Chapter two! Enjoy! Reviews would be nice :)
Riley woke to the quite morning with the sun shining through the tent holes. She was well relaxed listening to the movement of the trees, until the panicked voice of Blake yelling brought her out of her peace.
"Damn it! Hey, it's 2:30! Get up!" Riley rolled over on her side and listened to Blake rush around trying to get everyone up.
"Let's go, guys! Get up!" Riley shut her eyes to try and go back to sleep. When the sound of something hit the tent she knew going back to sleep wasn't an option.
"Wade, Dalton, let's go! We're gonna miss the damn game." Groaning Riley rolled over to face Nick, and saw him starting to wake up.
"Nick! Get up!"
"Good Morning." Nick said smiling at Riley.
Smiling back she whispered, "It was until he started yelling."
Getting up she grabbed some clothes and quickly changed. She looked down at Nick to see him going back to sleep.
"Come on Nick. If you don't get up now he's just going to keep yelling." Seeing him sit up, Riley left the tent to see Blake rushing around throwing everything into the back of his truck.
Noticing Paige and Carly walk into the woods, Riley followed.
"So, you and Wade talk some more?" Paige said after everyone was situated.
"We're just in different places right now," Carly said looking from Paige to Riley, "He hasn't given me a guilt trip for going, so I can't give him one for staying."
Before anyone said anything else that nasty smell came back, "Oh, my God, there's that smell again."
Riley covered her nose and looked at Carly.
"I think it's coming from over there." Carly said turning around to follow where the smell would be coming from.
Rolling her eyes Riley replied, "Yeah, let's just follow the smell."
"What?" Carly shrugged, "I wanna see what it is."
"Why? This is disgusting." Riley said following close behind with Paige behind her.
"Come on."
"I seriously think I'm going to throw up." Riley gagged while Paige covered her nose in disgust.
"Oh, my God," Paige said as the smell got worse, "I hate you!" Laughing Carly turned around to look at the two girls behind her, but before she could say anything she fell down a hill.
"Carly!" Riley yelled running forward to see if Carly was alright.
"Carly!" Paige ran up behind Riley and tried looking through the trees to spot her friend.
"Paige! Riley!"
"Are you okay?" Paige yelled.
While Paige tried to get answers from Carly, Riley started yelling for the boys to help.
"Guys, help us! Nick!"
"I'm stuck!"
"Hold on Carly! We're gonna get you out of there!" Paige yelled
"Wade! Please help me get out of here!" With each word Carly was growing more and more urgent to get out.
Seeing the boys running toward them, Riley yelled for them again, "Guys! Get down here!"
Wade ran past Riley and slid down the hill to get to Carly. Paige walked over to Blake and cuddled up to him as if she was the one that fell down the hill. Riley kept looking down the hill to see if Wade got Carly out of the pile of filth, that it took her a minute to realize Nick had come up behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
"You alright, baby?" He whispered in her ear.
Smiling she answered him, "Well, I'm not the one face first in a big pile of nasty road kill. So, I'm pretty good."
Noticing a truck pull up to the pile, they all turned around to look at the truck.
"Hey, is that the truck from last night?" Blake said stepping forward.
"Not unless he fixed his headlight." Panic went through Riley as the thoughts of that actually being the truck set in. Nick noticed the panic in Riley's face, so he pulled her closer to his body.
The truck stopped and a dirty man got out of the car. He went to the back of his truck and began throwing dead animals into the pile, acting as if he didn't even notice the group standing on the other side of the pile.
"Hey!" Wade called out getting the attention from the dirty man.
"Don't you see that?" Carly said pointing to the hand sticking out from the pile. He looked toward where Carly was pointing and started walking toward it.
"Oh, my God, I'm going to be sick." Riley whispered to Nick while walking behind him to wrap her arms around his waist, and sticking her nose in his shirt.
"No way," Wade said. Getting the best of Riley, she looked up to see what the man was doing. "What are you doing, man?"
Reaching the hand, he stopped and looked at it. He bent over and grabbed the hand, when he had a firm grasp on the hand he started pulling it. A couple of pulls later the hand popped out of the pile.
"Anyone need a hand?" He said holding up the hand for everyone to see. "I'm just fooling. It's not real, see?" He said knocking on the hand to prove it was fake.
