“If he doesn’t decide to go home with Blake, I promise I have him.” He assures me as I grab my jacket from the stool next to him.
Following the location she sent brings me to a different bar one town over. Mia is standing outside talking to a group of people. She has on a pair of jeans that seem too big for her and another tiny shirt that somehow covers everything and nothing at all. Her lips stained red but not from lipstick. It’s from those damn cherry margaritas she loves so much. I make a mental note to order more of the cherry lifesavers she likes. She hears me before she sees me, but when her eyes find me on my bike they light up.
I pull up to the edge of the sidewalk she is on and her whole group starts catcalling me as I get off the back to meet her. I don’t recognize a single one of them but she could easily have just made friends with them tonight. “You ready?” I ask after I pull off my helmet. I take in her outfit again and I’m unsettled to let her get on the back of the bike with little to nothing on. I unzip my jacket and hold it out for her to put on.
She just stares at me through the visor of the helmet she is now wearing. I didn’t have to help her into the helmet much the first time I had her on the back of my bike and I didn’t help her at all this time. I wonder if she usually dates guys with bikes and then I have to shove that rising jealousy down. “What are you doing?” She asks as she makes no move whatsoever to put the jacket on.
“Have to protect your pretty face” I tap the helmet, “And big heart.” I tap over where her heart rests. “Put the jacket on.” I work hard to keep my voice level but not controlling. Mia hates being controlled.
That seems to do the trick, her cheeks lift with the satisfaction of me calling her pretty. After both of her arms are in the much too long sleeves, I pull her close to me and zip the jacket all the way up to her chin. She is drowning in the leather but I don’t think she’s ever looked more sexy than right now.
I help her onto the bike and get my own helmet on. She wraps her arms around me easily and without hesitation. I’m learning that the proximity for us isn’t the suffocating part. It’s the way the silence between us feels peaceful. We both crave noise and distraction but when we are together, the quiet doesn’t feel overwhelming.
“Bad date again?” I finally break the comfortable silence. We have been riding around aimlessly for roughly thirty minutes. Each lost in the vibrations of the bike and the lights that blur around us. I don’t know for sure she was on a date, but I assumed.
“Hmm?” Her voice is distracted. Like being on the back of my bike carried her thoughts and released them in the wind around us.
“Heard you have had a string of bad dates. Was this another one?” I question again.
I feel her perch up closer to me and she leans carefully to look at me. Like she could see my thoughts written on my face through my visor.
“Have you been keeping tabs on me, Oliver?” She purrs. I admit that I was a little nervous she would have a sharp reaction to my asking about her date but she holds nothing but amusement in her tone.
“You’re always in my periphery. You know that.” I never have a problem being excruciatingly honest with this girl.
She sighs and I feel a heaviness in between my shoulder blades as if she was resting her forehead there through her helmet. “Men seem to lack the ability to be intriguing.” That is how she chose to answer my question. It isn’t a direct confirmation of the date ending badly but it is enough to know that there wouldn’t be a second. At least with this one.
I choose to stay silent the rest of the drive to her place. The next question I want to ask her, I need to have the ability to watch her eyes when I ask it. Her eyes never betray her.
She slips off the back with precision and secures the helmet into the net at the back. She flips her head from side to side and loosens her curls from traveling. She unzips my jacket as I get my own helmet off. I balance it on the back before shifting to look at her. She steps forward slightly and I reach out to slip my finger into one of the big pockets of her cargo pants and pull her flush against me. Giving her the power shift so she is looking down at me from the edge of the sidewalk and I am still sitting. Her hazel eyes are gold tonight like the light that bleeds out of her.
“Ask what you want to ask.” Her eyes hold steady as she waits for my words.
“AJ said you were having a dry spell. Which I find very interesting since I remember exactly how wet and dripping you were for me.” I love that I don’t have to hold in the way I speak to her. She can handle anything.
“You still didn’t ask anything.” She points out, still waiting.
“You weren’t interested in any of them?” It is a simple question and one that I don’t have a right to know a full answer to. She doesn’t owe me anything. But I want to know.
She just smiles and her eyes glimmer. She reaches into her pocket, never breaking eye contact with me until she is holding out a tube of lipgloss. She bends over my leg to reach eye level with my side mirror and slowly paints her lips her favorite shade of red. She stands back up and leans further into my body, reaching up to play with my chain. Something she tends to do right before doing something that lights my blood on fire. She moves the collar of my shirt and with a measured breath, kisses my skin, impressing the very trace of her lips on my skin. She gives me one final look before saying, “None of them.” I watch her walk away, leaving me behind as a small victorious smile lifts my lips.
MIA
My date tonight told me that he wanted to do something fun, loud, and exciting but left it be a surprise. I love surprises so I had zero objections after he assured me we will be in a fully crowded place and he isn’t going to attempt to murder me. Imagine that’s how I die. How embarrassing.
Davey picks me up and I appreciate the fact that his car is clean. He’s a cute guy, hair fluffy and messy with cute dimples. He saw me working in the coffee shop and made me laugh at a horribly timed joke. When he asked me to come out with him this weekend it was an easy yes. He felt safe and I knew that I would at least have a good time. I can feel my phone vibrate in my hand back to back before deciding to check it.
WEST HAVEN DELIQUENTS
Maxie
It’s a Friday night, let’s go out!
Eli
You know that I can’t tonight.
Maxie
