Finding Allie

by Meli Raine

  I can’t move. I’m in a box of nothing but pain and throbbing.

  “Allie!” It’s Chase. “Oh, God, are you okay? Holy shit. Don’t move. Let me make sure your neck and back are fine.” His voice is commanding. Responsible. In charge. I can hear him tear off his riding gloves and then soft, gentle hands are touching my neck, my back, my hips.

  “Road rash,” he says under his breath. “Bad.”

  I can’t talk. My chest feels like someone put an entire mountain on top of it. Black spots start to dot my vision. I close my eyes, willing them away.

  “What are you doing out here on a bicycle?” he asks in a tender voice, his hands on my hair, pulling it off my face. A light breeze makes my face and arms feel cooler than they should, even through the burning.

  Air seeps slowly back into my lungs, making my body explode with pain. I start to shake. I don’t want to feel all this. The pain is worse with each second.

  “Allie?” Chase’s voice has an urgency to it. A worried tone. I need to answer him, but all I can do is move my knee and groan.

  A piercing feeling makes me nearly scream.

  Chase looks down and whistles, the kind of sound you don’t want to hear after you’ve taken a spill like this. “Damn, that’s bad. You have this flap of skin just hanging off your knee cap.”

  I think I might throw up.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale. Exhale. All the processes my body normally goes through I have to do consciously.

  “Allie.” The way Chase says my name has a terrifying quality to it. “I can hear you breathe. I think you understand me. Do I need to get an ambulance? Did you break something? Man, I saw you go flying and you must be so hurt.” He starts rubbing my back and it finally makes me swallow and reply.

  “I, oh, it hurts,” I croak out and start to cry.

  “Can you sit up, honey?” He called me ‘honey’. I’m in so much pain I can’t revel in the fact that Chase just called me a sweet name. I move one arm and it’s so sore already, shaking. I don’t trust my elbow.

  “I can try,” I say, moving my legs to roll over.

  “Can I help?” Now I can see Chase’s face, and he’s so worried. So concerned. The press of his palm on my hair, how he tucks it back behind my ear and winces, the low, soothing tone in his voice all make me feel better.

  But not much.

  “I don’t know.” I start to sit up and nearly scream. My knees are raw hamburger and my jeans are shredded. Elbows, too. And the side of my face—

  “Oh, baby,” Chase says in a deep, mournful tone.

  Yeah. My face is as bad as it feels.

  “I look like something out of The Walking Dead, don’t I?”

  His eyes go soft and pitying. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Liar.”

  He makes a funny sound through his nose, not quite a laugh. “It’ll heal. You’re beautiful no matter what. Can you move all your joints? Any broken bones?” He’s so practical and responsible, helping me go through the motions to make sure I’m okay, that I feel like I’m seeing a new side of him. Chase isn’t just some biker dude with the hots for me.

  There’s so much more there.

  We both look over at my bicycle at the same time and I choke up. The front wheel looks like someone put it through a meat grinder. The frame is bent, and there’s blood on the tape around the handlebars.

  I look at my forearms now, bending them back.

  They’re red, with bits of brown dirt embedded in there. Chase’s shirt is streaked with blood, and so is mine.

  “Wow,” is all I can think to say through the haze of pain and horror.

  “You don’t do anything small, do you?” Chase asks, moving next to me and gingerly putting his arm around my shoulders. I rest my cheek—the one that isn’t rubbed raw by road rash—on his shoulder.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That was one hell of a fall. You went ass over tea kettle.”

  “Ass over what?” I’ve never heard that expression before.

  He laughs. “My mom used to say that all the time when someone took a spectacular fall. ‘Ass over tea kettle.’ I think it’s like making a somersault.”

  That I understand.

  The pain is a throbbing horror, all pouring in now and in different forms. The raw skin feels like I’m being flayed. My knees and elbows are pulsing with the pain of impact, I guess, and my entire body feels drained. I probably tightened up with tension and shock as soon as I went flying, and tomorrow I’ll be a bundle of muscle pain.

  Tears well up in my eyes and I go to wipe them, but my palm is filled with gravel and blood. I can’t even wipe away my own tears.

