Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “I’m ready.”

  Luckily, she didn’t make a move to get up. She finished the granola bar, I gave her some more water, and we sat there in complete silence—and though part of me was expecting a scenario like that to be completely awkward, it wasn’t. Or at least, I didn’t feel like it was. It was actually quite nice. I’d never gone riding with a girl before, not like this. Sure, I’d tooled around on the bike path, pulling a trailer-full of nieces and nephews with my sisters a couple of times, but that was different. I knew of plenty of girls who shredded, but had never had the pleasure of getting to actually ride with one of them. And now here I was, and I was getting paid for it to boot. Sweet deal.

  “I’ll slow the pace down a little bit for you,” Stella said when we were back riding again.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  And it was definitely slow-going heading back, but we were still moving at a pretty good clip. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to feel ashamed that she might not be as good as she used to be—she was still pretty damn good. And if she had been in top form, she would’ve kicked my ass, no doubt about it.

  She was quiet when we got back to the parking lot, and she let me load both the bikes onto the rack. She climbed into the back and then I got in and we left. We drove in silence for a few minutes.

  “That was a good ride,” I finally said, if only because I wasn’t used to being around someone and never uttering a word. There was no response. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that she had her head leaning against the side of the jeep, fast asleep.

  I kept glancing back periodically as I cruised down the 101. Stella looked so much nicer when she was asleep, which I immediately felt bad for thinking. She hadn’t been particularly awful today, but she definitely had a toughness about her that I wasn’t used to—in a girl, anyway.

  I pushed those thoughts out of my mind, though, as I drove, letting my arm hang out the open window. The jeep was slick, probably the nicest car I’d ever driven, though that wasn’t necessarily saying much. My leg muscles felt pleasantly worked, fatigued but not destroyed, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself a little at the fact that this was something I was getting paid for. It almost seemed too good to be true.

  ***

  I wasn’t sure what to do once we got back. Was I supposed to wake her up? Or just sit in the jeep until she woke up on her own? Luckily, she began to stir once the car stopped moving, and then I heard her yawn.

  “Oh,” she said. “We’re back.”

  “Good timing.”

  “I’m actually starving. Know of any good places to eat?”

  “Um, yeah, I know a bunch. What do you feel like?”

  “Something with lots of carbs.”

  Obviously, then, the answer was to head on down to Dottie’s.

  Stella went in to change out of her kit while I took the bikes off the rack. Dottie’s was in one of the grittier neighborhoods and there was no way I’d bring a bike like hers down there, even if it did have a lock on it. I walked the bikes into the garage, which was huge and well-lit and bigger than some people’s entire houses. There were several sports cars, a few restored classics—even a pristine, vintage Woody Wagon. Damn, that thing would be fun to cruise around in.

  When Stella came out, she had on a pair of jeans and a pink T-shirt with a gray silhouette of a beach cruiser on it. She was wearing sandals, and she had all that long chestnut hair of hers piled on top of her head in one of those messy-looking buns that absolutely drove me wild. I had a thing for that sort of hairstyle—not that I was going to say anything to her about that.

  “You need to change or anything?” she asked.

  “Nah, I’m good. I make it a point not to ride in anything that I can’t wear afterward.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, as if considering the merits of this. Then she nodded. “Cool.”

  We got back in the jeep. Again, she sat in the back. As we drove, I felt a bit of trepidation. Was it irresponsible of me to be bringing someone like her into one of the city’s worst neighborhoods? Her father would probably flip out, and it wasn’t as if Stella had made me do it—I was the one who suggested it. Had I mentioned Dottie’s by name? I couldn’t remember. If I hadn’t, I could maybe try to pull a fast one and take her somewhere else. As if she could read my mind, though, she said, “I’ve never been to Dottie’s before.”

  Great. I sighed. Looks like that’s where we’d be heading.

  “I go there a lot,” I said. “It’s one of my favorite places.”

  “We don’t need to sit together,” she said abruptly.

