I pointed at Damon.
“So you’re alone?” she asked, in a softer voice than I would have expected.
“I’m with him.” I gripped his hand tighter. “This is Damon.”
She just nodded while her eyes didn’t seem able to focus on any particular thing.
“Damon, this is my mother. And her client. Jack.”
Jack’s smile didn’t mean just anything anymore. And I’m not sure it qualified as a smile at all.
You’ve got nothing on me now, you smug jerk.
“You kids are kind of young to be out alone on a day like this, aren’t you?” Jack’s mustache twitched and he turned his narrowed eyes onto Damon.
Damon’s thumb circled my first knuckle.
I wanted to say something about her car, about her clothes, about them. But my throat squeezed shut and I fought just to keep my knees steady.
“No worries,” Damon said, and never broke from Jack’s stare. “We’re dressed for the weather.”
Mom tucked her feet further under her chair. “How did you get here? That boy isn’t old enough to drive.” Her voice trembled.
“He is to drive a snowmobile.”
Mom sucked in her breath. “You’re not going anywhere on a snowmobile, young lady.”
Tears of devastated humiliation pooled in my eyelids. I’d have to ride home with her.
Damon’s hand pressed firm and warm around mine. I looked at Mom, then at Jack, then back at Mom.
Oh, wait just a freakin’ minute.
I leaned down and looked square into her twitchy eyes.
“Wanna bet?”
* * * * *
“Not the best way to meet your mom.”
I climbed onto the snowmobile behind Damon and tried to ignore the two people that stared at us from inside the diner’s front window.
“Where do you want to go?” Damon asked.
“Anywhere. Away.”
He started the engine.
“Do a donut or something,” I told him.
“Here?” he asked, and twisted around to look at me. “What for?”
“Just because they’re watching.”
Damon shook his head. “If you want to do crazy stuff, I’ll take you to the track.”
“I want to do crazy stuff in front of them.” It occurred to me to grab his face with both hands and plant one on him, just so Mom would see.
“Julie.” He sighed hard. “Don’t be like Adam.”
“Like how?”
“Doing stupid, dangerous stuff because you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
He snorted.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“I know mad when I see it.” The engine sputtered and he revved it. “Maybe back to my house?”
Back to his house. Maybe pick up where we left off before Adam and his father walked in? My heartbeat applauded that idea.
“Dad’s home, but he won’t mind. He liked you.”
“Oh.” Not alone. Disappointment. A little relief. Mostly disappointment. “He did? Why?”
Damon wiped some snow off the back of his glove and put it on my nose. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“That’s cold!” I shook my head and brushed the snow off.
“Hold on.”
We put on our helmets and pulled out of the parking lot. I didn’t look back, but wrapped my arms around him and let Mom and Jack disappear behind me. We cut through several more parking lots, crossed the main road with no cars in sight either direction, and zoomed over a hill. Thick with snowdrifts, the enormous field around us looked like a vast, frozen stretch of white sand dunes.
Damon turned back and lifted his visor. “So you want to do donuts, huh?”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re right, I was just mad.”
“You got it. Hold on tight.” He tapped the visor closed.
He turned away and I pounded my glove on his shoulder. “No! I don’t want to do donuts!”
His hand reached back and pulled mine around his waist.
“Damon, no!”
He patted my hands where they gripped the front of his coat, then reached back for the handlebar.
“I’m serious!”
So was he. He leaned hard to one side and I tipped that way with him. The engine let out a body-shuddering scream and the back end of the snowmobile slid the other direction.
“Stop!”
We began to make slow, tight circles. The world turned in a flickering wash of white, like a snow globe shaken in spirals. The engine shrieked louder and we sped up.
“Damon!”
Then he sat up, and we pulled out of the spin. He revved the engine and we took off toward a big snow bank. But right before we got there, he pulled me to the opposite side and we spun like crazy. I held on even tighter than I had on the motorcycle.
We drove out of that circle and raced across the field to another rise.
I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut, but not seeing would have been even worse.
Up we went, like a roller coaster car flung along its track. My stomach flip-flopped and rolled in its own circles. At the top Damon leaned to the side again and we twisted the opposite way and raced back down the hill. At the bottom he spun us around in more donuts.
When we finally stopped he popped his visor up and looked back at me. “More?”
I pushed mine up. “No!”
“Oh, come on.”
“It’s my birthday!”
“And aren’t you having fun?”
I wanted to deny it, but I really couldn’t.
“You’re having fun,” he sang. “I’ll turn you into an adrenaline junkie yet.”
“No more. Please.”
He put his hand on top of mine where it still clutched his stomach. “Are you shaking?”
“Yeah. Scared. Duh.”
His glove rubbed over the top of mine. “I thought you trusted me.”
“You’re absolutely crazy. Certifiable.”
“You’re just figuring that out?”
“And I’m cold.”
His eyes narrowed. He took off his glove and touched my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “No you’re not. Coward.”
“Cad.”
“Cad?”
“It means a guy who treats women badly.”
“I know what it means. That’s pretty harsh.”
