Girls Like Boys

Ramsy frowned as she stepped into the room after class on Monday. I was home already, brushing my hair out in front of our shared mirror that hung between our closet doors. Her jaw snapped closed abruptly, like she was planning on saying something and decided against it. I smiled at her in the mirror and tossed my brush back into its spot.

“Where are you going?” she asked, eyeing my jacket and shoes. “I wanted to get dinner and catch up on today.”

“Travis is expecting me,” I answered, smiling apologetically. “He’s racing tonight, and since I missed all his runs over break, I can’t miss this one.”

“You’re seriously going with him even though the police showed up last time?” Ramsy asked, frowning at me deeply. She dropped her bag without ceremony, letting it bang against the floor, as she turned and kicked her shoes under the bed.

“Ram, it’s Trav,” I replied. “I can’t just turn my back on racing because he almost got into trouble. They’re not running in the same place or else I wouldn’t be going. I’m not stupid. And Travis isn’t stupid. He knows better than that.”

I stepped back and turned to look at my sister as she stayed silent. I could see the disappointment on her face, even though I couldn’t tell exactly what was wrong. Even though I used to feel that Ram and I could read each other easily, that felt more distant now.

“What, Ramsy?” I asked with a sigh. “I’m sorry that Trav’s race fell on our first night back, but for him, today wasn’t a big deal. He’s been here all break.”

“Do you have time to at least get dinner?” Ram asked with a sigh of her own. “The others just asked me if I wanted to go, and I told them I was going with you.”

I slid my phone out of the pocket of my jeans and checked the time and my texts from Travis. He was usually earlier than he said, which didn’t leave me a lot of time, but due to his bathtub ritual, Ryan was picking me up on his way home from classes.

“I’ll go with you,” I offered, grabbing my wallet and jacket from the bed. “Ryan doesn’t get out for like fifteen or twenty minutes, so we’ve got some time until he gets here.”

“You know, it’s sketchy that you can’t even park the truck at his house on race nights,” Ram said pointedly, not expecting a response from me.

I didn’t give her one. I just ushered her out the door. We darted through the halls, down three floors, and across the road one after the other like echoes of each other. Ramsy followed reluctantly, but I paid her mood no mind and instead tried to focus all my attention on her while we were together.

As we settled at an empty table, I sank down into one of the plastic chairs and leaned forward to rest on my elbows. Ram’s tray clattered down to the table top across from me, and she dropped down unceremoniously, taking a drink before she’d even settled into her chair.

“I wish our schedules matched up more,” I said to her, watching her eyebrows rise over her forkful of pasta.

She chewed and swallowed slowly, then answered with a nonchalant shrug. “You’ve got your friends and I’ve got mine,” she said. “There’s not a lot we can do about that.”

I frowned and toyed with the edge of her tray, listening to it scrape back and forth against the table. Ram shooed my hand away and slid it back closer to her. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “I was talking more about our classes or whatever,” I replied, “but that’s true too, I guess.”

Ram nodded, scooping another bite into her mouth. I watched her attention slide up past me, and I glanced back too, following the line of her blue eyes and finding nothing of interest. Seeing my look, she shrugged and twisted her fork into her pasta.

“Ryan is probably almost here,” she said simply.

I flipped my phone over so that it was facing up and woke it, glancing at the texts on my home screen. “He’s on our street,” I answered, “but he’s fine waiting a few minutes.”

Ram sighed and shook her head, waving me off. “No, go,” she said, sounding as though she were conceding defeat.

I paused, halfway toward grabbing my bag and darting off, and asked, “You good? I don’t want to leave you here all upset that I’m going to Trav’s race rather than staying home with you.”

“You and I both know that you’re not going to stay, Cody, so go. It’s fine. I’m not going to pout that you’ve got plans and I don’t.” She tossed her napkin down onto her plate as my phone buzzed obnoxiously on the table. Another text from Ryan, via Trav, warning me not to keep the cousins waiting on me.

I sent Trav the text-equivalent of an eye-roll and dared him to try to send Ryan home without me in the car. I knew Ryan well enough to know that he wouldn’t leave when he knew I was depending on him, even if Travis demanded that he come home and leave me ride-less in a fit of impatient annoyance. I waited for Ramsy to clear her plates and come back to me. She walked slowly, reluctantly, apparently testing to see if I’d dart off without her.

Ryan never drove on his own because he didn’t have, or want, one of his own cars here in the city. He borrowed cars from the revolving line up at Trav’s when he needed them, and that made it impossible to pinpoint what he’d be driving when he picked me up. Erick, though, I recognized. He was a diehard for his own car, a purple-maroon, two-door Nissan something or other. He would’ve convulsed if he heard me refer to it that way, but I just smiled at the blonde the minute when I spotted the vehicle.

