and I really didn’t want to show that it hurt in front of Callie.
She walked next to me, calm and quiet.
My thoughts were all mixed up, swirling and spinning in places they had no business going.
“Why’d you come?” Callie asked, breaking into my thoughts.
I stared ahead, suddenly feeling shy.
“Who was that guy?”
She kicked a pebble in her way, then veered off the road through a few bushes.
“Come this way. We’re going to clean you up.”
I guided my bike without a second thought. The trail was dense and hard to see as the canopy mostly blocked the sun, but it was only a short trek before there was a babbling stream cutting through the woods.
She tossed her bike on the bank and then slowly climbed down to the river.
“Here, come on. You want to stick your hands in. It’s cold, so it’ll be like sticking it into an ice bath.”
I did as she said, taking my shoes and socks off, then wading into the water.
“It’s freezing!” I hissed.
Callie laughed, and it sounded like something I wanted to hold onto, like a lucky rock or a charm. I found myself smiling up at her.
She joined me moments later, removing her ripped tennis shoes and mismatched socks.
“I like this spot. I mean, it doesn’t go super deep for swimming, but it’s private. I almost ran here that first night, instead of your house.”
Callie walked in far enough for the water to reach the hem of her shorts, and I tried to ignore how pretty she looked with the fingers trailing the top surface and how her eyes lit up.
“Why did you come to my treehouse?”
She shrugged. “Remembered seeing it on one of my bike rides and wondered what it would be like to sleep inside it. Sleeping in a tree seemed like a safe idea—away from predators, away from people, drunks, and bikes.”
I didn’t like her words. They made me feel like I did when I was hitting that idiot.
“Who was that guy back there?” I asked again.
She let out a sigh and began taking water and wetting the back of her neck.
“Logan Linton. He’s an asshole. Football player, and thinks everyone in the school is there to please him. He’s always grabbing me and hurting me.”
I clenched my aching fist that was already starting to swell and dipped it under the water.
“So…he’s not your boyfriend?” I only asked to make sure she wasn’t letting him treat her like this.
Callie’s lips slung to the side as her eyes found mine. “If he were, he wouldn’t be after today.”
“Why?” I couldn’t quite work out what she was saying.
She let out a laugh.
“Because you beat him up! That would be sort of embarrassing, to keep dating him, wouldn’t it?”
I thought that over and let my next question slide between us before I chickened out. “And who was the other guy, Killian?”
Her gaze stayed on the water gently pushing at our legs as she let out a happy sigh.
“Killian is like my older brother. He’s a prospect, even though he’s only sixteen.
His daddy is a bad guy, just got sent away for twenty years, so my dad took Killian under his wing, patched him in, and now he’s family.
He’s supposed to follow me home every day, but he’s always late. ”
I thought that over, oddly glad that her dad had someone looking out for her.
“Why did you come, Wes? Why did you hit Logan like you couldn’t stop?”
My gaze raised, clashing with hers. Somehow, we’d wandered closer to each other in the river. Our fingers were just inches apart now.
I thought over what I should say and what I wanted to say. I should tell her I did it because I just felt like it…but I wanted her to know the real reason. I was curious how she’d respond. “I came because I didn’t want to wait to see you. I hit him because he was touching you, and he made you cry.”
She watched me as the trees swayed above us and the water burbled. It felt like we were the only two people on the planet.
When I assumed she wasn’t going to say anything else, I felt her finger barely touch mine under the water.
I kept still as her entire hand suddenly found mine, her fingers lightly brushing over my bruised knuckles.
I closed my hand around hers, and we continued walking around the river, holding hands under the surface where no one could see.
With one hand, the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about hung on, and with the other, I felt the ache of a battle I knew I’d rage again if anyone else ever tried to hurt her.