Ropyr
September 2014
The last person I expected to show up on a Sunday morning was Davis Lewis. We were friends, I guess. We had a lot of the same classes and he matched my sarcastic personality. Instead of getting offended at my playful jabs, he gave it right back. He was funny, and he talked to me. Not small talk to pass the time, but real conversations. He confided me about Miranda, and his family. He was scared of letting down his parents. Scared of not being a good enough player to go pro. He didn't have a backup plan if he failed at baseball.
"'Morning, Sweetheart," he adjusted that stupid Lions baseball cap he wore all the time and sat beside me on the porch step.
I tried focusing on my sketchpad and getting the shading on Dawson's face right. Anything not to notice the perfect grin on his tanned face. Davis was attractive and he knew it. That meant I couldn't show any inkling that I noticed he was attractive. From that first day in the kitchen I felt some kind of pull toward him, something saying I needed to get to know him, but then he mentioned a girlfriend. And I met Jeremy.
Davis's attractiveness didn't even matter after happened with Jeremy last night. I was still riding a high from how his body felt against mine. I could still feel his weight on me.
"'Morning, Lewis. What are you doing here?" I'd started calling him by his last name a few days after school started. I said it like he had wronged every one of my ancestors. It was my way of setting myself apart from everyone else, and it seemed to annoy him.
"Grandparents are in town. I can't be around that." I wanted to ask why, but he put the attention back on me. That was his way of avoiding the topic. "What are you working on now?"
He moved closer. So close that I felt his breath on my skin. "I've been trying to finish this one of Dawson since last week, but I can't get the shading right." I turned the sketchpad so he could see what I was talking about. Dawson was sitting next to Miranda at the lunch table, with Davis across from her. There was a notebook open and several pens and highlighters scattered around. Dawson was smiling. I wanted to capture the moment because he hadn't smiled since I moved here.
"You're really good. Can I have this one when you're done with it?"
"This one? I have better ones. I even have some of you in here." I flipped through the pages, showing him what I'd done the last few weeks. There were sketches of him in class where he wasn't paying attention, looking at his phone and watching a game or reading baseball stats. There were sketches of all the guys at practice, mostly Jeremy and Kenny. I had some of Neve that she requested and posed for.
"I really like that one. You captured Miranda's dimples. It's one of my favorite things about her." He said the right words, but he wasn't smiling.
I ripped the drawing from the book and handed it to him. "Go ahead and take it. I think I need a new set of pencils before I can add any more. It's done anyway. I don't think you care if Dawson's shadow on the table is shaded."
"Are you and Miranda friends yet?" He asked with a teasing tone. Like he already knew the answer.
I sighed and closed my sketchpad. "I'd like to say yes, but that would be a lie. I tried. I really did, but she likes to argue and cannot stand being wrong about anything. You should hear her and Dawson going at each other when she's here."
His smile faltered. He was suddenly serious and a little distant. "She hangs out here with him?"
"Yeah. She's tutoring him. They study with me and Jeremy sometimes. Well, used to. Their bickering got to be too much, so we study at the library now. You didn't know?"
He shook his head. "She doesn't talk to me much these days." He folded the sketch and stood from the steps. "I think I'm gonna go for a drive. I'll see you later, Woods."
He was almost to the truck when I found my voice. I could tell he didn't need to be alone, and while I was nervous that he may so no, I had to ask. "Wait!" He turned back to me. "Do you want some company?"
He almost smiled. "Get in!" He yelled back.
I gathered my sketchbook and pencils, dropped them into the messenger bag and ran to his passenger side. We drove around Honey Bell, neither of us saying much. The radio was playing some Dwight Yokum song that I didn't know. I only knew who it was because that voice.
Eventually he parked at the baseball diamond, but he didn't move to get out of the truck. "Do you know anything about baseball?" He asked.
"No. I'm not big into sports. Except NASCAR. My dad used to race at the local tracks, small gigs. But we watched NASCAR religiously, and hockey."