"You have got to be kidding me." Riley said moving from behind Nick to stand beside him.
"God." Carly said, rolling her eyes and walking over to where Blake and Paige were. Riley began walking over to see if Carly was okay, before she was stopped by Nick's hand on her arm.
"I'm fine." She said, and continuing to walk to Carly.
"I found it on the side of the road a few weeks ago," The man said. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Oh, my God, are you okay?" Riley said ignoring the nasty man to see how her friend was.
While Wade told the man about our situation, Paige dug through her purse to see if she had any water to wash off some of the filth on Carly.
"Hey, is there a gas station around here?" Wade asked.
"Well, I got some gas in the truck if.." The man said pointing to the back of his pickup truck, but before he could continue Wade cut him off.
"I need a fan belt."
"What?" Carly said looking over at Wade.
"Just busted." He shrugged looking over at Carly, then back to the man.
Rolling her eyes she went back to washing herself off, "Of course. Perfect."
"Bo might have one, runs a station in Ambrose." The man said looking at the group of kids.
"Where's that?"
"Fifteen miles up the road."
"Let's just get one in Baton Rouge." Blake said cutting in wanting to get to the game.
"Man, there's no way I'm leaving my car." Wade shot back looking over at Blake. "What if that guy from last night strips it?"
"You're gonna miss the game, then." Blake said rolling his eyes.
"Yeah," He said looking over at Carly. "Well, that's not why I came."
"All right, look." Blake said hoping he could just get the damn fan belt and get to the game. "I'll run you up to the station. Kickoff's in a couple of hours."
Shaking his head Wade began to argue, "You're already late. You gotta snag tickets. Y'all should go now. I'll stay with my car, it's fine. Just get me a fan belt on the way back, and make sure it's a 15 inch."
Nodding his head, Blake said "Gotcha."
"I'll give you a ride." The man spoke up looking at Wade.
"You serious?" Wade asked in disbelief.
Shrugging he nodded, "If you like."
"Well, yeah, yeah." He nodded and began going down the hill.
"I'm going with you." Carly spoke up and began walking toward Wade.
"Carly, no." Paige said.
"Yes. It'll be fine." She said shrugging her off.
"Alright, let's go." Blake said pulling Paige up the hill and back to the camp.
"Carly." Nick said walking down the hill.
"What?" She said looking at Nick. He took his shirt off and handed it to Carly to take. Riley couldn't help herself but stare at Nick's body. Even at the most inappropriate times, she couldn't help but admire her boyfriend's amazing body.
"Thank you." Hearing Carly talk brought Riley back to reality, she looked away trying to gain her composure again.
Seeing the nasty man stare at Carly, Riley walked in front of her to try and block the view from him. Wade, Dalton, and Nick stood in front of her too, but with that creepy look on his face Riley knew he saw everything. Eh, gross.
"Come on, baby. Let's get out of here." Wade said grabbing Carly's hand once she was done putting Nick's shirt on.
"Be careful." Riley said looking at her best friend and her boyfriend get into the car with a dirty little man.
Riley turned around and walked up the hill behind Nick and Dalton.
"Man, you're just gonna let them leave like that?" Dalton said turning around to look at the truck driving away. "With a guy who throws roadkill in a pit for a living?"
Laughing Nick just shook his head, "You clean shit for a living, Mr. Septic-Tank-Man. What's the difference?"
"Well, I don't walk through it, that's one."
"Babe, what if that was the guy from last night, only in a different truck." Riley said looking back toward the truck, but only seeing a dusty road.
Nick turned to glance at Riley. "Don't worry. Carly can protect herself."
Riley could only nod, because she still had that gut feeling that something just wasn't right about that guy, and not just because he looked and smelled like shit.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Dude, it's over." Nick said looking out the window of miles and miles of traffic ahead of them.
"It'll move!" Blake yelled from the front.
"Well, it's not moving. It's been like this for a good hour now." Riley said
"We can still make the second half." Blake said hoping that the traffic would move, but to no avail.
"I'm not sitting in this." Paige said looking out the window.
"What do you want me to do?" Blake yelled looking over at Paige.
"We have to go back." Nick said in the 'duh' voice.
