by Mila Gray
Kit unlocks the seat of the bike and hands me something. I shake it out. It’s an old leather jacket, soft as butter and lined with worn suede. I slide my arms through the sleeves, shivering not with cold but because it feels like being enveloped by warm arms – Kit’s warm arms, to be precise. The jacket smells of him – and of motorbike – and I want to burrow down deep inside of it like an animal going into hibernation.
Kit comes and stands in front of me to zip it up. He pauses when he’s done, puts his hands on the collar and draws it up under my chin. I hold my breath, expecting him to kiss me again, because it looks like that’s what he’s thinking about as his eyes dance around my lips, but at the last minute he decides not to. He reaches instead for something else from inside the bike and passes it to me.
It’s a helmet. Holding it in my hands, I stare at it like a strange and magical relic I can’t guess the use of.
‘You going to put it on or not?’ Kit asks.
‘What about you?’ I ask, noticing he doesn’t have another one.
‘I’ve got a hard head,’ he says, rapping his hand against his skull.
‘That explains a few things,’ I mutter, undoing the strap of the helmet.
‘You need a hand?’ Kit asks as he watches me wrestle the helmet on. My cheeks are going red because I know I must look like a total idiot standing in my bare feet wearing skimpy cotton shorts, a leather jacket five sizes too big for me and an oversized motorcycle helmet. As if on cue, Kit grins at me. ‘Looking hot,’ he says, his gaze sweeping all the way up my body.
I narrow my eyes at him but the visor is down and I don’t think he can see my scowl. He hops forwards and helps me do up the strap, his fingers pausing to linger against my throat. Instantly I forget about the stupid helmet and about the fact that I’m standing on my street looking like I’m dressed for some bizarre kind of costume party. It’s that hypnotism thing again, except it’s not just his eyes this time, it’s his touch.
‘You could wear a sack and you’d still look beautiful,’ he says, dropping a kiss on top of the helmet. He says something else but I don’t hear it because all I can focus on is how he just called me beautiful. My heart does a bungee jump. Kit just told me I’m beautiful and I’m wearing what feels like a concrete turban on my head. I know Didi will laugh her ass off when I tell her.
Kit has already swung his leg over the bike and is sitting waiting for me. I wobble a bit, unused to the extra weight on top of my shoulders and the weird deafness that comes from the padded bits by my ears, then swing my leg over the seat and climb on behind him. He takes my hands and pulls me closer, wrapping my arms around his waist, then kicks up the stand and revs the engine. We take off down the street. I have to suppress a scream – of surprise and excitement both. My thigh muscles squeeze the outside edge of Kit’s legs, and I knot my hands over the rock-hard slab of his stomach. I press myself even closer against his back and feel a rush like nothing I’ve experienced before.
It’s like a rollercoaster ride. And as Kit takes the corner with total ease and confidence, I know one thing with sudden and absolute certainty: I don’t ever want to get off.
7
Kit
When I take the corner and Jessa’s body leans with mine into the curve, I almost shoot straight through the intersection. It’s hard to stay focused with the feel of her pressing against my back, and I’m just glad she can’t see my face because I know I must be grinning like an idiot.
I pull up at a stop light and feel Jessa shift behind me. Without thinking I drop a hand and rest it on her knee. She burrows even closer against my back in response and I have to fight an urge to stroke my hand all the way up her thigh. Instead I place it firmly back on the handlebar and scan the street in all directions for cop cars. Driving without a helmet will get me a ticket, but I’m hoping we’ll get lucky. We’re not going far, after all – just back to mine.
As I’m glancing around, on the lookout for flashing red and blue lights, I see something far worse than a cop car and swear under my breath. Straight ahead of us, in the oncoming traffic queue, waiting at the stop light, is Riley’s car.
Has he seen me? It’s dark and I can’t make out his face. I look back at the light. It’s still red. Come on, change, I urge it silently. As soon as the light snaps to green I give the bike full throttle and throw a right turn. Jessa’s arms tighten around my waist and too late I remember I promised her I’d go slowly.
