Kristen Ashley - Raid

Then you’d find out he got married, or got someone pregnant and then (maybe) got married, and your fantasy would die.

And it hurt when fantasies died.

A lot.

But that was exactly what it was.

The death of a fantasy.

Raiden Ulysses Miller was not a famous actor or athlete, but still.

He would never be mine.

I knew this because he was into women who could make skanky cool.

Big-haired, blonde, skinny-minnie, big-chested, petite women who could make skanky cool.

I had nice hair. It shone with health, it was thick and it was one shade up from blonde, but it wasn’t big.

And I had an ample chest, but not that ample.

I was not skinny-minnie.

I was absolutely not skanky and could never be, no matter if it was cool and could get you Raiden Miller. I just knew I was the kind of girl who had no latent skank huddling deep inside, waiting for the makeup, hairspray and tight clothes that would let her out.

I was also not petite.

“Chère,” my great-grandmother always stated (more than once), “thank the good Lord above He gave you those legs. Women the world over would die for your legs. They go on forever, precious girl, and trust your old biddy of a grandmother, she knows, one day, you’ll be glad for those legs.”

That day, as much as I loved Grams and knew she was (almost) always right, was not today.

Slowly I pushed out of my couch and moved through the house to the bathroom. I switched on the light, stood in front of the basin, leaned in and looked in the mirror.

I’d had three boyfriends, and all of them, obviously, started with dates.

They also always went long-term.

Not one boy who asked me out didn’t ask me again and again.

But they always broke up with me.

And staring into the mirror in the bathroom, just like I suddenly figured out why Raiden Ulysses Miller making out with a skanky (but cool) blonde hurt so much, I figured out why my boyfriends broke up with me.

Because I sat in cafés hoping for a glimpse of handsome guys and didn’t do anything about it.

Because I didn’t poof out my hair big.

Because when I was in high school I stayed home and studied. I didn’t go out to parties. And when I wasn’t studying, I was at the movies or reading. When I got older I didn’t go to bars and do tequila shots and flirt over games of pool. I hung out with my ninety-seven year old great-grandmother, my friend KC, or again, went to the movies or read. I didn’t take fabulous vacations where I could have ill-advised but delicious holiday flings that gave me good memories and better stories to tell. I went to my parents’ house in Tucson, visited my brother in California or rented a cabin two hours away in the Colorado Mountains and, yes, you guessed it, I sat around and read.

I was living a narrow life and that narrow life made me uninteresting.

Boring.

Nothing.

I was twenty-eight years old and my great-grandmother, who had lived nearly a century, had a more active, fun-filled life than I did.

This was insane.

It was even more insane than falling in love from afar with a nine year old boy and hoping like heck I got picked for his tug of war team at my Grams’s annual picnic. Which I did, sickeningly gratifyingly, three years in a row, even though he never noticed me and thus didn’t care. It was more insane than harboring that crush all through high school and even when he was away for years.

It was certifiable.

“And now it’s done,” I told my reflection.

Then I did what I never did.

I made a decision and acted on it.

I went to my kitchen, got a pad of paper and made a to-do list.

Once done, I immediately started on my list.

First up, I called Betsy at the salon and told her I needed a new style and she was in charge.

“Ohmigod, Hanna! I’m moving people around right now! You have to come in tomorrow! I… can’t… wait!” she exclaimed.

I went in the next day and got a trim, flippy layers and highlights.

Then I drove straight to Bob’s car dealership and bought myself a pearl white Nissan Z.

It was awesome.

The next day I drove my new Z into town, walked into the travel agent and booked a vacation on a cruise ship.

After that I walked down the block. Something caught my eye at the bike shop, and, even though it wasn’t on my list I turned and went right in.

I did not go back to Rachelle’s except for the occasional coffee, but those were only flybys.

I did not see Raiden Ulysses Miller.

Not for five months.

What I didn’t know was…

He saw me.

Five months later…

“Voila!” Bodhi shouted.

He shifted back. I saw the results of his ministrations, threw my head back and laughed before I looked back down at my girl. My pink and white daisy Schwinn now had opalescent white and pink streamers mixed with twirly silver ones streaming from the handlebars.