  That makes me start to sob. At least my lungs work again, and Chase just quietly puts his arms around me and holds me while I cry, on the side of the road in the desert, my body, mind, soul and heart completely destroyed and my life falling apart.

  Jeff’s going to kill me (not really, but...), Marissa is in Los Angeles living like a real human being instead of me and my stupid life, David’s going off to college, and here I am sitting by the side of the road covered in cuts and sobbing into the arms of...

  Okay. So that part of my life is just fine.

  Chase kisses my temple so sweetly.

  “That’s the only part of my face that doesn’t have blood on it,” I say.

  One side of his mouth moves up in a smile. “It’s all gorgeous, blood and cuts included.” He frowns. “Why were you on your bike? I thought you had to work tonight.”

  The tears start up again and I babble. I can’t help it. So much has built up inside me that I’m like Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park. Ready to blow at any time.

  “Jeff and I got into a fight when I went to work. He told me never to see you and that you killed your mother.”

  Chase’s jaw drops.

  “I told him that was a lie,” I hiss through clenched teeth. I can taste blood and sand but I don’t care. “A vicious, nasty lie.”

  The whites of his eyes are so big right now and he nods fast. “It’s a huge lie. Who the fuck is saying that about me?”

  “Well, Jeff, for one. He’s such an asshole.”

  Chase looks shocked.

  “What?” I ask. I actually spit into the ditch because my mouth finally can’t handle the nasty dirt in it.

  “You used a bad word.”

  I give him an incredulous look, but then it hurts when I move the muscles of my face. Great. I can’t even make a facial expression without feeling pain.

  FML.

  “I know a lot of bad words, Chase!” I shout. I’m over-the-top upset now, exasperated and done. Just done with everyone and everything. Even Chase, and that means things are bad. I want to go home and crawl under the covers and hide until everything goes away.

  No. No, I don’t.

  I want to get on Chase’s motorcycle and ride off west to the ocean.

  With or without him.

  “Slow down there. Slow down,” he says like he’s gentling a horse. “It’s okay, Allie. You can’t go home, can’t go back to the bar. I get that. Now, unless you really do think I murdered my own mother—”

  “NO!” I shout.

  He nods, “Then let me take you back to my little shack in the desert, clean you up, feed you, and we’ll figure all this out.”

  A car shoots past us and I turn to watch it, but my neck hurts so much I yelp. Chase gives me a little squeeze, the kind you give someone as a show of support, and then he stands and brushes the dirt off his ass. It’s a nice ass.

  How can I notice his ass when I look like someone dragged me half a mile behind a car?

  I stand, too, and run a shaky hand through my hair. Half a garden’s worth of dirt floats out.

  “I must look awful,” I mutter, slowly walking over to Chase’s bike. My knees are killing me. I look at my reflection in one of his mirrors.

  “You didn’t tell me I look this bad,” I complain as he picks up my destroyed bike and pulls a bu
ngee cord out of a box on the back of his bike.

  “Because you don’t look that bad,” he says, then peers at me, eyes narrowed. “Geez, Allie, that split lip’s gotta hurt.”

  I reach up and touch it. The skin stings. He’s right again—my lip is fat and swollen, split deep.

  I lick it, the pain easing as it gets some moisture.

  “We’re about thirty minutes from my place. You think you can handle riding on back?” he asks as he uses the bungee cords to secure my broken bike frame to the back of his motorcycle.

  Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. If I go to Chase’s place with him, I have to straddle the bike and hold on tight to him.

  I’m suddenly really warm.

  Hot, even.

  My legs will have to wrap around that same nice ass I was just admiring.

  Who have I become? Why am I thinking like this? It’s impossible for my face to turn any more red between the heat, the blood, the cuts and my stupid hormones.

  Chase is staring at me with expectation.

  “Um, yes. Sure. Okay. I can ride.” My thighs begin to quiver at the thought of slinging them over that big, vibrating bike and linking my hands around Chase’s waist. I start breathing hard and imagining the power of it all.

  I want it.

  I want everything.

