Four Years Later

 

“Dude, I cannot believe we only have one more year of college!” my best friend Jeff shouted over Tim McGraw’s “Truck Yeah.” Shit, if he played that song one more time, I might have to knock the shit out of him.

“No doubt! I’m just glad school is done. Man, this year has been kicking my ass!” I shouted back over the damn song. Just then, Jeff’s phone vibrated and lit up. We were at a stoplight, so he picked it up to check it.

“I’m getting a text from Ellie. That’s weird,” Jeff said as he turned the music down.

Jeff’s little sister Ellie was a senior in high school and was about to graduate in two days. I’d never personally met her face-to-face, but I sure knew enough about her to feel like she was my little sister as well. He was throwing her a graduation party Saturday night. She had turned eighteen in November and he had been putting off having her come to any of our parties until she was out of high school.

No one on the team was to meet her until then, and even then she was pretty much off-limits. He was very protective of his little sister.

I was an only child, so I didn’t get the whole tighter-than-tight sibling thing. I did know that Jefferson and his sister were pretty damn close though. They grew up with a mother who was almost always drunk, and Jeff pretty much raised Ellie.

“Ahhh, shit, we need to swing by and pick up my sister. Something must be wrong if she wants to leave school early,” Jeff said as he made a quick U-turn.

“Holy shit . . . you are actually going to allow me to meet your baby sister? Holy fuck . . . Let me write this shit down! I get to meet the ever-baby sister of Jefferson Johnson!” I said as I let out a laugh.

“Shut the fuck up, douchebag!” Jeff said as he punched me on my left arm. “Hey, I’m sorry, I know you wanted to stop by McBride’s and look at that gun.”

“I can take a look at it later today or tomorrow. No worries.” I had my eye on a Remington Model 870 twelve-gauge pump action for a few months now. I could always head over to McBride’s gun shop another time.

Jeff and I were planning on going out to my grandfather’s ranch in Mason in a few weeks to catch up with the old man and help out with some things he needed done around the place. Nothing made me happier than hanging out with Gramps and helping out on the ranch. There is nothing that I would not do for them. Nothing.

“What do you think is going on? I mean, she never asks you to pick her up early,” I said to Jeff as I looked at my watch. His sister had to have at least another hour of school left.

“Shit, I don’t know. I know she was happy the other day knowing everything was set for her scholarship to UT. She has worked her ass off in school. The money from our grandmother should help cover the additional costs that her scholarship won’t. I had it invested, and it’s done really well,” Jeff said as he sped toward Ellie’s school.

From what I gathered from hearing Jeff talk about his sister, she was pretty damn smart. She was third in her class. Worked her ass off in high school taking every Pre-AP class she could get into and even took some community college classes to get a jump-start on her college studies classes. She already had enough college credits to enter UT as a sophomore. Jefferson was pretty damn proud of her and bragged about her all the time.

“Hey, man, do me a favor . . . send her a text from my phone giving her an ETA of five minutes, will ya?” Jeff asked as he sped even faster toward her school. To say that he was overprotective of his baby sister was putting it lightly.

For some reason, my hands started to shake when I was punching in the message to Ellie. What the hell? I mean, I got a little bit excited at the idea of finally getting to meet Ellie face-to-face, but come on. Maybe it was just my shoulder acting up. I hurt it during spring training and now I carry a bottle of Advil in my pocket everywhere I go.

Yeah, surely that was it. I mean, come on. It was just Ellie, Jeff’s sister, for Christ’s sake. She had been over to our place a few times, but Jeff always made sure I was never home when she was over. From what I can remember she looked like she was cute, and I could tell she had a rocking body. I’ve seen her from afar plenty of times. She was really into yoga and even got Jeff hooked on it for a little while. Bastard kept trying to get me to go to some yoga place downtown. Fuck that. The yoga shit Coach makes us do is enough for me, thank you very much.

We had been sitting out in the parking lot for a few minutes and no Ellie. Jeff sent her another message, but nothing.

“Shit. I have a bad feeling.” Jeff strained his neck to watch a side entrance for his sister. “Come on, let’s just go in and see what is taking her so long,” Jeff said as he jumped out of his truck.

“Dude, do you think this is a good idea, going into a high school? I mean, don’t you have to do the whole check-in shit so you don’t freak people out?” I said as I practically ran to keep up with him.

“Nah, I know where her locker is. They never keep this side door locked. I sometimes bring Ellie stuff to eat during her off-period.”

It must have been between classes because kids were fucking everywhere. Holy fuck—you couldn’t give me a million bucks to go back to high school. Just walking down the hall gave me memories I wanted to just push back down, way . . . way . . . far down.

I noticed Jeff tense up next to me, and I looked down the hall to see what he was looking at.

“What the fuck?” Jeff whispered. I followed his eyes.

What the hell? My stomach did a total dive when I looked and saw a girl standing with her side facing toward us. I knew in an instant . . . this was Ellie.

“Ellie, what the hell is going on? I got your text, honey. What is going on?” I barely heard Jeff say to his sister. Ellie turned to look at Jeff and my breath caught in my throat when I saw her. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on. Her beautiful blue eyes were red and bloodshot, and she had a dazed and confused look on her face. I looked down and saw her holding her hand, and it appeared to be hurt. I immediately balled my hands into fists. The anger that built up inside me knowing someone had hurt her shocked the shit out of me.