"Really?" He sounded surprised. "Never would have pegged you as a car girl. Who's your favorite driver?"
"Tony Stewart. I like a man with an attitude. But I met Michael Waltrip at a Cracker Barrel once. My mom's friend was like, obsessed with him, but too nervous to approach him. I had no choice. I chased him down at the register and had him come to the table to meet her. She talked about it for the rest of the day."
"You chased down a NASCAR champion? Sounds fake, but okay," he grinned. "You're way too shy and awkward."
I gasped and punched him in the arm. He laughed. "I am not shy or awkward!"
"You are! I tried for weeks to get you to talk to me and you either ignored me or said something smart. I only ever saw you talk to Neve or Jeremy. You and I didn't have a real conversation until about two weeks ago."
"Jealous much, Lewis?"
"Yeah, actually. I am. I'm not used to being ignored." I could tell he meant that and that he was genuinely hurt that I had disregarded him for those first few weeks.
"Well, I'm talking to you now. What do you wanna know?" I sat back against the door and pulled my feet into the seat, ready for a heart to heart.
"Everything."
My heart burst at his words. Everything? He wanted to know everything? No one wanted to know everything. I mean, Jeremy asked questions sometimes. Trivial things, surface level questions. He'd asked about my parents once, and I'd shut down that topic. I was afraid he wouldn't like me anymore if knew what my dad had done. Now here was Davis saying he wanted to know everything.
"Davis…"
"No, I'm serious. You're like a riddle I can't figure out. Help me,"
We sat on the tailgate of the truck. I was starting to feel claustrophobic in the cab. Serious heart-to-heart conversations were not my specialty. I didn't like talking about myself.
I told him about my dad getting arrested on my birthday. No one got to enjoy the cake, and it melted into a chocolate mess all over the table and ground. We talked about my mom's theories that Dad took the fall to protect the younger guys. I didn't know what to believe all of it. When he asked if I talked to my mom, if she was keeping me updated on what was happening. He didn't judge me when I told him that no, I hadn't talked to her.
Two weeks after I arrived in Honey Bell, I was sitting on the couch with Neve and Dawson. BREAKING NEWS flashed across the screen, then footage of my dad in handcuffs being led into a building by several officers. He had a good lawyer and accepted a plea deal. Scheme to defraud. He was facing ten to twenty-five years in prison.
I ran to my room crying. My mom sent my calls to voicemail and never responded to my texts. I needed answers. I needed to understand. I called my dad's business partner, Davion Russo. He was also Khouri's dad. I knew him well and I knew he would talk to me. Davion was a straight shooter.
"Hey, Ropyr, how are you, honey?" He answered on the first ring. He always did.
"Did you know about any of this?" I asked, clinging to hope that he didn't.
He exhaled a deep sigh, like heh ad been asked this question before. "No. I didn't. Jace recommended Lydia to help out in the office. She was good, smart. I trusted his judgement. She never brought any discrepancies to my attention. I'm going over the books now myself. This whole thing makes no sense."
He was on my dad's side. Davion submitted character statements, as well as most of the guys that worked for him. My mom and Ropyr did, too. Jace and Lydia, on the other hand, did not and hadn't said anything publicly at all.
"What does scheme to defraud mean?" Davis asked.
"Davion said it means that jobs were being promised and payments were received, but the work was never done. That doesn't sound like something my dad would do." There were no contracts to be found with my dad's name attached. No emails to the company account. It wasn't adding up.
"I've written him letters. One every week since I've been here. He never responds. My mom hasn't called. She calls Trina, but not me. She sold my car and sent them the money for taking care of me. I try to act like it doesn't bother me, but it does. A lot."
"Have you told anyone else all this?" He tossed a ball up in the air, caught it, and tossed it again.
