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I raise my eyebrows. We’re taking the bike to town? “Where are the groceries supposed to go?” I ask him.
But he just laughs under his breath, turns on the bike, and twists the handle, revving the engine. “Climb on. I don’t bite,” he tells me. And then he shoots me a mischievous look. “My little cousins, anyway.”
I almost roll my eyes. Taking the helmet, I fix it over my baseball cap, but the front knocks the bill of the hat, making the fit uncomfortable. I fumble for a moment, finally pulling off the helmet again and then the hat.
But Noah takes my arms, stopping me. “Like this,” he says. And he takes the hat, fits it backward onto my head, and then plops the helmet down over it, the bill now resting at the back of my skull.
Oh.
I’d rather have the cap in town, since my hair is in shambles right now, so this works.
He fastens the strap under my chin, and I try to avert my eyes, but he has this lazy half-smile on his lips that kind of makes my body hum. And blue eyes behind black lashes with the sides of his gray T-shirt cut out to show off golden, muscular arms, and he wears persistently scruffy jeans, because he never has to try too hard to impress anyone.
I’m jealous. He doesn’t have a plan in the world.
It might’ve been a little nice to have cousins growing up. Maybe it would’ve been fun if I’d spent my summers here, growing up in the sun and the banter and the dirt with him.
He makes me less nervous than Jake, too.
His eyes meet mine, and I look away, taking over and forcing his hands away as I finish tightening the strap.
“You ever been on a motorcycle?” he asks.
“No.” I climb on behind him, situating my purse to my side as it hangs across my body.
“I’m gentle,” he assures me. “Ask any girl.”
“I’m not any girl,” I say, sliding my arms around him and locking my hands in front. “You hurt me, and you still have to go home with me and deal with me.”
“Good point.”
He snaps the visor on his own helmet down and takes off, making my breath catch in my throat.
Jesus. I instinctively tighten my hold and clench my thighs around him as my stomach drops into my feet. The bike wobbles more than a truck, and I dart my eyes side to side, trying to keep my balance, but he’s not slowing down, and all I can really do is hold on. He might know what he’s doing, but this is new to me. I blink long and hard and then simply look down, keeping my eyes off the road.
These hills were a little steep coming up in the truck with Jake. I don’t think I need to see us going down on a dirt bike. Is this even street legal?
I hold him close, just staring at his T-shirt, so I won’t look at anything else, but after a moment, I try to loosen my grip on him a little. I’m plastered to his back. I’m probably making him uncomfortable.
But he takes one hand off a handle and pulls my arms tighter around him again, forcing my chest into his back.
He turns his head, raising his visor. “Hold on!” he shouts.
Fine. I refasten my hands around him.
We ride all the way down the gravel drive and come to the paved road, turning left and heading back the same way I came up two days ago, gravity forcing my body into Noah’s the entire time.
Once we’re on blacktop, and the terrain is a little
more even, I raise my eyes and take in the trees on both sides, as well as the dense wooded areas surrounding us. Slopes, cliffs, and rockfalls, I’m seeing the land around us a lot more clearly than when I came up in the dark the day before yesterday.
Jake isn’t lying. Even with all the trees that will shed their leaves in the winter, there are lots of conifers which will block visibility in the heavy snows. The land changes, gullies suddenly rising into steep cliffs, and the sides of the road are decorated with sporadic piles of rocks that spilled from uncertain land. It’s dangerous enough to be up here in good weather. The city won’t pay for a truck to shovel snow and salt the roads for one family.
Which—I’m guessing—is exactly how my uncle wants it. Does Noah like it that way? His words from yesterday play back in my head. I would leave. I would leave in a heartbeat. You’re here, and you don’t have to be. I have to be here, but I don’t want to be.
So why does he stay? Jake can’t make him. He’s a legal adult.
We twist and turn, winding down the road as it turns into a highway, and it takes a good twenty minutes before we see the town come into view. A couple of steeples peek out from the tops of the trees, and brick buildings line streets shaded with abundant green maples that I know will be orange and red come October.
