by Sadie Savage
She could deal with it, though. At least it didn’t have any words on it. As she looked at her reflection, she marveled at the fact that, aside from looking a little tired, it was hard to tell that her heart was actually broken. Her short, reddish-brown hair still curled up on one side and curled under on the other side, making her look lopsided in a way that she liked. She still had a solar system of freckles on her face and neck. She seemed no worse for wear. She was still Summer Jones, and she could pretend to be completely unscathed. Her blue eyes with flecks of gold looked sad, but their sadness could easily be mistaken for fatigue.
“The bookstore won’t be so bad,” she told herself under her breath. “It’s not like everyone is going to buy books about romance today. We have a lot of different kinds of books…”
After telling herself that, Summer gave her reflection a nod and went out to the sales floor again, ready to go ahead and stand at the check-out podium, pretending to be enthusiastic about the selection at Cabbages and Kings. It was a tourist sort of place, but it paid the bills and it kept her out of Mopeville.
The Philadelphia tourist trap was not exactly popping at five in the afternoon, however. So far, she and her coworkers, and the crew that set up the stage for concerts and poetry readings, were the only people in the place.
Suddenly, Summer heard the sound of a motorcycle outside. It wasn’t that rare to see and hear them in the city, but it wasn’t often that someone who rode a motorcycle decided to come into Cabbages and Kings. People who rode motorcycles were stereotypically ‘cool’ and ‘fearless.’ The people who went to Summer’s place of work were decidedly not those things. It was a restaurant devoted to nerds.
The front door opened and she peeked around the wall as it jutted out and obscured a large portion of the bookstore from the rest of the venue’s view. She could hear as the rider’s leather boots stomped towards her, however. The rider came into the bookstore before even asking about a table, which she did not understand.
He was dressed in a typical biker outfit. Besides the black leather boots, he wore blue jeans and a black leather jacket with more than a few chains jutting out of it. He carried a black helmet under his arm, but so far all she’d been able to make out of his face was that he had sandy, slightly curly hair.
“Please let me know if I can help you,” Summer said to him, keeping her voice bright even though she was curious and surprised by this customer.
Scanning the shelves, he appeared to be jumpy and in a hurry, and she thought that he would just ignore her like nearly all of the other customers she greeted. He kept his back to her and she gave up any hopes of having a brief conversation with him. Her mind drifted back to her husband – ex-husband – and what he was most likely doing for his Valentine’s Day…
Two police cars drove past the building, sirens blaring and lights flashing. As soon as they were gone, the biker guy turned towards her. He gave her a look of relief. His eyes were as brown as Valentine’s chocolates. She hated herself for making that connection. He was younger than she had expected. Most of the bikers she saw around town were middle-aged.
“I am looking for a present for someone really picky,” he said. His voice was much gentler than Summer had anticipated, too.
She smiled at him. “You’ve come to the right person, then,” she said. “I’m probably the pickiest person here. What sort of things are you thinking?”
He pulled a book by Neil Gaiman off the shelf. “She loves Douglas Adams,” he explained. “I’ve heard good things about this author. Would you say they’re similar?”
Summer smiled and put her hands behind her back so this handsome biker wouldn’t see that she was fidgeting with her fingers a little bit. She picked at her nails when she was nervous. Right now, she was nervously excited. She loved to discuss books with people, which was why she had chosen this geeky job in the first place.
“That depends,” she said. “That’s a little bit more macabre than Hitchhiker’s… I would go for this one.” She snatched up a different book, one that was co-written by Terry Pratchett. “This book is golden. It’s funny; it’s metaphysical but not really in such a sinister way. Though it is about Armageddon.” Summer smirked at him. “But if she likes Douglas Adams, she probably likes books about that.”
This attractive biker was frantically shopping for a female on Valentine’s Day. Summer couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed. She couldn’t even flirt with a stranger today! The oxymoronic mixture of his biker attire and cherubic face intrigued her.
“Hey, thanks,” the guy said. He put back the book he’d been holding, and took the one she offered. He was taking her suggestion. At least Summer could count that as a small victory.
Once she’d led him over to her podium and he’d paid for the book with cash, he looked at her as if for the first time. “Are you doing anything tonight?”
Oh no, she thought. The last thing she needed was yet another cheater in her life. “But you just bought a present for…”
“For my little sister,” he finished for her. He flashed a grin and Summer held onto the podium, doing her best to make it seem like a normal thing to do and not something that was necessary in order to keep her legs from giving out.
Whoa, but he had a gorgeous smile!
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I’m here the rest of the night.”
He leaned in a little so that only she could hear him. “Can you not be?”
Summer looked around, blushing. No one else was even near them or paying attention. Some people had started to come in and be seated in the restaurant, so the staff would be busier over there. She knew that she had a waitress shift later during the concert. She also knew that Megan was so very into the emotions of the day this year, so there happened to be a chance that she could leave, if she gave the appropriate excuse…
“Tell me your name first,” she said, watching him as he tucked the brown-bagged book into his back pocket and put his helmet back on his head. “I don’t want to spend Valentine’s Day with a guy if I don’t even know his name.”