Mitigating circumstances. Checking in the mirror I see Riley’s car crawl across the intersection behind us. Did he see? For the last mile of the journey I find myself struggling with guilt and shooting looks in my wing mirror. Riley’s my best friend, but more than that he’s effectively a brother to me. What kind of a guy goes behind their best friend’s back to hook up with his sister? I try to imagine what Riley would say if he found out, but I don’t even like to contemplate it. He’d be mad, that much I do know. The President’s secret service team have nothing on Riley when it comes to overprotectiveness.
One time we were all out for pizza and some guy made the dumb but entirely understandable mistake of looking at Jessa twice. Riley got out of the booth and went over to him, demanding to know what he was looking at. The guy almost shat his pants right there in the middle of the restaurant. He’s probably never looked at another girl since.
Another time, when Jessa came to the base for our send-off, one of the guys in B Company asked who the hot piece of ass was and Riley saw red. He smacked him with a right hook before the guy had even finished his sentence. He got an official reprimand for that. If Riley hadn’t done it, though, I might have. Even back then I had a thing for Jessa, though I hadn’t fully admitted it to myself, let alone anyone else. If I had to analyse what it is that brings out the overprotective warrior in me, I’d say it’s her vulnerability – what my sister calls her sweetness. My life is basically spent surrounded by guys in uniform waging war and watching porn in their downtime. Jessa’s the counterpoint.
Or maybe it’s because her father’s a controlling bully and I want to protect her from him. My guess is that’s why Riley’s so protective of her too. Not that either of them really opens up about what goes on behind closed doors. I’ve only managed to pick up a few clues here and there. I sigh. Could also be that my sister’s right and I have a hero complex.
A car is coming up on my inside and I glance sideways in panic. It’s not Riley, but it briefly crosses my mind that I could simply try to explain – tell him that I’m not just playing around. The problem with that, though, is that Riley knows me better than anyone. He knows my history and will therefore assume Jessa’s just the next in a relatively long line of girls I’ve had meaningless flings with. It’s not like I’ve ever had a proper girlfriend, so how would I convince him that this is different? I don’t want a meaningless fling with Jessa. That much I do know. But the fact is I’m leaving soon and I’ll be gone for a year. How can it be more than just a fling?
As I pull into my driveway, thoughts still stampeding around my head, I notice the lights are on downstairs. Damn. My dad’s still awake. I pull the bike into the garage beside my dad’s pickup and quickly kill the engine. Jessa surprises me by hopping off the bike before I can help her. I ready myself for her laying into me about driving too fast, but when she pulls off the helmet I see her cheeks are flushed and she’s smiling like she just won the lotto.
‘That was amazing. Can we do it again?’ she says, the words flying out of her breathlessly.
‘That was nothing,’ I say, grinning back at her. ‘One day we’ll take a road trip. A long one. Just you, me and the bike.’ As soon as I say it I start imagining it, and for a moment I can smell the ocean breeze, feel Jessa’s arms around my waist leaning into every bend. I can picture the two of us riding into the sunset, stopping at cosy, out-of-the-way hotels, having wild adventures involving hot springs and deserted beaches. The fantasy vanishes as quickly as it appears. Why am I saying things like this to her? Getting her hopes up? I’
m contracted to the military. They own my ass.
Jessa’s biting her lip, a cute habit I’d forgotten about. She does it a lot, especially when she’s contemplating doing something she thinks is against the rules . . . so basically everything other than breathing. But seeing the glow in her eyes as she stares at my bike I get a buzz in my sternum. Rule breaking is something I used to be a pro at, and the thought of breaking some with Jessa, if it makes her smile the way she is now, is a total turn-on.
‘What are we doing here?’ Jessa asks now, looking around the garage which doubles as my dad’s workshop. ‘Is your dad home?’ The worried look is back. I’m guessing she’s afraid that if my dad finds out she’s here somehow it’ll get back to her dad, despite the fact that my dad and her dad don’t speak and I’d absolutely trust my dad never to say anything.