  “Climb on,” Chase says with a look in his eye of excitement and compassion. It’s a strange mix. He straddles the bike and turns it on, the engine burbling until it smooths out. I lift one leg and try my best to be elegant, but the pain in my knee makes me stumble. I grab on to Chase’s arm and he is rock steady. Strong and firm.

  I make it onto the bike in a clumsy sort of way and put my feet on the footrests. My thighs are hugging Chase’s ass and he’s so warm. So muscled. So attractive.

  He revs the engine and the vibration rips through me, making me gasp in his ear.

  “Bet you’ve never had this kind of power between your legs before, Allie.”

  Oh, God. Every cell in my body starts to tingle.

  And with that, Chase hands me a helmet. It’s a little one, without a visor, like the kind they wore during WWII in Europe. I feel silly but it’s better than nothing. Chase puts his on and he squares his shoulders.

  And with that, we move forward, the wheels catching the asphalt and our bodies and the motorcycle proceeding as one.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’m so tired. The drive there is soothing, the feel of hugging Chase from behind becoming ordinary really quickly. Not in a boring kind of way. More like comfortable. Casual.

  Like I’ve been straddling him from behind for a long time.

  I like having this kind of comfort with him. He acts like he knows me. Wants to know me better. We feel like soulmates already, and how many people in the world can say that?

  When you find someone you care about and can connect with, hold on to them. Explore them. Don’t let them go.

  How can I go to Los Angeles now that I’ve met Chase?

  There’s only one way it will all work.

  We go together.

  L.A. is way off in the future, though. Right now I need to pick so much stone out of my skin I might as well be a human quarry.

  Chase’s bike is a huge monster, a Yamaha that he rides like it’s part of his body. He sways and shifts, using gravity like he’s a god, and I feel like a big lump of rock on the back of the bike sometimes. As long as I cling to him when he makes turns, I seem to be doing okay.

  We don’t talk. The road goes by in a blur of different shades of brown, and I feel my body relaxing. Even though I’m injured, I feel better now than I did before my fall. Chase is taking me back to his little private sanctuary, and a flurry of butterflies in my stomach starts.

  His place.

  Where he lives.

  I’ve never been alone with Chase anywhere but outside my front door. I’ve seen his shack. He has a bed in it. It’s a futon rolled up on a simple frame, but still. A bed. A place to stretch out and be next to someone and touch and hold and taste—

  “You okay, Allie?” He leans back and the words carry on the wind.

  “Yes. Fine. Why?”

  “Because you made a little moaning sound just then.”

  My cheeks burn. So does the place between my legs. I’m so transparent. Marissa and my mom always used to tease me about being able to read my feelings on my face. Jeff’s the only person I can hide things from, and that’s because something in me can never trust him. With people I know I can trust, who I can let my guard down with, my face is like a road map of my thoughts.

  So’s my voice, too now. I moaned? I moaned at the thought of Chase’s bed?

  Sheesh. Maybe I had a bad head injury back there when I flipped over my bike and I don’t realize it. How can I have sex on the brain?

  Chase shifts a little, making me tighten my thighs around his body. A tingle in my breasts begins. I feel a little faint.The way his jeans rub against mine, with my hands resting on his belt buckle, I could drop my hands just a little and—

  And what? The guy’s driving a motorcycle at seventy miles an hour. What the heck am I supposed to do to him with my hands when he has complete control over our lives?

  I am crazy. Cray cray crazy. Besides, that kiss Chase gave me under the moonlight was the first real kiss I’ve ever had. I’ve kissed David on the cheek (and he doesn’t count, because I have girl parts and he wants something else), and being groped by Chuck Jorgenson in the back alley doesn’t count either.

  Neither do the countless butt pats and occasional breast grabs in the bar. Jeff made people keep their hands off me most of the time. He kept telling them not to spoil the fresh meat. That didn’t mean men wouldn’t try, though.

  Sitting on the back of this motorcycle with the heavy engine’s vibration between my thighs, cradled up against Chase’s thick, muscular body makes me think thoughts I’ve never explored before.

  Except in my dreams.

