AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Blaze
Aheavy black boot nudged into the ground and kicked up a tiny puff of sand. The tiny grains skittered across the hard shell of the shin plate and were lost to the wind. The wheels of the dirt bike cast strange shadows down the dunes, like a pair of Ferris wheels silhouetted in a golden sky. The rider balanced easily on his right foot, the bike securely beneath him, but only waiting for the moment. The engine purred gently in anticipation of the big rev. Underneath a sleek black helmet, the rider smirked up at the endless blue sky. The brilliant morning sun beat down upon him, but every inch of his skin was protected under suit and gear. Everything from the pants, gloves, and knee pads were perfectly, lovingly worn-in from years of repeated wear. It felt less like a clunky costume and more like a second skin. But with his impressive height, build, and raw confidence, it might as well have been a suit of armor.
Blaze looked out across the undulating hills of Dumont Dunes and counted the helmets of his three friends. These guys were no beginning riders, either. Even though he was the young buck of the group, he had a tendency to take on a leadership role. Blaze had a feeling that he learned the habit over a decade ago, when he was growing up in Moab, Utah. He and his fellow angsty adolescents would spend nearly all their free time riding around the desert that surrounded their small, somewhat isolated town. Blaze was always a bit of a rebel, but a damn loyal one. Even as a kid, he considered himself responsible for the safety of his friends. He had vivid memories of counting and re-counting them, always checking to make sure they were upright and smiling. Of course, he would have never admitted to it. He had a bad-boy reputation to uphold, after all.
His sense of responsibility never held him back from seeking thrills for himself, either. In between glancing around at his desert wolf pack to check on them, Blaze could be found pushing his dirt bike to the absolute limits. He pushed the gas down flat. He hit the brakes late. He took leaps no one else would dare. Perhaps that was another habit he had built as a youth: breaking the rules. If someone told him the jump was too dangerous, that only made the feat infinitely more enticing to him. For an adrenaline junkie like Blaze, there was hardly anything more seductive than the promise of danger.
Except perhaps for a tiny woman with a big personality.
He couldn’t help but flash back to that catastrophic meeting at Hot House. The alluring amber cat eyes of Giselle Kingston were seared into his mind. Her long black lashes framing those expressive brown eyes. He even loved that there was a slight tinge of chaos in every glance she shot him. She had been so white-hot with rage, so wild in her betrayal. Like a feral cat backed into a corner. He could still see the way her full, plush lips fell open with shock, then pursed together. His heart thumped a little faster to remember the faint shimmer of perspiration on her chest as anger burned inside of her. It was impossible not to zoom in on those little details, although they had been in the thick of the moment.
Blaze tried to shake off the lust clouding his mind. He forced himself to think about what she had been saying, rather than how insanely gorgeous she had looked saying it. She was so accusatory. So dramatic. He didn’t have time for a brat like that. He was a songwriter, not a babysitter. Besides, he was here in the desert today to blow off steam, not dwell on the dewy skin and luscious lips of the world’s worst client. As far as Blaze was concerned, the fastest way to feel clean inside was to get dirty. The dunes definitely offered that.
Out here, he was a different version of himself. He loved to get back in touch with his roots, rediscover the magic of pushing the machine and his body to the limits as one unit, together stronger than alone. The bike underneath him felt like an extension of his already impressive form. Although his Harley was his main squeeze, he loved to unleash the dirt bike whenever he got a good opportunity. Luckily, he’d been able to quickly find a group of like-minded thrill-seekers upon moving to Los Angeles. They all rode motorcycles, but over the years, the other guys had all bought traditional vehicles, as well. They had wives, families, and lives too complicated to pile onto the back of a motorcycle. Blaze, as the youngest and the established bachelor of the group, was happy to let them cart him out to the desert with his dirt bike in the back of a pickup truck.
It was a hell of a lot easier than trying to tow a dirt bike with a Harley for four hours.
“Hey Blaze! You gonna hit the jump or just stand around posing all day?” shouted one of Blaze’s friends, Jesse. He was the one with the pickup truck.
“Yeah, there ain’t no paparazzi snappin’ photos way the hell out here,” teased the eldest of the group, Randy.
He worked as a grip on movie sets, and had accumulated an endless supply of bizarre Hollywood stories over the years. He was also an instigator, always egging on the younger guys to do crazy tricks he couldn’t quite pull off anymore. Blaze loved that; not that he needed any extra encouragement.
He lifted his eye shield just for a moment to glare at them all before revving his engine and taking off across the sandy hills. He heard his friends whooping and cheering as the dirt bike rumbled beneath him. Blaze leaned forward and tightened his grip on the handlebars, feeling adrenaline flood his veins. The resulting fuzzy high made him feel like he was jumping the clouds when his bike revved up the side of a large dune and caught the air.
It was only a split second, but it unfolded in slow motion for Blaze. The wind whistled around his body as he separated ever so slightly from the bike. The second tire left earth and Blaze was soaring. He was weightless as the ground pulled away beneath him. His body went almost limp for that hair’s breadth of a second before tensing for immediate impact. It was muscle memory by now, his limbs bending and his eyes narrowing to focus on the landing. The world was silent except for the soft continuous whisper of the wind until his front tire met the sand again. He braced himself as the bike wobbled and easily retained his balance.
Sounds came rushing back in. He heard his friends clapping and laughing as he whirred off into a winding victory lap. He kicked up a wake of sand and doubled back to the guys, who had gathered at the edge of the dunes, where the landscape tapered off into flat rock and small desert shrubs. They had a cooler of beer and a big jug of water, along with some other supplies, piled not too far from where their vehicles were parked. They were chatting and sipping beers, their helmets off and their hair all sweaty and tousled from riding.
Blaze grinned. He revved his engine, went full-tilt on the gas, and hurtled straight toward his pack of buddies. They slowly turned to see him barreling top speed in their direction and started waving their arms, shaking their heads, and shouting at him to slow down. From their perspective, it looked like he had either gone mad or blind, as he showed no sign of slowing down. But even as the space between them dissipated by the second, Blaze knew that his friends were in no danger. Despite how unhinged he appeared, he was totally in control.
The guys were on the verge of tossing their beers and getting the hell out of Dodge when Blaze finally jerked to the left. He went peeling off in a tight dust donut while the guys groaned with equal parts relief and annoyance.
“Holy shit, man. I thought you were gonna squash us like roadkill,” said Keith, a family man from Pasadena. He didn’t make it out to the desert as often as the others, now that he had a couple of kids running around, but the friendship was as strong as ever.
“And lose my ride back to LA? Why would I do that?” Blaze teased.
“I should let you hitchhike back for that stunt,” warned Jesse.
“You drive so slow, I’d probably still beat you there,” he tossed back effortlessly.
“I, for one, appreciate a little near-death experience now and again,” mused Randy, who was gently swirling his can of beer like it was an expensive wine. “Gets a little juice flowin’ back into these old joints.”
“You’re thirty-eight, Randy. Your joints are fine,” Keith assured him.
“You’re welcome anyway,” said Blaze as he cracked open a beer. “I needed a little extra adrenaline rush, myself.”
“What’s on your mind, kid?” Randy inquired. “I can always tell when there’s a wasp in your helmet.”
“You mean a bee in your bonnet?” offered Keith.
“Wasps are more dangerous, and do you see a bonnet on his head?” Randy retorted.
“Just this new client I’m supposed to write for,” Blaze muttered dismissively.
“What’s his name? Anybody I know?” the older man pressed.
“Unless you have the music taste of a high-school girl, I doubt you know her,” he said.