There was that smile again. He looked her straight in the eye. “Eric,” he said, keeping his already velvety voice soft and secretive as though his name was something that mere mortals weren’t supposed to know.
She kept her eyes on his and swallowed nervous-excitedly. “Summer,” she said. “Like the season.”
CHAPTER TWO
Heroes Just For One Day
As expected, Megan squealed when Summer asked to have the night off for an impromptu date. She called in someone else to cover for her, but it turned out that there were more than enough people working there as it was and they would be able to handle the crowd that Megan had imagined would come for the show. Summer wasn’t really worried about that; she just hoped losing out on a night of tips for this Eric guy was going to be worth it.
“Have you ever been on a motorcycle before?” he asked her as he tossed the bagged Gaiman book into his motorcycle’s storage space under the seat. He pulled out a spare helmet and closed the seat back down so it was secure.
Summer thought about it. She could lie and say that she had, of course she had, but she did not want to start their… whatever this was on a foundation of a lie. She didn’t want to lie just to seem cool; that was the sort of thing she had sworn off ever since it had gotten her into trouble once in high school.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d never actually even thought about it befo—ahh!” She let out a screechy yelp as Eric lifted her up and placed her, gently, onto the back of the seat.
He laughed at her reaction, looking around to make sure no one had overheard and thought something bad was going on. “Calm down,” he said. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She blushed a little but smiled at him. He climbed onto the seat in front of her and made sure that both of their helmets were securely clipped on before kicking off.
“Can I see your license first?” she asked him.
&n
bsp; “What are you, an undercover cop?” Eric asked with another laugh. He pulled out his wallet and handed over his card. It wasn’t his actual license, though. It was like a business card.
Summer read over it, smirking and narrowing her eyes at him. “Eric Daniels, The Celestial Sentinels, VP.” She handed it back to him. “What the hell does that mean?”
He grinned, placing the card back into his wallet and his wallet back into his jeans. “It’s a motorcycle club,” he said. “And I’m its vice president.”
With that, he started the engine and took off down the street. Letting out another squawk, Summer grabbed on tightly to his middle. It felt weird to her to be clutching this stranger, but she did not exactly have another choice.
“Where are we going?” she yelled over the sound of the bike’s growling motor. She realized that she had assumed it was a date, he hadn’t exactly said it was. Now she berated herself for not asking these important questions before hopping on his motorcycle and riding off into the night.
Suppose he was planning to kill her?
Then she remembered his kind face. No, he couldn’t be like that. He was surprisingly sweet for a guy who rode this fast, loud deathtrap.
“It’s supposed to be a surprise,” he yelled back. “I hope you like beer.”
She smiled. “That didn’t really answer the question, but okay.” She rested her cheek against his back as Eric skillfully drove her around, through all of the looping streets of the city. He took her away from the city center and she was starting to wonder if his plan was just to take her back to his place, but then he stopped the bike outside of a small dive bar.
“Sunny’s,” she read on the glowing sign.
Eric helped her down off the motorcycle and stored the helmets away under the seat. “It’s not the most romantic place, I admit, but I had a feeling that you’d gotten enough of Valentine’s Day from the way your store was decorated.”
Summer grimaced. “Yeah… Today’s not exactly my favorite holiday.” Especially not anymore.
He opened the door for her and she went inside. As she had anticipated, it was a small, dark place, more like a cellar that the bars she usually went to. It was made primarily of bricks and it smelled of cigarettes and booze and fish. Eric led her to a booth near the bar and they sat down, her across from him. She wished that it was a little lighter in there so she could see his face better.
“Why is today not your favorite holiday?” he asked her, looking over the menu and stealing more than a few glances up at her. “Did your job wear it out?”
She shook her head. She didn’t really want to go into what had happened with Tom. It was still so fresh, and she had a feeling that this handsome biker guy did not want to know that, until very recently, she had been married.
“I’ve just never had a lot of good luck on this day,” she explained. “It might not even have anything to do with the holiday. Maybe February 14th is just a cursed date for me.”
Eric raised his eyebrows a little at her. “Aww, well, I hope this won’t be considered a cursed date.”
So it was a date!
A waitress came over before Summer could comment on that. Eric ordered himself a beer and looked to her to see what she wanted. “I’ll have a Stella,” she said. Belgian ales were the only kind of beer that Summer could really stomach.
Once the waitress was gone, Eric leaned forward towards Summer. “Do you want to split a spinach and artichoke dip or something?” he asked. “I don’t know how hungry you are, but I’m starved.”
She smiled and quickly read through the bar’s offered appetizers. Her stomach growled a little. Normally, she would have taken a break at Cabbages and Kings and had her dinner there. “That sounds good. I might get a sandwich or something, too, if that’s okay.”
Eric smirked an attractive, sideways smirk at her. “Of course that’s okay. I brought you here for dinner.”
“I know, but… Why?” She blushed a little, grabbing at a packet of Sweet n’ Low just to have something to fiddle with while they waited for their drinks.
