Page 5 of Nuts

Let’s?

Both of us?

I couldn’t believe he was trusting me to ride on his bike. I swallowed a fist-sized lump that shot into my throat. “Both of us?”

He looked at his watch. “You don’t have to work until 1:00, right?”

The thought of riding on the motorcycle with him had caused my mouth to go dry. Incapable of responding verbally, I gave confirmation in the form of a nod.

He tilted his head toward the garage. “I’ll grab another helmet.”

As he turned away, I smiled, and then covered it with my hand so he couldn’t see. I watched open-mouthed as he walked toward the garage. His odd gait was something in itself to see. I wondered if he practiced it, or if the determination he expressed with each step was natural to someone as badass as he was.

He returned with a helmet and handed it to me. “You know how to operate this thing?”

I didn’t, but it looked simple. I nodded as if it were something I did on a regular basis. “Oh, yeah.”

I managed to get the helmet on and fastened while he did the same. He stepped over the seat, sat down, and then started the engine.

Every window in the neighborhood shook as he revved the engine. The neighbor across the street – who had been tending to his landscape – covered his ears.

The sound from the rumbling exhaust echoed off the hard surfaces along the block, and seemed to bounce right back to where we were sitting. I let the sound encompass me. Like a warm blanket, it provided a sense of comfort, calming me into a deep state of satisfaction. After a few seconds of wonder, I decided the noise was a 150-decibel reminder that I was finally going for a ride on the back of his bike.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Ready?”

I was. I gave a nod. “Yep.”

The motorcycle lurched out of the driveway. My heart rose into my throat.

While we blazed down the street I wondered if it was my hair that had caught his interest, or if he’d simply realized that I was no longer the awkward teenage neighbor I once was.

In the end, I decided it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was on the back of his motorcycle, away from my stepfather’s grasp – and free of everything else that seemed to prohibit me from moving forward in life.

I hoped it was the first of what would be many rides on his motorcycle, but I knew not to get my hopes up.

I was a realist, and girls like me never got the handsome man in the end.

We only got talked about, laughed at, and excluded from the affairs of others.

For that moment, at least, I was like everyone else.

No, I wasn’t like everyone else. I was different. I was the girl on the back of his motorcycle.

On that morning, during the ride on the loudest motorcycle I’d ever heard, I was normal again.

I was no longer that girl. The girl left behind.

I closed my eyes, let the wind sweep me away, and cherished every moment of it.

Chapter Two

P-Nut

I raised my empty beer bottle and tilted the neck of it toward the waitress as she walked past. “When you get a minute.”

She flashed a smile. “Be right back.”

Tall, lean, and built like one of the many beach volleyball players that frequented California’s coast, she wore her brunette hair in a shoulder-length cut. Her neck was adorned with a choker made of black ribbon, and each of her thumbs were fitted with a bulky silver ring.