"I'm not missing this game!" Even though Blake was holding his ground, he knew that he just wasn't going to win this one.
Turning around to see everyone staring at him, he knew that he had to turn around.
"Fine." Blake mumbled turning the car around and heading back to the camp site.
Paige pulled out her phone to call Carly and tell her the news.
"Hey, it's me. We're heading back." Riley just wanted to hurry up and get out of this car. It was hot and she was starting to get really claustrophobic.
"Traffic. Did you get that fan belt thing or whatever?" Paige asked looking down at her nails.
"So, where do you want us to pick you up?"
"Cool, see you then." Paige hung up and looked at Blake. "They said they didn't get the fan belt, and we need to pick them up."
"How are we going to get the stupid fan belt thing?" Riley asked
No one answered her, they only shrugged and nodded. The ride back to the camp site was really quite and awkward. Riley laid her head on Nick shoulder and watched all the trees pass by the car window.
Before she knew it, they were pulling into the campsite once more. Nick and Dalton walked over to the trees, and Riley and Paige stayed in the car.
"Hey, Paige," Paige looked up to see Blake looking at her from by the trees.
"Yeah?"
"Nick and Dalton are gonna go get them." Blake said walking toward the truck.
"Why? We can go."
"Oh, baby. Come on, I'm tired of driving." Blake whined, while Riley rolled her eyes.
"Paige don't argue with him. You might have to make him feel better after he had to give up the 'biggest game of the year'." Riley said exaggerating just a bit.
Paige looked from Riley to her whining boyfriend, "Okay."
Riley was not about to stay here and listen to the two of them go at it, so she got out of the back of the truck and walked over to Nick.
Blake walked over and stood in front of Nick, "Why don't you let my man drive?" He looked over at Dalton and threw the keys his way.
"Really?" Dalton asked in disbelief.
When Blake was out of sight, Nick grabbed Dalton's jacket, "Give me the damn keys."
"Okay. Very slow. Thank you." Dalton slowly dropped the keys in Nick's hand.
While Nick walked over to the driver's side, Dalton walked to the passenger side.
"Whoa, big boy, to the back seat for you." Riley said holding up her hand to stop Dalton in his tracks. After she sent him to the back she opened the passenger side door and hopped in.
"Just let me drive, bitch. He gave me the keys, man." Dalton complained from the back.
"Yeah, because he thinks I'm the one who stole the car," Nick said looked at him.
"And crashed it." Riley mumbled.
"Whatever. You didn't have to cover for me, dude."
"Your jacket's clean, all right? Mine's already got plenty of stains on it." Riley reached over and grabbed Nick's hand. She knew all about the incident between Nick and Dalton, and she felt bad for Nick.
Riley reached up and grabbed the GPS. "Where the hell is this place? The town isn't even on the GPS."
"It's got to be on there." Nick said looking from the road to the GPS.
"Well, it's bound to be up here. He said it was about 15 miles up." Dalton said leaning up in the front seat to look straight ahead.
"So," Dalton looked at Nick, "you think Carly and Wade are gonna stay together when she moves to New York. Because she be looking at me sometimes like,"
"Dalton, it ain't happening." Nick said laughing.
"What? What do you mean?"
"And even if it was happening," Riley said laughing turning around to look at the look on Dalton's face.
"It ain't happening. Nothing personal." Nick finished.
"Why? You like me better than Wade, right?" Dalton asked still in shock.
Nick looked at Riley, "Wade's not so bad." Riley smiled at his answer. She knew that Nick liked Wade, he was just putting up that stupid 'bad boy' act. Although she thought it was incredibly sexy, it could be a big pain in the ass sometimes.
"Yeah, I like Wade too." Dalton said leaning back in his seat.
Feeling the car come to a stop Riley looked up to see a washed out road.
"Is this it?" Riley asked looking over at Nick.
"Yeah."
"Well, should we drive through it?" Riley asked, "I mean it is a big truck."
"Through all that?"
"It was just a suggestion." Riley said getting out of the car.
"I don't know. I could do it." Dalton said looking at the road then shaking his head.
"That's what I thought." Nick said, grabbing Riley's hand to walk through that washed out road.
Walking around a creepy abandoned down when it was dark out was not the ideal night for Riley. But, it made her worry when she realized that Wade and Carly were out in this too.
