Free Torn by C.J. Fallowfield

anxiety in my throat. The thought of seeing Nate again
both terrified and excited me at the same time, and I was completely unfocussed
as we ripped around the track. I let Billy beat me off the starting line, then
cut me up as I tried to undertake him on the corners. I slumped back in the
seat as he whooped with excitement to have beaten me, his joy only slightly
muted to see he still hadn’t beaten my time from the first game.
    “Tell me that you winning wasn’t
a fluke first time?” Josh whispered. “I’ll never hear the end of it if he wins
and gets to take you out.”
    “No fluke, I just … my head was
somewhere else. Won’t happen again.” I flashed him a smile as I pulled myself
together.
    “Good, because … I don’t want you
to go out with him because of a dare. If you go out with someone, it should be
because you want to, because you can’t stop thinking about them, because your
heart races at the thought of seeing them, and spending time with them makes
everything in the world seem right for the first time in your life.”
    “Josh, that’s …” I shook my head.
I didn’t have any better words to sum up what I thought a relationship should
be like, he’d said them already. That was why I was single. I’d never met that
guy, but right now, with our gazes locked, his cheeks coloring up in that
adorable way they did, I felt a weird sense that Josh could possibly be that
guy for me.
    “Come on, I’m waiting.”
    Billy’s interruption broke our
moment and I settled back into my seat after feeding the machine, then gripped
the steering wheel. Josh was right, I didn’t want to go on a date unless I was
ready for it. Maybe if it had been Josh I might have been, or Nate, but Billy?
There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on with him, funny as he
was. I couldn’t see myself dating someone I wasn’t sure of. I let out a
surprised grunt. What the hell was I doing thinking about dating? That
wasn’t in my life plan at the moment anyway. Josh counted us in and Billy and I
tore off from the starting line, Josh yelling encouragement in my ear each time
Billy took the lead, forcing me to pull out all the stops to claw it back. The
noise of cheering and cursing as I just edged over the finish line in pole
position, in what would have been a photo finish, was deafening.
    “Jesus, Sky, you’re hardcore. You
just pushed me to break my own record, and I’m still third on the leaderboard,”
Billy huffed.
    “No hard feelings?” I asked as I
reached out to shake his hand.
    “I’m gonna sulk for days, but
we’re having another best of three next time we come down here. I can’t let a
girl show me up,” he replied, peeling a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet
and handing it over to me. I grinned, then accepted Josh’s hand as he pulled me
out of the booth and high-fived me. I laughed and shimmied my backside as I
twirled around in a victory dance, and then lost my balance and fell flat on my
ass when the air was sucked out of my lungs. Nate was leaning against the air hockey
table next to us, his broad biceps bulging in a loose-fit black tee, tight gray
jeans clinging to his muscular thighs, and those sexy, undone black army boots
gracing his feet. I focused on those instead of looking up at his face. I’d
imagined his face so many times this last week, I didn’t want to be
disappointed to discover that real-life Nate didn’t live up to fantasy Nate. I
saw the boots approaching and stifled a groan as he crouched down and held out
his hand to help me up.
    “You ok, Sky? You went down with
quite a bump.” God, even his voice did things to me. Things I’d never
experienced. Things I desperately wanted to experience.
    “That was nothing, trust me. I
fall over all the time and that doesn’t even rank as a tumble. I must have gotten
dizzy from spinning around too fast.” I tried ungainly to scramble up on my
own, but landed flat on my ass again, making him laugh.
    “Take my hand, or