“There they are,” I said more to myself than Ramsy, but she glanced up to our right, nodding when she spotted the guys.

Ryan was already climbing out of the front seat so that I could take his place up front. I veered toward them, sparring a quick glance at my sister, and wrapped him in a quick side hug before he bent himself up to fit into the back.

“Bye!” I called to Ram as she waived and headed inside our building.

In the driver’s seat, Erick pulled himself forward toward the steering wheel as he peered out the front window. His chin dipped toward me as he spoke, but his eyes didn’t move from Ramsy as she stepped back into Tutwiler. “Your sister doesn’t want to come?” He dropped back into his seat.

“She’s not Travis’s biggest fan,” Ryan said with a smile full of irony, meeting my gaze through the side mirror as he buckled himself in.

I smiled too and shook my head. “His stock doesn’t seem to be going up either,” I answered, clicking my own seatbelt into place. I tucked my feet under me, beaming at Erick when he gave me a not-so-subtle stink eye at the sight.

Turning the key in the ignition, Erick nodded in acknowledgement. “That’s a shame,” he said. “Not everything we do revolves around Travis. She could hang out with the rest of us instead.”

Ryan frowned, amusement playing at the corners of his mouth, and leaned forward between the two front seats. “Erick…” he trailed off. “Are you… attracted to Ramsy Carrigan? Cody’s… identical… twin sister?”

Erick scoffed, reaching back in an attempt to smack Ryan, even as he veered the vehicle away from the curb. He whipped the car around, barely checking for pedestrians, and began defending himself. “What – no. I’m just saying that she shouldn’t be, y’know, excluded because she doesn’t like Travis.”

I hid my smile behind my hand, trying my best to look at him seriously, infusing a little bit of mock anger into my expression. He glanced at me for a second before continuing, turning out onto the main street.

“Cody, I didn’t mean that I’m- to you- it’s not like that. It’s just-I respect you, and your sister, but I-“

I couldn’t hold my laughter as Ryan’s deeper laughter echoed right behind me. Erick looked at me egregiously, incredulously, and I immediately tried to cut the laughter off.

“Erick, relax,” I said, shaking away the giggles. “It’s fine. Even if you are attracted to Ramsy, it’s not like we’re the same person.”

Erick’s pale complexion was redder than I’d ever seen it, and he huffed a sigh and looked away as though he couldn’t quite look at me. As he turned onto the road that would take us down toward Trav’s neighborhood, he mumbled, “Don’t tell Travis.”

Ryan burst into another round of laughter.

When we arrived, Erick practically slammed into Trav’s driveway, and he was out of the car before Ryan or I could say another word. He was in the house before either of us were fully out of the car. Ryan locked it from the inside and waited as I stepped around the vehicle to his side. Through the side garage door, he led the way into the renovated warehouse. I couldn’t help but grin at the familiar sight.

Shay pulled away from Benji and veered over to me, throwing an arm over my shoulder and leading me from Ryan. “Before you disappear into the smoky mystery that is Travis Laughlin’s bathtub,” he started, motioning dramatically to the loft overhead, the window that peered into Trav’s room. “I would like to off you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run the starting lap at tonight’s race with our very own Flynn Haden.”

I frowned, leaning around Shay to get a better look into the house. When he saw me looking, Flynn saluted in greeting from one of the couches in the living room. “It’s gonna cost you!” he called, smirking at me as he lifted his feet up onto the arm of the couch.

Benji’s head whipped toward his friend. “You telling me you’ve been charging those girls you’ve been riding around with every race?”

Flynn tilted his head back toward us, looking upside down at us. He grinned. “Not money,” he said, wagging his eyebrows.

I gagged dramatically. “Misogynist.”

Lazily, he lifted his hand to his heart. “Oh Ms. Carrigan, you wound me,” he said dryly. “As much as I adore getting shit from you, I don’t take trade in insults. It’s still going to cost you a stiff twenty.”

The guys laughed, shaking their head at him, and simply turned back to another conversation. Shay and Ryan slipped away from me, and Erick’s bedroom door opened overhead on the cat-walk. He glared down, holding my gaze as he rounded the spiral stairs onto our level.

“I thought you’d be in the tub by now,” he said evenly.

“I didn’t even do anything to you!” I said incredulously. “Ryan’s the one who started it!”

Ryan leaned around where he and the others were congregated near one of the cars in the pit and grinned at me, at my attempt to throw him under the bus.

Erick simply huffed and made his way to his friends, apparently putting Ryan’s disloyalty behind him, on my shoulders.

With a sigh, I headed out of the room, leaving them to their own disastrous selves. On the second floor, once probably rooms of just offices that overlooked the factory floor below, I made my way down the narrow cat-walk to Trav’s bedroom at the end. One large window fed into the room, visible from the floor below, but Travis’s long, dark curtains were pulled for his privacy.