"No. You're the only one," I caught the ball before he did and passed it back and forth between my hands. I really didn't understand what the hype was about baseball. It was the most boring sport, next to golf. It wasn't even a contact sport. "Your turn, Lewis. Tell me something real."
He paused, ran his hands through his hair. "I think Miranda's cheating on me, and I think Dawson has something to do with it. I saw the texts he sent her this morning."
If those two were hooking up, I wouldn't be surprised. The fit the enemies-to-lovers trope. Or they were just terrible people. I didn't say anything about it because I didn't know either of them that well.
"And," he continued, thankfully, "my grandparents are in town. My grandpa used to beat the hell out of my dad, then me. He's fine when he's sober. Problem is, he's rarely sober."
"Is that why you spit out the whiskey at your party?"
"You noticed that?"
I nodded. "I noticed a lot that day."
I noticed he ran his hands through his hair when he was irritated. He watched people like he wanted to understand them, but he didn't ask questions. I noticed the way his muscles stayed tense, even now. He never seemed to relax.
In class he constantly tapped his pencil on the desk, not from nervousness but from impatience. He wasn't meant to be in a classroom. I never saw him study yet his grades were good enough to keep his position on the team.
"I want to know why you came with me today. Why didn't you let me leave by myself?"
I shrugged one shoulder. "You looked like you needed a friend."
"You want to be my friend, Woods?" He smiled in that teasing way I was starting to like a little too much.
"Everyone needs a friend. Even cocky, arrogant baseball guys."
He snatched the ball from my hands. "Sounds fake, but okay." I laughed. That phrase had become something that belonged to just the two of us.
I asked him to show me what was so great about baseball. He had a bat and glove in the backseat because…well, of course he did. This game was his life. If we were going to be friends I wanted to know why he loved this game.
We walked onto the diamond. Apparently it wasn't called a field. Oops. As if Davis needed extra ammunition to tease me with. He handed me the bat and told me where to stand. He adjusted my hands and my hips, his touch leaving goosebumps on my skin. "Cold?" He asked. I hadn't realized I shivered.
"No. Not cold," I said. I had to force images of Jeremy into my mind. Jeremy. The beach. Anything to make me forget Davis was the one with his hands on me. Jeremy was the one touching me last night. He was the one shirtless, on top of me, kissing every inch of bare skin. I had to keep that image in my head. "Maybe this was a bad idea," I couldn't hold the bat upright any longer. It fell from my hands and rolled on the ground.
"Why is this a bad idea?" He whispered against my ear. His hands slowly moved from my hips to my bare stomach. I mentally cursed Neve for convincing me that I looked good in crop tops. "You're not telling me to stop."
He gently brushed his lips against my neck. I didn't like that I enjoyed being this close to him. The quiet, book nerd I was in Florida ceased to exist once I moved to Honey Bell. I made friends rather quickly. I was hanging with the baseball team. I made out, nearly naked, with a boy last night. I let him touch me in placed I'd never been touched before. Now, the captain of the team had his hands on me and his lips on my skin.
I should push him away. I should tell him no. I should tell him to stop. The words were stuck in my throat as his hands moved under my shirt, just below my bra. For a brief second I leaned into him, wanting to see how far he would go. How far I would let him go. Jeremy wasn't my boyfriend. We hadn't talked about being official. But…Davis did have a girlfriend. I wasn't going to help him cheat.
"Stop." I finally said, catching my breath.
He stopped.
He drove me home. I didn't get out right away. I watched him. He hadn't said anything at all on the drive back, but I could tell he didn't regret what happened out there. If I was being honest with myself, I didn't regret it either. I think he was mad that I stopped it, or maybe embarrassed. "You have a girlfriend, Davis," I reminded him, softly. Gently.
"What if I didn't?" He asked, finally glancing my way.
"It doesn't matter because you do. I don't think you want me, you just want to forget about her," I got out of the truck, closed the door, then leaned into the open window. "Call me when you figure it out."