I sigh as he turns and walks back to his own four-wheeler. Rachel is looking back at me with curious eyes, so I smile for her benefit.
Her attention finally leaves me as Jake returns and climbs in front of her. She leans forward and wraps her arms around him tight, resting her cheek on his back.
A wave of olfactory memory hits me at the sight. Man oh man, I bet he smells amazing from that close.
Shaking away the thought, I put my thumb to the throttle thingie on my four-wheeler and shoot forward to follow them. It’s tricky at first, and to say my ride is rough would be an understatement. Eventually, though, I start to get the hang of it, and with Jake going slow like he said he would, I’m able to keep up with them, no problem.
He points to things on the trail, and Rachel looks at each and every one of them with a smile, nodding into his back to affirm she heard him. She doesn’t loosen her grip at all, and I make a mental note to reference her obvious physical attraction for him in my article.
A sharp twist of my stomach makes me let off the throttle briefly.
Ugh. I probably shouldn’t have eaten those two donuts this morning.
They don’t usually bother me, but I’m also not normally vibrating the innards of my body atop a huge engine either, so who knows.
Jake and Rachel get a little farther down the trail after my brief stop, so I decide to take the opportunity to test out my ability to go a little faster while I catch up.
I mash down on the throttle, and I take off like a rocket. The wind feels invigorating in my hair as trees whip past me, and a thrill I’ve never felt before runs down my spine.
I laugh maniacally and push the throttle down even farther. Hell’s bells, this feels good! I can’t believe I’ve never done it before.
Rolling and raging, I don’t quite notice that the trail turns sharply ahead until I’m right on top of it.
I panic, trying to find the brake and missing completely as I shoot over the side of the trail and up into the woods without much finesse. It’s bumpy and thick, and I’m thrown up toward the handlebars violently. I shriek as the front of the four-wheeler comes to a bone-jarring stop against a small tree, and my whole body whiplashes back.
My thumb is still plastered to the throttle, and only then, sitting there spinning my tires in the mud, do I think to release it.
Holy shit!
Unexpectedly, gentle hands lift me up off the four-wheeler and spin me around. Jake is there, and his eyes look wild in a way I’ve never seen them before—like stormy Caribbean seas.
“Holley, are you okay?” he asks, running his hands down the length of my arms and legs frenziedly.
I start to nod, but my neck is undeniably sore, so I stop that pretty quickly. “I…yeah. Sore, but I’m okay. I’m just dumb.”
“You’re not dumb,” he says, his voice laden with more guilt than is necessary. “I should have chosen something else for today.”
“Jake, it’s not your fault. I got cocky—”
“Is she okay?” Rachel asks from a few feet away, startling me violently back into the reality that I’ve done all this in the middle of their date. Shit, I really have a serious knack for timing.
“Rachel, I’m so sorry,” I try to lean around Jake to say.
Her eyes are narrowed on the way Jake is tending to me, but her voice is understanding. “It’s okay. Just as long as you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” I try to assure them both.
“Fine? Or fine?” Jake qualifies, and I smile at the memory of our conversation at breakfast in the diner.
“Fine fine. The real kind.” Jake’s eyes study me closely, so I smile. “You guys should go on, have your picnic. I’ll just…wait here for you to come back.”
“I don’t think we should—”
“No,” Rachel interjects easily. “It’s fine. We can get Holley back to the parking lot, and then figure out what to do from there.”
“Guys—”
“Holley, Rachel is right. We—”
“Just go on!” I almost shout, the pressure of the situation and the resulting embarrassment finally building up to a breaking point. My dignity is back at the beginning of my knobby tire track somewhere. “I’ll be okay. Really.”
Jake looks at me closely as I beg him with my eyes. “Please, Jake. Just go… I’ll be okay