  So many girls in high school gave up their virginity for fun. Some of them did it back in middle school. A few ended up pregnant and dropped out. Most of them just seemed to cycle through guys the way they cycled through new wardrobes. Grab the latest fashion and then throw it away when it’s not cool anymore.

  I don’t feel that way. I’m not made like that. I don’t judge the other girls (okay, maybe a little...) but for me, the first time I make love with a man needs to be just that.

  Making love.

  Not having my cherry popped in the back of some guy’s pick up truck out in a field with a case of cheap beer tossed around us, empty cans jangling as we bump uglies.

  That’s about as romantic as having your ass grabbed while serving someone a shot of tequila.

  Chase, though...Chase is different. He turns off the asphalt road and slows down, going over dirt roads now that pitch and bump. It makes me feel like a kernel of popcorn in a popcorn popper. I breathe in his scent from the back of his neck. He smells like hope and kindness. Like caring and security. The way he looks at me is so tender. I can see my future in those eyes.

  He’s not the kind of man who grabs a woman against her will. Chase would never pin me up against the wall next to the garbage cans and shove his hand down my pants while I protest. He’s not Chuck, he’s not the guys at the bar who make me feel like meat—fresh or not—and he’s not Jeff.

  Who acts like I’m his property to be controlled and caged.

  “We’re close,” Chase calls back to me. “How are you? Pain bad?”

  My pain is still here, but it receded a little as I went into my daydreams. Funny how thinking about Chase can make the pain go away like that.

  “I’m okay,” I mumble into his neck. His shoulders loosen. He’s worried about me.

  Time sort of disappears for a little bit as I slump against him. I go in and out of sleep, waking from the strange dozing feeling when we hit a bump. Finally, Chase slows to a crawl, then halts the bike.

  He props it up so I can climb off. My legs a
re screaming in searing pain as I twist and turn to finally get to the point where I’m standing on firm ground. He leaps off the bike and is by my side in seconds, offering support. I can barely stand.

  “Can you walk?”

  I give a tiny shrug and take a step. I inhale sharply at the pain. Everything around my knees is agony.

  Chase’s arm goes under my knees and around my torso. In an instant, I’m in his arms, face pressed against his hard chest. He’s carrying me and I won’t argue. The distance between his bike and his little house feels like a million miles.

  He can hold me without effort. I’m not exactly tiny, either, with a big butt and curves like my mom. He’s so tender, making sure not to jostle me. I nestle in and relax.

  At the door, Chase fumbles in his front pocket for a key. He unlocks the door—all without putting me down. He’s skilled that way. As the door opens I’m relieved to find it the way it was the other day. A simple bed. A lamp. A water cooler that’s two-thirds full.

  Chase sets me gently on the bed, stretching my legs out carefully. He turns his back to me and he opens a drawer.

  “What are you doing?” I ask. The room is spinning. My heart is beating so fast. Everything seems to ache all at once, but my heart. Oh, my heart.

  It aches for Chase to lie down next to me and just hold me.

  “I need to tend to those wounds,” Chase explains, turning around, holding a first aid kit.

  I laugh. It’s the last thing I expect. Here I am, yearning for his touch as I lie before him on his bed, bleeding on his sheets, and he’s playing nurse?

  “You don’t need to.” I struggle to sit up. My vision fills with white. I lie down, the back of my hand over my eyes.

  “You’re dizzy. You’re really injured, Allie. You need something.” He frowns. “Maybe I should take you to a hospital. You said you didn’t bump your head, but...”

  “No! No hospital!” I beg. Jeff doesn’t have insurance on us, so I know I’ll get shoved into the long line at the ER for people who can’t pay. I look over my body carefully. There are about six really bad road rash spots on my arms and legs. A bunch of smaller cuts. My split lip and my cut on my face. I think that’s it.

  “Okay, okay,” he says in a soothing voice, sitting at the edge of the bed. Chase reaches for my head and smooths the hair back. He winces, his pale brown eyes filled with sympathy. “We’ll just clean you up and let you rest.” He reaches down and kisses my forehead. I lift my chin up and run the tip of my nose along his chin, up over his lips, asking him to give me more.