I knocked once, quick, catching a couple looks from the guys below, then let myself into Trav’s room. His bathroom was a renovation and a wonder of machinery. Meaning, I wondered how these guys had managed to make it functional. They’d take a corner of this once, humungous office and walled it off for Travis’s bathroom. Like every race night, Travis was inside, curled up in his empty bathtub, fully dressed, caving to his worst habit – if one ignored the racing.

“Trav, it smells like one of those old movies in here,” I said as I stepped into the makeshift bathroom. “Like, if I closed my eyes, I’d definitely be in some old-school mobster’s office discussing how Cousin Vincent betrayed the family.”

Travis grinned at me, eyes twinkling. “Racist and uninventive,” he commented, snuffing the cigarette out on the side of the porcelain tub. “My gangster cousin could’ve been any nationality. Italian mobsters are such a stereotype. You should know better, English major.”

I leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, smiling back. “You going to be in here much longer?”

The dark-haired boy just shrugged and pushed up out of the tub far enough to grab a glass from the floor. Concealing his smile, he didn’t meet my eye as he slipped chocolate milk from a wide-rimmed wine glass.

“You are ridiculous, aren’t you?”

Trav gingerly put the glass down. “I thought it needed to breathe a little,” he said, grabbing for his pack of smokes as they slid into the tub from the edge.

I nodded along. “Oh yeah, I think that’s oxidation.”

His eyes narrowed as he cocked his head. “How do you know that?” he asked, grinning at me. “You grew up on a farm, Carrigan. When did you get a fancy-class education?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “It’s not a farm,” I replied. “It’s just acreage, city boy.”

Travis simply smiled at me and folded his legs, nodding to the open space it left at the other end of the tub. With an exaggerated roll of my eyes, I moved forward and climbed my way into his bathtub.

“Things any better with your sister?” he asked, leaning out to grab his milk glass and pass it over to me.

I took it readily, shrugging back at him. “Tense,” I said, taking a sip. I balanced the glass on the edge of the tub next to me, bracing my hands around it as I made sure it stayed put. Travis’s gaze lingered on it as I answered. “Resentful,” I added, “but it’ll work itself out. It always does.”

Trav finally looked to me, nodding. Slowly, he stretched his legs out next to me. “Well, thanks for coming tonight, Cody.” He lightly bumped my thigh with his foot, glancing away as a small, grateful smile appeared on his face.

I fiddled with the fold of his jeans along his shin. “Oh, you thought I was here for you?” I asked, schooling my expression into confusion. “I definitely only showed up for one of Flynn’s infamous ride-alongs.”

A little bit harder, Travis kicked my leg, scowling as I laughed. “He messes around too much,” he said with a shake of his head. “One of these nights he’s going to let one of those girls in his car as he races. I swear Cam almost combusted the other night when Flynn dug in with one in his passenger’s seat.”

I frowned, leaning back against the tub. “Would that be so horrible? Nothing ever really happens race-wise. I know it would slow him down, but really it would avoid you guys having to turn around and come get us when the cops show up.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed at me. “Don’t be getting any ideas,” he said, tapping a smoke against the tub – an anxious tick that appeared when he was trying his best to keep from lighting one. “I think it’s stupid to have anyone else in that car. It’s not just the cops, Cody. Getting arrested is nothing compared to spinning out or losing control. Our runs are pretty mellow, but that doesn’t mean they’re safe.”

“I’m not getting any ideas,” I answered defensively, “but you’re always harping about how I can’t be in there and it’s not safe, but you still go out there constantly. And it seems like you’re getting into bigger and bigger stuff, Travis. I don’t know why it’s only other people’s safety that you care about.”

Travis basically rolled his eyes. He leaned forward to grab the cup and take a drink rather than speaking, but I stayed silent until he was done – until he set the glass down on the floor of the bathroom. When he looked up, I was still there waiting.

“Cody,” he complained, shaking his head. “I obviously care about my own safety. It’s a hobby, and I’m good at it, and the bigger the race, the better the payout. Not everyone gets to live mostly off what they make from this stuff… and a few days here and there at my dad’s auto-shop, if I’m being honest.”

I glanced around the renovated bathroom, seeing the rest of this place, knowing that it would be hard to cut back on the racing if it also meant giving up what Trav had here. “It’s a fairytale,” I said, meeting his eyes. “I’m just worried that if it’ll all come crashing down at some point.”

Travis smiled ruefully and dropped his smokes into his lap. “The only thing I’m worried about crashing is my car,” he answered, sliding down further into the tub, further toward me, so he could rest his head against the porcelain ledge.