“What the fuck did you do to my sister, you asshole? I will kill you if you have hurt her!” is all I heard before I tore my eyes away from Ellie. Jeff had some douchebag kid pinned up against the lockers. I’ve seen Jeff mad, but I had never seen him lose his temper like this.

Just then, Ellie walked up and tried to pull Jeff off the kid, but she jumped back and let out a cry like she was in pain. No way was she going to get any more hurt. I walked up and placed my hands on her shoulders to get her out of the way. The moment my hands made contact with her body, I felt a jolt go from my fingertips to my toes.

What the fuck was that?

“Stand back here, Ellie, so you don’t get hurt, sweetheart,” I said as I brought her a few feet away from where Jeff was going insane on some high school kid. Ellie turned and looked up at me. Her eyes widened in surprise. My God, she had the most beautiful blue eyes. Her hair was a beautiful light brown and was wavy and just past her shoulders a few inches. All I wanted to do was run my hands through her hair. I couldn’t even form the next words in my head.

By the way she was looking back at me, she felt the same way. She was staring at me like I was trying to take her soul. I felt her shudder under my touch, and I let out a small laugh. She narrowed her eyes at me and looked over my shoulder at the commotion going on behind me.

Some guy was now yelling at Jefferson. I needed to get him out of here before we both got our asses put in jail.

I gave Ellie a reassuring squeeze, smiled down at her, and then turned my attention to Jeff.

“Jeff, take it easy, man. Calm the hell down, dude. He’s not worth going to jail for!” I said to Jeff in a calm voice. I knew he was upset, and I needed to bring him down.

“I’m going to kill that fucker if he hurt her in any way, Gunner. I . . . will . . . kill . . . him!” Jeff shouted as he looked over at the douchebag.

Just then I heard another girl shout out, “Oh, fuck . . . Ells! Jeff! We need to get Ellie to the hospital like right now!”

I looked over and saw Ellie’s hand swelling pretty quickly. The anger that started to build up inside me once again scared the shit out of me. I had not had this much anger since my senior year of high school, where I took it out on a few guys by way of fighting. This fucker did something to hurt Ellie, and all I wanted to do was smash his head on the floor.

“Dude, listen to me. Your sister is hurt. We need to get her to the doctor right now. Don’t worry about this fuckwad, Jeff. We can take care of him later,” I said to Jeff as I looked over at the motherfucker who hurt Ellie somehow. I wanted to kill him right there.

“I’ll be back for you, bastard,” Jeff hissed through gritted teeth. I pulled on Jeff’s arm to get him moving. “Let’s go, Jeff.”

Jeff and Ellie and the other girl started to make their way out of the school and to Jeff’s truck. I had seen that we passed the cafeteria on the way in, so I ran in and quickly bought a bottle of water and asked the lunch lady for a small bag of ice for Ellie. By the time I got back outside, I was jogging back to Jeff’s truck. I heard Jeff and the other girl bickering about something. I thought I heard Jeff call her Arianna at one point.

Once Ellie was in the back seat, I reached in and gave her the ice.

“Thank you, ah, um, Gunner.” Ellie barely got out her words. Dammit, she must’ve been in a lot of pain. Poor girl could barely talk.

“No problem, Ellie. Try to keep it up above your heart, sweetheart, and here, take these Advil,” I said as I handed her the water and a few Advil from my pocket stash and tried to give her a reassuring smile. My God, she was beautiful. Her friend leaned over and told her to breathe.

“Hey, I’m Ari by the way. Ellie’s best friend.” I gave Ari a smile and looked back to Ellie.

“Thank you,” Ellie said as she took the Advil. As soon as her fingers brushed against my hand, I felt jumpage in my pants. Holy fuck, this girl was affecting me in a way I had never known was possible.

“Let’s get you to the doctor, what do you say?” I said as I leaned in close to her ear. I know I should not have done that, but dammit, I had to know how she smelled.

Daisies. She smelled like the daisies Grams grows in her garden. It was a pure, sweet, and innocent smell. She shivered with the feel of my hot breath against her face.

I. Am. So. Fucked.

“Ahh, yep, okay, doctor sounds good, yep, let’s go, let’s roll, let’s do this thing,” Ellie said in the sweetest voice I had ever heard. God, she was cute as a button when she stammered out her words.

I shut the door, quickly adjusted my problem in my pants and jumped into the front seat. Jeff started his truck and yep . . . sure enough . . . it was still on “Truck Yeah.” I swore I was going to delete that song on his iPod the first chance I got.

“Ari is dead wrong on what, Ellie?” Jeff asked while pulling out of the parking lot. I just couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. I was still worried they would call the cops. The sooner we got out of there the better.

“Nothing, Jefferson, she is just delusional, that’s all. She is seeing things that are clearly not there.”

“Well, whatever crazy shit Ari is going on about I don’t care. I want to know right now what the fuck happened between you and Ryan!”

I was pretty sure I had heard Ari call Jeff a dickwad. What was up with Jeff? He would never be so rude to someone. In the last five minutes I’ve heard him to tell this poor girl to shut up, bicker with her like a married couple, and he pretty much just called her crazy. Huh? Wonder what was up with that. I was going to have to ask him about this Ari chick later.

“Well, it all started when I got a text from Ryan to meet him in the auditorium . . .”