‘We’re not staying,’ I tell her, hoping to allay her fears. ‘I just wanted to pick up a few things.’
‘Where are we going?’ Jessa asks gleefully, the worry erased, and I have a sudden urge to pick her up and swing her around, her enthusiasm is that infectious.
‘It’s a surprise – quit asking.’
She purses her lips at me, but I ignore it and head towards the door that leads into the utility room. ‘Wait here. I’ll only be a moment.’
I forget to wipe the grin off my face before I walk into the kitchen where my dad happens to be fixing tea.
‘What you grinning for?’ he asks me, arching an eyebrow as he pours milk into his mug. My dad might be knocking fifty but not much passes him by.
‘Nothing,’ I answer, heading straight for the stairs.
‘Last time I saw a grin like that, nine months later your sister arrived on the scene,’ my dad calls after me. ‘You watch yourself.’
Man, my dad. He’s always handing out pearls of wisdom, mostly ending with the moral always wear a condom. I shake my head. As if I’m going to sleep with Jessa. In all honesty, the fantasy was never fully fleshed out. It was usually just me kissing her, holding her, waking up with her in my arms, nothing beyond that. Totally PG compared to some of the fantasies the other guys in my unit would happily share. But with Jessa it felt wrong to imagine something so intimate, as if doing so would be taking advantage of her. Having said that, now I’ve actually kissed her I think I’m going to have trouble not letting my imagination make up for lost time.
I push open the door to my old bedroom. I have a room on the base where I keep most of my stuff, but when we’re on leave I stay here. There’s a single bed sitting against the wall – the same bed I lost my virginity in aged fourteen (to the babysitter). There are faded baseball posters on the wall and a row of trophies sitting on a shelf above the desk. My nieces and nephews sleep here when they’re staying over, so there’s also a heap of stuffed animals on the end of the bed and a pile of diapers and baby stuff on top of the dresser. My sister failed to heed the ‘always use protection’ advice my father likes to dole out. Though at least she waited until she was married, my dad likes to point out.
I head straight for the wardrobe, grab my backpack and stuff a couple of sweaters into it, then throw in two blankets from the laundry cupboard before heading back downstairs again. My dad’s watching the end of the game, so as quietly as I can I root through the kitchen cabinets for a thermos and a torch. I fill up the thermos with tea, grab some containers from the refrigerator and finally make for the door.
‘I’m heading out, Dad,’ I shout over my shoulder.
My sister has left a pair of old flip-flops by the back door, so I swipe them as well as the keys to the truck that are hanging on a hook.
Jessa’s standing by my dad’s workbench waiting for me, and when I see her I let out the breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding. The sight of her standing there in my old leather jacket, her legs bare, is the same as a punch to the solar plexus. ‘OK,’ I say, tossing the bag onto the flatbed of the truck. ‘Good to go?’
I unlock the passenger side for her, but just as she starts to move towards me, the door to the utility room flies open, blocking her way, and my dad appears.
‘Where you say you were going?’ he asks.
I can see Jessa’s feet poking out from under the door, but thankfully the rest of her is hidden. ‘Out,’ I answer, feeling just like I did the time I was fifteen and got caught stealing his car to go on a date. Back then I had no licence. I have to remind myself I’m twenty-one now and not doing anything wrong, legally speaking at least.
‘Seeing Riley?’ my dad asks.
‘No. He’s with Jo. I’m just going to go for a drive . . . ’ I clear my throat. I’m not a good liar. ‘Mind if I take the truck?’ I add.
‘Sure,’ my dad says, ‘though last time I checked, the steering wheel was on the other side.’
I blink, then realize that I’m holding the passenger door open. I close it slowly, glancing nervously in Jessa’s direction.
‘How was the party?’ my dad asks.
‘OK,’ I mumble, walking around to the driver’s side.
‘You see him?’ my dad asks, his face set in a glower. There’s only one person on the planet makes him glower that way, and that’s Jessa’s dad.