He stared so long I could’ve taken off my coat, hat, and gloves and not even gotten goose bumps. Not from the weather, anyway. Then he turned off the engine and unzipped his jacket.
“Well,” he said and leaned down. “I guess if I’m a cad anyway.” He scooped up a huge handful of snow, packed it into a ball and smiled at me.
“Oh, no!” I jumped off the snowmobile and ran a few yards away. I grabbed my own snowball and turned around to face him.
“I bet I can throw farther than you,” he taunted.
I backed up.
He got off the snowmobile. “I bet I can run faster, too.”
“You are a cad! If I had paper and a pencil I’d so draw you falling through the ice into a lake.”
Damon laughed. “Good thing you don’t.”
“I could draw it in the snow.”
“Think you’ll have time?”
He leaned on the snowmobile and tossed his snowball back and forth from one hand to the other. Then he jogged toward me.
He ducked when I threw mine and it missed him by a mile. I screamed and ran.
No snow hit me, but soon his footsteps crunched right behind mine.
I slammed to a stop and he plowed into me. We both fell down, but I rolled, grabbed a handful of snow and jumped back up. I dropped it right on his head.
“There, Mr. I’m-So-Big and I’m-So-Fast.”
“You are so getting it,” he said as he wiped off his face.
“Who was it that said never to start something you can’t finish?”
“This isn’t finished.”
He grabbed my ankles and pulled my fee
t out from under me. I landed on my back in the thick powder. Then he jumped up to his knees and got hold of my wrists.
“Julie wants to make angels!” He dragged my arms through the snow, from down at my sides to up over my head. The snow piled up next to my ears and over my body with each plow he made me do.
“Quit it!” I screamed and shook the icy stuff off my face.
He pulled my arms straight out to the sides and held them there. “But I’m a cad!”
I held very still then, and looked right into his eyes. He had to lean over to pin me like that, and he was so close I could almost taste the frosty puffs of each breath he took. When he stopped laughing and looked into my face, I knew exactly what to do.
I went limp and bent the knee closest to him, to shift myself just a bit out of the snow piled around me. I looked at him and tipped my chin some, so our faces lined up.
He took a breath, then swallowed and exhaled. He leaned down a little more.
Uh-huh. Come closer.
I bit my lower lip and stared at him. My heart knocked out a hard, uneven rhythm inside my chest.
I turned my wrist a little inside his hand. He relaxed his grip and I smiled.
He smiled too, and I drew my arms up, out of his grasp. He let me go and put his palms down into the snow on both sides of me to brace himself, but stayed there, right above me.
His coat hung unzipped, and I reached up to grab both open sides of it. “Damon?”
“Yeah?” The sound of his voice, so close and so sincere, prompted a brief stab of guilt.
But I got over it.
“Eat snow,” I whispered. I shifted to one side at the same moment I jerked down on his coat with all my strength. I rolled against the inside of his left arm and collapsed it, then knocked him aside with my bent leg and buried his face right in the snow pile he made me make.
Then I jumped up and ran.
When I got to a safe distance I stopped and turned around. Damon knelt on the ground, and brushed snow off his face and out of his collar and hair. Then he looked at me.
Yikes.
“Sorry!” I called.
He stood up and wiped off his coat and jeans.
“You were asking for it!”
He started toward me.
“All’s fair in love and war?”
He broke into a run, and I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t outrun him. I couldn’t take the snowmobile. I couldn’t fight him off.
I closed my eyes and braced myself.
He caught me behind the knees, buckled them and swept me off the ground. I opened my eyes and found myself in his arms again.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
He grinned. “You look terrified.”
“You can be kind of terrifying.”
“You said you weren’t scared of me.”
“I might have changed my mind.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, with an expression on his face I couldn’t quite figure out.
“What?”
“So what should I do with you?”
“It’s not a fair fight,” I argued. “You’re bigger and stronger than me.”
He tipped me backwards. “And you’re really, amazingly devious.”
“And don’t forget feisty.” I grabbed hold around his neck. “Don’t drop me!”
“It’s just snow,” he said. “Very cold snow. And wet. Especially down your neck.”
He leaned me so far back I had to hook my knees around his forearm to keep from falling. Then he reached around to unhook my arms from his neck, dropped my upper body into the snow and grabbed my legs with both hands.
“Stop it!” I demanded.
“Oh! It’s so cold, isn’t it?”
I tried to get control of myself, but he rolled me over and my face went straight in. Snow packed into the neck of my sweater and up my sleeves as I tried to push off the ground. I sucked in a breath to scream and got a mouthful of cold. He twisted me around in the snow several more times before he dropped my legs and I flipped over onto my back.
“You enormous bully!” I looked up at him and tried to figure out how to get him back onto the ground. I pulled off my snow-packed gloves and wiped the ice crystals from my face. My cheeks burned, as much from fury as from the cold.
He reached his hand down to me. “Come on.”
I took his hand and he lifted me off the ground.
He pulled me closer. “Like your snow bath?”
Skin. I had to get to his skin.
“You look kind of mad, Julie.”
Inside his open coat a sweatshirt hung over the waist of his jeans. But did he have a T-shirt under it? And was it tucked in?
