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“Are you kidding me?”
She didn’t know who she was asking: herself, Adam, the universe. Maybe everyone. She had never been on a motorcycle in her life and counted the idea as one of her top fears. And there she was, staring at one as the solution to her current problem.
The cruel twist made her wonder if she was in fact being punished.
“Look, Birthday Girl, it’s either me or you wait for an Uber and sit in traffic. And based on how you just looked at your phone like the world is about to end, I’m guessing you need to get back to work a-sap.”
She really didn’t have time to argue, though her whole body was already shaking at the mere thought of riding the thing.
Adam held out his backpack. “You’re going to have to wear this if you’re riding in back.” Then he handed her a helmet.
She nervously nodded and took both. “Okay.”
“Okay. Now, where are we going?” He threw a leg over the bike, kicked something with his foot, and started walking it backward out of the parking spot.
Lucy was 80 percent sure she was about to die.
“Birthday Girl? I’m not a mind reader.”
She blinked hard and shook her head, wondering if she was about to wake up and it would all go away.
Adam was still on his bike, looking hot as all holy hell, and she was still standing in a cool parking garage, wondering when her life had taken such a dramatic turn.
“Right, sorry. It’s just a few blocks from your bar, actually. The Waterfield building.”
“Got it. Let’s go!”
He kicked the throttle or the engine or the motor or whatever sent the bike roaring like a dragon in the underground concrete cage.
“Where’s your helmet?” Lucy shouted over the noise.
“In your hands! Get on!”
“But... but isn’t it illegal to ride without one?”
He threw his eyes at the ceiling and half laughed, half grumbled. “Woman, you’re kind of ruining my chivalrous rescue here. Can you please just get on the bike?”
Lucy hesitated, weighing the pros and cons of their plan.
On the one hand, she’d seen guys riding motorcycles in tee shirts and Chucks all over Southern California, usually with tatted-up arms that made her belly flip in a pleasant and unexpected way. They all had helmets though. And she was sure it was illegal to ride anything with a motor without a safety helmet. What the fine was for breaking the law, she didn’t know, but chancing death was more of an issue than risking a pesky ticket.
On the other hand, Adam looked like he was made to ride a motorcycle and knew exactly what he was doing. The way his big hands gripped the handlebars; how his shoulders strained against his tee shirt; how his brown hair was going to get all messed up in the wind...
Good lord, why was she hesitating? She had a chance to press her body up against that and go for a heart-pounding, we-might-die-together ride and she wasn’t jumping on it?
Perhaps the day’s most primitive rush of honesty kicked her like a horse, right in the vagina, and she came to her senses.
She unpinned her topknot to shove on the helmet and slipped the backpack over her shoulders. She lifted a leg, thankful Oliver nabbed her something with a loose skirt, and sat behind him.
He reached back and grabbed her ankle, pulling her foot onto a little rest. His hand on her bare skin felt like a lightning strike. “Put your feet here.” He reached back for her arms and pulled them around his waist. “Arms here.”
She scooted close and held tight, feeling her heart pound. She wondered if Adam could feel it against his back.
“Please don’t kill us!” she shouted.
She felt him laugh more than she heard it. The muscles in his abdomen bounced against her arms. “I’ll do my best.”
She squeezed her eyes shut as they pulled out of the garage. She only chanced opening them when they slowed at a stoplight a few blocks down. She took stock of her body and found that she was in fact not dead, but very, very much alive.