  “Sure—whatever you want,” I replied, though I knew there was no way that we were going to get separate tables, unless we went in there pretending not to know each other. Dottie’s was way too small and busy all the time. And the people there wouldn’t give two craps about who Stella’s father was and how much money he had—no special treatment there; it was that kind of place.

  I wasn’t sure if she was going to make a big deal out of that, though, if she might throw a fit and start insisting they seat us at different tables. In which case, I would have to pretend not to know her, because there was no way in hell I was going to get banned from Dottie’s on account of anyone.

  There was a bit of a line when we got there, though certainly not as bad as I’d seen it before.

  “There’s a line?” Stella asked.

  “I doubt we’ll be waiting more than fifteen minutes or so.”

  A look crossed her face, the sort of look that indicated she was not a person who was used to waiting in lines. No, I was sure she was used to private entrances and VIP rooms and all sorts of special treatment, and in a way, I was sort of enjoying seeing her so completely out of her element.

  We stood there in silence for several minutes, and I wondered if she was really going to stick with her assertion that we didn’t sit together. Hopefully she’d realize that this line we were standing in meant not sitting together was almost certainly not going to happen. Or if it did, one of us would be seated well before the other and then someone would end up having to wait around.

  “I saw you the other day,” she said suddenly.

  “Huh? You mean at your house?”

  She scowled. “No. Well, I mean, yeah, duh, I saw you there. But I mean after that. After you left. You were on the side of the road, playing chess or something with some guy.”

  I frowned, thinking back. Oh, yeah; I had stopped and played chess with Jeremiah. She had seen me?

  “I didn’t realize you hung out in that part of town.”

  “I don’t. I was with my friend and she took a wrong turn and we ended up there. Who was that guy?”

  “Jeremiah? He’s a friend.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Interesting.”

  She added this last part almost under her breath. “Why’s that?” I asked. “Interesting?”

  I knew why she’d said it, of course—Jeremiah was a street person, and since I was not, what the hell was I doing hanging out with him? She probably saw herself as better than him; I doubted she’d even look twice if she were to pass him on the street and he said hello.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just wasn’t expecting to see you playing chess on the sidewalk.”

  “You obviously never heard of Market Street chess.”

  She gave me a blank look.

  We resumed our non-conversation, and I was starting to wonder if maybe she was wishing she’d just stayed back at her house after the ride was over. I mean, surely they had plenty of food there—she probably had a full-time chef who would whip up whatever she wanted at a moment’s notice. But by that point, we had reached the front of the line, and then we were inside and it became very clear that Stella and I were going to have to sit together if we wanted to eat.

  We got a corner table for two, and it was hard to sit at it without our knees touching. I had to torque my spine to the left so my kneecaps were resting against the wall instead of
coming into contact with her. It didn’t appear that she noticed though; she was looking around, taking in the small, crowded space, the diverse cast of people. Then, she turned her attention to the menu.

  “May I suggest the pancakes? They’re huge.”

  I watched as her eyes scanned the list of offerings. “Sure,” she said after a moment. When the waitress came over, Stella ordered three of the pancakes, two buttermilk, one blueberry. The waitress eyed her.

  “Honey, these things are huge,” she said. “I don’t think Cole here has ever ordered three pancakes.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.” This was a lie, but I wasn’t going to elaborate. The only time I had ordered—and successfully eaten—three pancakes here, I had been really high, and then proceeded to be in a food coma for about twelve hours afterward. “Three is a lot.”

  “I’ll take the three pancakes,” Stella said mildly. “And a side of bacon.”

  But now it suddenly felt strange to let her get the bigger order of pancakes, so I, too, ordered three. I realized as I was doing this that it was probably pretty dumb; hadn’t I just pretended I was the one who was gassed on that ride just so she wouldn’t feel bad? Pride had not gotten in the way there, but for some reason I simply couldn’t let her order more pancakes than me.

  Our waitress gave the tiniest of eye rolls before turning away. Stella raised an eyebrow.

  “Suddenly you’re ordering three also?”

  “Well…” I rubbed my forefinger over an old water spot on the table. “I can’t let you have all the fun, now, can I?”