“I thought you were cute,” he said. “And I figured that a cute girl like you shouldn’t be spending her Valentine’s Day alone in a small bookstore.”
The waitress came back to deliver their bottles of beer and ask about what they wanted to eat. Eric ordered the spinach and artichoke dip. Summer ordered some hummus.
He seemed amused by that. “It’s practically the only way I’ll eat fresh veggies,” she explained, sticking her tongue out at him. “It’s funny to me that you think I’m cute. I could say the same thing about you. When you came into the shop, I thought you looked way too innocent and sweet to be riding a motorcycle.”
“Oh, looks can be deceiving,” he countered. He took a long sip of his beer.
Summer nodded. “So, who came up with the name ‘The Celestial Sentinels’? It’s not the toughest sounding name. No offense.”
He gave her a confused look. “Who says all guys who ride motorcycles have to be tough? Anyway, it’s pretty heroic to be a guard…”
She supposed that was true. “What do you do when you’re not guarding?”
He chuckled darkly. “Drink your beer.”
Summer took a sip, smiling at the taste. She didn’t drink very often, but boy did she feel like she had a pretty good reason to tonight. “My husband left me today,” she said softly, frowning at her bottle. When she looked back up, she noticed that Eric was giving her a sympathetic look.
“Why the fuck would anybody do that?” he asked, surprised and disgusted but keeping his voice low like she had because it was not the kind of conversation that everyone in the bar needed to overhear.
She shrugged sadly. “He wanted someone younger, I guess.”
“Younger?” he asked. “How old are you? …Er, if that’s not impolite. You don’t have to answer.”
“I’m twenty-nine,” she answered.
“Pfft,” Eric said. “That is definitely not old. I’m thirty.”
Summer smiled ever so slightly. “That’s ancient.”
Their appetizers came and distracted them for a few moments. She dipped a piece of celery into the hummus and ate it with a satisfying crunch. They shared the two dips and the assortment of things with which to eat them, reaching across the table when necessary.
“I’m a security guard,” he said. “Well, I was… I was fired. Let go, they called it. So I am currently looking for a new job.”
She cringed a little. That was slightly off-putting. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be dating a guy who was currently unemployed, but maybe she could help him with that. It wasn’t as though unemployment was so rare these days. “What are you doing for money for the time being?”
Eric bit his lip and slowly shook his head. At first, she thought that meant that he had no idea, but then he answered. “I have some saved up,” he said. “It’s not ideal, though. But I’ll be all right. Enough about me. What do you like to do when you’re not selling books?”
Summer let out a little laugh. She and Tom used to do a lot of things, like going on long walks and seeing movies. Lately, she hadn’t done much of either thing. She’d become a bit of a homebody. She sometimes wondered if it was depression over what she considered to be a defect. She could not have children, and that made her feel like a failure for some reason. She knew she wasn’t. She told herself she wasn’t. But she didn’t fully believe it.
“I used to hike a lot,” she said, keeping her feelings to herself. “I wasn’t hardcore or anything, but I’d go out for long walks and explore forests and stuff.”
He smiled. “You eat hummus and you love nature,” he said. “I’m dating a hippy. This is becoming a set up for a joke,” he teased. “A biker and a hippy walk into a bar…”
She finished her bottle of beer and, stopping the waitress, asked for another. She also ordered the avocado sandwich she had been eyeing. “What’s the punchline of the joke?” she asked.
Leaning across the table,
Eric kissed Summer on the lips. She kissed him back, feeling as though the beer and something else were now going to her head.
They kept on drinking their beer. When her sandwich arrived, she ravenously ate it, hoping that she didn’t seem like a drunken pig or anything. She was hungry and she didn’t often have an excuse to go out and enjoy something she hadn’t made herself.
Eric watched her eat the sandwich, smiling at her and helping himself to the remnants of dip that remained on the plates before him.
“Do you mind if I say something?” he asked suddenly. He seemed pretty tipsy by now, but he was still forming sentences okay, which relieved Summer because she did not want a ride home with an inebriated motorcyclist, even if he was the vice president of a club.
She shrugged, swallowing a piece of sandwich before responding. “Go ahead.”
“I think your husband must be out of his mind insane to leave you,” Eric said. “Especially on Valentine’s Day. I mean, who does that?”
Summer looked down at her plate. “I don’t think he cared what day it was, really. I think it had been a long time coming.”
Eric shook his head, irritated with her ex and he had never even met the jerk. “Well, I guess it’s probably bad to say, but I’m glad that he walked out on you today… Because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to take you out.”
She blushed, smiling a little. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
CHAPTER THREE
Making Love With His Ego
As soon as they were done with their food – and definitely done drinking their beers – Eric led Summer out of the restaurant and back to his motorcycle. He got their helmets out of the storage space. They put them on. Summer felt very giggly all of a sudden. “What’s the plan now?” she asked him. “What else is on your Valentine’s Day date agenda?”
He smirked and helped her onto the bike. “Wait and see,” he said, getting on in front of her.
Wrapping her arms around his waist was much less awkward when she was tipsy. She was much less concerned about who he was or what was going to happen when she had some booze in her.