I looked at Bodhi, who had straightened away from my bike. I jumped up and down twice while clapping, and cried, “It’s perfect!”

And it was. It was over the top, cutesie, girlie, perfect.

I loved it.

I loved it so much I rounded my girl, threw myself in Bodhi’s arms and hugged him, exclaiming loudly, “I love it!”

Bodhi hugged me back, giving me a side to side shake.

Since the day I bought my Schwinn five months ago, Bodhi and I had become friends.

Good friends.

He was not like any of my other friends. He was a laidback cycling-slash-boarding dude (definitely a dude) who owned his own bike shop mostly so he could close it whenever he wanted and go biking or snowboarding whenever he wanted, which was often.

When he was working, it was not unusual to walk into his shop, shout his name and have him come out of the side office on a cloud of smoke and whiff of pot fumes. It was so blatant I honestly didn’t know how he didn’t get tagged by the Sheriff. But he didn’t.

It had to be karma. No incarnation of Bodhi would hurt a fly, I didn’t care how many times he thought he’d been reincarnated, and according to Bodhi, there were a lot.

That winter, Bodhi and his girlfriend, Heather, taught me how to board.

I knew how to ski, kind of. I’d been to the slopes with my parents and brother a lot in my life. When I got older, since I didn’t enjoy it, I usually shopped or hung out at a lodge, drank cocoa and read while they hit the slopes.

But snowboarding was a blast. I loved it, and since Bodhi and Heather loved it a whole lot more than me, we had a ball.

So when the snow started melting and I could climb on board my Schwinn, Bodhi and Heather showed me the ropes of getting around. They also let me borrow a used trail bike from the shop and they took me out on trails.

It was amazing. I’d lived in Willow, thus Colorado, all my life but I had never seen the fabulous places and beautiful vistas I saw with Bodhi and Heather.

Mostly because I hadn’t gone out and looked.

Now I did, all the time. Even when Bodhi and Heather weren’t with me, I’d rent a bike from Bodhi and hit the trails.

Heaven.

The last five months I’d also worked hard to expand my business so I could enjoy my new lifestyle that included living, but also included such things as lift tickets, board gear, bike racks and insurance on two vehicles.

Thankfully, my expansion efforts worked so when I needed help with packing and shipping, I’d hired Heather.

She was as laidback as her boyfriend and she took me up on the offer. It was a good fit for both of us. She worked when there was work to do. It could be two hours a week, it could be twenty. She was up for anything and I needed someone who was flexible.

Heather definitely was that.

So I spent a lot of time with them, and Bodhi was helping me trick out my bike. I had a lighted, woven daisy basket. I had a hot pink, retro bike bell. I had a bright headlight and flashing taillight.

And now I had cutesie, girlie streamers on my handlebars.

I had it all.

Bodhi, arms still around me, suddenly whispered in my ear, “Dudette, GI Joe checkin’ you out. Three o’clock.”

It was such a bizarre thing to say, I leaned back in his arms. My face split in a huge smile, and I looked in his eyes.

“What?” I asked.

“Total GI Joe. As in GI Joe, whoa,” he muttered, and we both were wearing shades so he had to jerk his head to his left to indicate what he was referring to.

I looked right.

And saw Raiden Miller standing outside his Jeep, wearing a skintight army green tee that was straining so much at his biceps it looked in danger of ripping. He also had on tan cargo pants, boots, and unbelievably cool gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses which did, indeed, seem to be trained on me.

I felt my breath start burning in my lungs as I mentally rewound the hit-the-town-for-errands preparations I’d done that morning.

Light makeup.

Blown out hair.

Pink, cuffed short-shorts and a white cutesie top that had a little ruffle around the collar and capped sleeves. On my feet were pearlescent pink slim-strapped haviannas.

Oh God, I matched my bike.

No! I matched my bike!

Thank God I’d worn my own fabulous shades, pink on the inside of the arms, black on the outside, but the frames were silver and shaped like cop glasses. They rocked.