‘Yeah.’
‘Still being a stubborn asshole?’
‘Um,’ I say. Yes, but his daughter’s right behind you, so I can’t admit that because I’m hoping to make out with her some more tonight, and can you please go back inside already?
‘How was Jessa? She have a good birthday?’ my dad asks, thankfully changing tack.
‘Yeah, I think so,’ I say, making a move to get into the truck and hoping he’ll take that as a hint and go away. Where are the gods of baseball when you need them?
‘You tell her yet?’
I stop with one foot in and the other out and stare at my dad over the roof of the truck.
‘Tell her what?’ I ask, feeling like I have fire ants marching up my back.
My dad throws back his head and laughs. ‘Tell her what?’ he says as though I’ve just cracked the funniest joke he’s ever heard. ‘You know what.’
Don’t say it. The ants march up my neck and swarm across my head into my ears so all I can hear is buzzing.
‘That you like her,’ my dad says. And then he adds, seeing my mouth fall open, ‘Oh, come on, you think I don’t have eyes? I might be an old bachelor and a man of God, but I still know a pretty girl when I see one and Jessa Kingsley is about the prettiest girl I’ve seen in a long while. I’ve seen the way you look at her. You should just tell her how you feel.’
Thanks for that, Dad. I owe you one. I can feel my face heating up, but then I decide to just shrug it off and smile, because hell, Jessa already knows I like her. It’s not like my dad gave away a big secret or anything. It’s actually kind of funny.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I mumble, looking at my feet, ‘I’m thinking about it. Don’t want to mess things up.’
‘Life’s too short, Kit,’ he says, with a touch of melancholy in his voice that makes my head snap up as it’s not something I’ve heard in a long time. ‘When you get a chance for happiness, you have to seize it before it’s snatched away.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll take that on board. Carpe diem. Got it.’ I salute him goodbye, but still he makes no move. He just stares at me and nods a few times, his lips pressed together as though on the verge of delivering a sermon. Please, no, I think. We’re going to be stuck here all night at this rate, with Jessa hiding behind a door and me listening to my dad telling me to seize the day, while he’s the one standing in the way of me doing just that very thing.
‘See you later,’ I say.
‘Drive safe,’ my dad says, finally turning towards the door.
‘Roger that,’ I say, metaphorically wiping my brow as I watch his departing back.
My dad pauses and looks over his shoulder. ‘Bring her home safely,’ he says.
‘Bring who home safely?’ I say, my stomach dropping with the weight of a bomb to my feet.
‘The truck – who did you think I was talking about?’ my dad answers innocently, winking at me before closing the door.
8
Jessa
‘Where are we going?’ I ask again when we hit the freeway.
‘If you keep asking I’m going to have to turn around and take you home,’ Kit says, ramming the stick shift up a gear. His hand brushes my knee and my leg gives a little jump. He notices because I see the smile he tries to fight down. He takes his hand off the stick and rests it on my leg for a moment, his thumb stroking my knee softly, before he puts it back on the wheel to change lanes. I shiver and Kit glances over.
‘You cold?’ he asks.
I shake my head. No. Most definitely not. I’m wearing one of his sweaters. But even so I’m not sure my body is ever going to feel cold again. Every time Kit looks at me, my inner thermostat ratchets up another degree. I’m starting to understand what my mom feels like when she complains about her hot flashes.
In the dark gloom of the car, I try to study him surreptitiously. I like the way the muscles of his forearms work beneath his skin as he moves through the gears. I trace the line of his arms and the broad sweep of his shoulders and then let my gaze linger on his face, which is illuminated every now and then by the strobe lighting of on-coming traffic. Kit’s mom was Portuguese and he has her smooth olive skin and long dark eyelashes. He looks over at me, feeling me watching him, and smiles – he’s always so ready to smile, it’s one of the things I love about him. Love? OK, scratch that. Rewind. It’s one of the things I like so much about him. He has an infectious smile. I catch a glimpse of his father in him just then and it reminds me of something.