Ridge Creek by C L Green Page B

lost for words.  It had been when she was having her
photo taken with Chad Kreuger at a Nickelback concert.   She had been babbling
excitedly as we waited in line for her turn.  She had even been babbling
excitedly as she moved into position in front of the background poster like all
the other people had done before us.  It was only when he’d slid his arm around
her waist for the photographer that she’d finally gone into shock and clammed
up.  The photo turned out hilarious because the look of shock on her face was
similar to the one I was seeing now.    I have never let her live that one
down.  Her one shot at a great photo with Chad and she poses in a stupid,
openmouthed gawk.
    Leaning close to her ear I whisper, “The brother.”
    Startling suddenly, I watch as she breaks from her stupid
looking trance and swings her eyes to me.  “That’s the fuckin’ brother of the
guy who picked you up off the side of the road?”
    I nod. 
    She grins.
    Jake laughs.
    Zane mutters, “Fuck me,” and then takes another pull on his
beer.
    “ Please... ” Emma murmurs as she swings her eyes back
to Zane.
    Zane smiles.  Big.
    Eva cuts in loudly.  “Dingo, get your ass over here and show
me some lovin’.  The sexual tension at this fucking bar is setting me off.”
    We start laughing as Dingo looks up from a table where he is
sitting with Bill.  He’s on the move towards Eva within a heartbeat.
     
    *****
     
    It’s late. 
    I’m drunk.
    Not just a bit drunk.  Blotto drunk.
    Leaning forward with my head on the bar, I am facing to my
right, staring into Emma’s stormy gray eyes.  She’s drunk too.   Her head is
also on the bar, turned to her left so she can stare back at me.  Neither of us
can sit up.  We are definitely not able to walk to our rooms. 
    We’ve been communicating this to each through short bursts
of conversation interspersed with long periods of drunken staring.    A short
while ago, we both decided that this could be a problem.
    I am vaguely aware the place is much quieter than it was
earlier.  Many of the bikers have gone home.  Eva left over an hour ago after
passing out at the bar.  Dingo carried her out  the door firefighter style,
slung over his back. 
    “This is more fun than feeding starving children in Sudan.” 
Emma mumbles softly as she continues to stare at me through half shut eyelids. 
“I think.”
    I consider her words slowly wondering why she is referencing
starving children in Sudan.  And then I remember.  She explained earlier that
she told her parents she was off to Sudan for a two-year stint as a volunteer. 
A volunteer setting up computer networks and feeding starving children in
refugee camps.  A rather farfetched excuse for packing up everything and
vanishing off the face of the earth.   
    Funnily, for most people, this excuse would seem
farfetched.  But not for Emma.  Raised as a spoiled rich kid with an enormous
trust fund, she has lived her life at full throttle, doing as she pleases.  
This has meant that she has tried numerous experiences over the years including
backpacking across Europe, mountain climbing in the Himalaya’s and living a
commune lifestyle with a bunch of hippies in America. 
    Her family, used to her hair-brained ‘life experiences’,
usually just sit back and wait for her to burn her latest fad out.  As long as
she sends an email now and then, they stay cool.  My guess is they didn’t even
blink twice at her announcement she was flying out to Sudan and would return in
two years.  Nothing shocks them anymore. 
    Not since the first shock that their Mensa minded child
planned to deviate from the proposed course of following in her father’s
footsteps to become a neurosurgeon.  Her decision to study a Bachelor of
Computing at University and then spend her days programming had only been an
early sign of the many shocks that were yet to come.  I guess one day she might
even tell them she’s a hacker, not a bona