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She looked like she was contemplating doing just that, but my growl made her roll her eyes. “Yes, dear. I’ll play the doting girlfriend while you find the man that punched me in the face. But only if you are nice back.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I can do it if you can.”
Five minutes later, after mutual agreement that we would be on our best behavior, we walked out to my bike that was in the middle of all of my brothers.
“Long time no see, darlin’,” Bram teased.
His wife was suspiciously missing, and it had my brows furrowing.
In all actuality, I hadn’t seen Bram’s wife, Dorcas, in well over a month.
But since I already knew they were having problems, I chose not to question him further about it because I knew he shut down more often than not as of late.
Coreline, obviously, hadn’t gotten that memo.
“Where’s your girl, Bram?” Coreline asked. “I saw her at the grocery store yesterday buying stuff to make you a cake. She was excited about it. Did you like it?”
Bram hesitated before he said, “She didn’t want to come today.”
That was a final answer.
There would be no getting more than that.
“Oh, that’s surprising. Since she told me she loved riding with you.” Coreline smiled sweetly, even though it caused part of her face to scrunch up. It had to hurt. “She told me all about you and your work yesterday. Had nothing but exciting things to say about your construction business. How you were building a famous person’s house or something. She said she was going to surprise you at the jobsite. How’d that go?”
There was an uncomfortable silence and then, “She never came.”
Coreline frowned. “Uhm… okay.”
There was even more silence following that and then, “I got you a new helmet and put it in the freezer.”
There was nothing to follow my comment until Coreline said, “For how long?”
I snickered. “Twenty-four hours. It should be nice and cold to freeze your brain cells while we ride.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“Why did I do it?” I shrugged. I had no idea why I’d done it. But I knew I’d never get her to wear a helmet if I hadn’t gotten her one specially for her. And why I had wanted her to have one, when she’d rode on the back of my bike all of one time, I didn’t know. But I just felt like I needed it… so I’d gotten it. And now look at what happened. I’d gotten her one, and she needed it. “Because I wanted you to wear a helmet.”
I hadn’t liked seeing her riding that moped without one. It’d bothered me in a way that I couldn’t quite comprehend. In a way that I didn’t want to dig too deep inside myself, or I might find an answer I wasn’t ready for.
She pulled it to her and pulled it on, laughing when the cold hit her.
“I’m confused,” Iris, Shine’s old lady, said. “Why was it in the freezer?”
“Because she’s scared of lice,” I answered as I walked to my bike and mounted it. “And weird.”
“I am not weird for caring about what goes on my head,” she grumbled as she followed me to stand beside my bike. “I’m normal. It’s normal to worry about those kinds of things.”
Instead of arguing with her, I started my bike to drown her out.
She flipped me off, then used what little hair was poking out from under my helmet to help her mount the bike.
I ignored the tugging, and the pain that followed, and waited until she was firmly on the bike to pinch her calf.
She hissed out a curse that I could hear over the din of the motor, causing me to grin.
All the while, my family looked on like we were two alien life forms that they’d never seen before.
“Ready?” I called to them.
They answered by riding away.
I followed, and I did it fast, causing my rider to throw her arms around me in surprise.
“Asshole!” she called again.
“That’s my middle name,” I replied back.
Then we rode to the rally where I would be fucking up the man that hit her.
CHAPTER 10
Bitch, I will put you in a trunk and help people look for you. Don’t try me.
-Coreline to Tide
CORELINE
When I heard ‘motorcycle rally’ I’d thought that it would be something at a bar for some reason.
Something that was like a big group gathering inside, with food and music and people.
What I got was a massive… something.
I couldn’t even explain it.
The moment we turned into downtown Uncertain, I started seeing the bikes.
And not just one or two or four clumped together. But blocks and blocks of bikes, all of them backed in against the curb, and all of them packed so tightly together that I was stunned into disbelieving silence.
I’d never, not in my life, seen that many motorcycles before. Not even at the Harley dealership that I worked next to.