He grabbed a piece of my hair and swung it back and forth. “You’ve totally got clumps of snow packed in your hair.”
“Proud of yourself?” I asked him, and turned away.
He held my arm and pulled me back to face him.
I’m going to wipe that grin right off your face, Damon Kyle Sheppard.
I put my free hand on his waist. Could I slip it under his sweatshirt?
“Truce?” he asked.
“After you just did that to me?” I pulled on the hem of the shirt, just enough to get my first finger under it. He flinched when my cold knuckle grazed warm, bare skin.
“I don’t think it would be wise of you to escalate this any further. For your own good.”
“You don’t, huh?” I put my other hand on his shirt, and bunched up the hem.
He planted his feet farther apart and grabbed my upper arms, like he expected me to try to knock him over. Instead, I pushed up his shirt, dropped my head down, and rubbed my ice-chunked hair all over his stomach.
He yelled, jerked back and tried to push me away, but I held onto him with my fists twisted up in the fabric.
“Get off me!” He pushed on my shoulders and his foot hooked around the back of my ankle. I kept a grip on him even when I fell backwards, and took him with me into the snow again.
He rolled onto his back beside me and rubbed his shirt over his stomach. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“You started it.”
He zipped up his coat and rolled toward me. “I underestimated you.”
I smiled. “That was your mistake.”
CHAPTER 32
We stomped off as much snow as we could outside, then took off our boots and coats in the garage before we went in.
Damon’s dad sat on the living room couch in front of a fire and looked us both up and down. I stuffed my hands in my pockets. Inside the right one my fingertips bumped into a wet piece of paper.
“Snow fight,” Damon said.
Mr. Sheppard raised his eyebrows. “Looks like the snow won.”
I looked up at Damon. “Actually, I think I did.”
Damon turned to me. “In your dreams.”
Mr. Sheppard shook his head. “You both better get into some dry clothes. Damon, go change and get her something of yours.” He got up and opened the fireplace doors wider. “Come get warmed up,” he told me.
While Damon went upstairs I sat on the brick hearth. I pulled the crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket and unwrapped it. The gum wrapper, from the Olympics finals. I held my stiff, red hands up to the heat, then squinted at the wrapper.
Faint lettering crisscrossed the paper.
Damon’s dad went back to the couch and propped his feet on the coffee table.
“I assume your parents know you’re here.”
I folded the wrapper and put it back in my pocket. “Sort of. My mom knows I’m with Damon.”
He cocked his head.
“I don’t think it matters.”
“I’d be surprised if it didn’t.”
He rubbed his chin. He had the same kind of stubble Hirsch always had. I wondered if all men with dark hair had that problem. Damon would probably get it someday, too. I imagined him shaving and flutters danced through my stomach.
“Damon says you’re in his class at
school.”
I nodded. “Homeroom.”
“That’s the only time you see each other all day, is it?” he asked with a dimpled half-grin exactly like Damon’s.
“Well.” Stupid blushing. “We have lunch, too. And we do the Academic Olympics.”
“Congratulations on that.” His thumb twisted the wedding ring around his finger. “And Happy Birthday. Fourteen?”
I nodded.
“Damon’s coming up to fifteen. First of November.”
“Really? That’s just a couple of weeks.”
“Fifteen going on twenty-five,” his dad muttered.
I looked up. “Hmm?”
Mr. Sheppard crossed his legs, leaned back and sighed. “That boy’s always been older than he is. He has an over-developed sense of responsibility.”
“I thought parents liked that kind of thing.”
He chuckled. “Usually. Maybe.”
Is he trying to say I’m too young for Damon?
“I wouldn’t mind if he and Adam could meet about halfway in the middle, though.”
Damon trounced down the stairs with some clothes over his arm. “Don’t listen to anything he tells you.”
“Oh,” I said. “He was just saying how responsible and mature you are. I won’t believe him then.”
His Dad chuckled and picked up his magazine. “You may have met your match, Damon.”
Damon threw the clothes at my head.
“Where should I change?” I asked.
“My room. Second door on the right.”
I looked at his dad. “That’s okay?”
“If it’s okay with him.”
The fire melted some of the chunks in my hair and icy water dripped down my neck as I climbed the stairs. At the top I turned right and passed by the half-open door to what had to be Adam’s room. From what I could see it looked exactly like I would have expected: a total mess crowned with rock band and supermodel posters.
I went into Damon’s room, locked the door, and peeled off my wet clothes.
The gum wrapper got twisted up when my pants pocket turned inside out, but I got it out and opened it again. I turned it over, back and front, but didn’t see anything on it this time.
“That’s weird. I know I saw words.”
The sun shot a beam through the frosty window and blazed a blinding square on Damon’s rug. I walked over and pressed the gum wrapper against the glass, into the light.
The words appeared again, etched, or embossed, by the finest pen nib and the most beautiful, graceful handwriting I’d ever seen. The letters shined through the silvery-white paper, lit with their own fire.
I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.
“Where do you think this comes from?” Damon’s words echoed in my head, and I shivered.