"Hello?" Dalton looked around the town, "Carly? Wade? Hello?" Dalton yelled even louder as we approached an empty gas station with loud music playing.
"Man, there's music playing, but I don't think anyone's here."
"There has to be someone here. Who just leaves music playing?" Riley said feeling the cold night breeze. Sticking her and Nick's intertwined hands into his jacket pocket, loving the instant heat.
See that yelling at an empty gas station wasn't getting them anywhere, Nick began walking in the opposite direction dragging Riley along.
"Where are you going?" Dalton asked.
"To that grocery store we passed, I'm thirsty."
"What about Carly and Wade?" Riley said turning around to look back at Dalton and the gas station.
"Maybe they're at the store." Nick gave Riley's hand a little squeeze to try and reassure her.
"What?" He said seeing that Riley didn't like the answer he just gave her.
"I don't know, man. We came all this way. You don't think we should look for them?" Nick stopped to look at Dalton again.
"Check it. Me and Riley are going this way, you go that way. If we don't find them, meet back here, and we'll go back to the road." He finished looking at Riley, "Cool?"
"Okay." Dalton said walking in the opposite direction Nick and Riley were going.
Riley walked closer to Nick as they walked into the little store.
"Yo, paying customer." Nick yelled in the store, hoping to get a response. Nick let go Riley's hand to walk to the front of the store as she walked to an isle nearby.
"Hello?"
"This place is disgusting." Riley said holding up a moldy box. "Babe, can we get out of here? Maybe Dalton is looking for us."
Nick turned around and began walking toward where Riley was. He stood so close to her that she could feel his breath hitting her cheek.
"Why don't we just ditch this place," Nick raised his hand to graze her cheek. In an instant their lips crashed on to one another's, loving the feel of each other. Riley ran her hands all over his rock hard chest.
Pulling back, Riley put her forehead on his, "Babe, as much as I would love that, I really just wanna find Wade and Carly, and just get the hell home." She looked over and saw that someone was coming out of the gas station they were just at.
"Nick, look someone's at the gas station." Turning around he noticed the man too. He grabbed Riley's hand and rushed out of the store walking the short distance to the gas station.
"Hey," Nick called out getting the attention of the man, "I'm looking for my sister and her boyfriend."
"Yeah, they were looking for a fan belt or something."
Shaking his head he walked forward a little bit, "I don't think I've seen them."
Riley felt eyes on her as she stepped closer to Nick, not liking the way this man was acting.
"This is the only gas station in town, right?" Nick asked not believing a word this man is saying.
"That's right." The man agreed.
"Yeah, then they were definitely here."
Getting aggravated the man stepped forward, "I just told you, I didn't see them."
"Well, does someone else work here?" Riley asked.
"No, I own the station. And I would have seen them." He said looking from Nick over to Riley.
Riley couldn't help but shift her weight to lean more on to Nick. She just didn't like the way this man kept looking at her.
"Well, we were just here a few minutes ago, and you didn't see us." Nick pointed out, "You weren't even here."
"Sorry. Can't help you." Right after the last word came out of his mouth, Riley could hear what sounded like a muffled voice. She looked over at Nick to see if he had heard what she heard, he did.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. That was just my dog." The man shrugged.
"Actually, you know what? My brother Vincent was down here for a while. He could've helped your sister out. They could be up at the house." The man said pointing toward the direction Dalton had just gone.
Nick turned around to see what the man was pointing at.
"No, my friend went that way earlier."
"Really?" He asked looking down at his shoe, after a slight pause he turned around to tie his shoe, "Well, maybe he ran into my brother up there, then." He said standing up straight. Riley couldn't help but notice just how tall and scary this man looked.
"Wanna head up to the house?" The man said pointing to the hill. When no one started talking Riley could faintly hear that muffled voice, only it sounded like it was in pain. Like a wounded animal that was just shot, or hit by a car.
"Yeah, whatever." Nick said pulling Riley on the other side that the man wasn't on. She couldn't be happier that Nick picked up on his creepiness, because Riley didn't feel safe at all with him next to her.
"So, what's your sister look like anyway?" The man asked glancing over at Nick.
"Nick! Riley! Help me!"