  “You just don’t want to admit that I can eat more than you.”

  “That’s not true at all.” (Except it was.)

  “You’re such a typical guy.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Are you secretly a man-hater?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t blame myself if I was. I mean, I know what this is about.”

  It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh, you do?”

  “Yeah—duh. You can’t stand the fact that we had to stop on the trail today so you could take a break. And now you feel like you have to compensate for that by trying to show me up by eating more than me. Which isn’t going to happen, by the way.”

  I leaned back in my chair, trying to hold the laughter in. I could see why the guys before had quit—she was a button-pusher, this one. As the youngest of five, I was also used to being a button-pusher, and so not entirely accustomed to being on the receiving end of it. But it also meant I could identify it, and, as they say, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter.

  “It’s not, is it? Do I hear a challenge being issued?”

  “Is it a challenge if it’s not even a contest in the first place?”

  She had this glint in those eyes of hers, and a few wisps of hair had worked their way out from that bun and were falling across her face. Though she was glaring at me with intensity, there was something very pleasing about her face, about the way her features worked with each other, and I felt at that moment I would have been content to just sit there and look at her for a very long time. Before I could say anything, though, our pancakes arrived.

  “I’d say enjoy,” our waitress said, “but I’m not entirely sure that’s going to happen. I’ll leave you two to it.”

  I wasn’t joking when I said the pancakes were the size of dinner plates, and they weren’t the thin, crepe-like kind. These were fluffy yet substantial, and eating three of these was probably not going to be as easy as she thought.

  The good news, though, was at least I was hungry. I’d eaten more snacks on the ride than Stella had, but I’d also burned a lot of calories, so if ever I had a chance of eating three full pancakes whilst not high, then now was it. I picked up the butter knife and spread the soft butter over each of the three pancakes, golden brown with crisp, lacy edges. I poured maple syrup over them, and then I cut a wedge with my fork and held it up.

  “Cheers,” I said.

  We began to eat.

  It was easy at first, and I put away one pancake, no problem. I knew this, though. I’d start to feel pleasantly satiated about two-thirds of the way through the second pancake, and totally full by the time I was done with that one. It was the third pancake that would be the challenge.

  Stella ate daintily, taking small bites. She cut her food with her fork and knife properly, and never once chewed with her mouth open. She probably went to some sort of etiquette school or something. I got an image of her in my mind, trying to walk down a wide staircase with a pile of books balanced on her head. That made me laugh, but I had food in my mouth and I started to choke. My eyes began watering as I felt the half-chewed lump of food lodge itself in my throat. I coughed and felt it move a little. I tried to swallow. I reached for my water and took a sip. All the while, my eyes continued to gush, and Stella stopped eating and looked at me.

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  I was able to get enough air in to cough, so I knew I wasn’t in imminent danger, but the situation wasn’t good. I put my hand over my mouth and coughed once, hard, and felt the half-chewed food come flying out of my mouth. Luckily my hand was there to keep it from shooting across the table and landing on Stella’s plate.

  She recoiled in disgust. “Did you just spit that up?”

  “Er... look the other way for a minute,” I said, discreetly trying to dispose of the food in my napkin.

  “Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “You are not going to be successful at grossing me out so much I lose my appetite. I mean, that came pretty close, but no way.”

  I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand and then took another sip of water.

  “And you’ve forfeited this contest.”

  I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “You just spit that whole bite out. So you’ve lost. Even if you eat the rest.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m dead serious.”

  She continued eating. I did, too, slower this time, smaller bites, and I made sure not to laugh when I had any food in my mouth. She showed no signs of slowing. As expected, by the time I finished the second pancake, I was done, but she had just started her third, and even if the contest was over in her mind, I was still going to keep up.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said, cutting another bite.

  “What are you talking about? I’m having a great time. Isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be.”

  “You’re not a very good liar.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No. I can tell you want to be done with this, that every bite is now agony for you.”

  She wasn’t wrong. The confines of my stomach were certainly stretched well beyond the point of comfort—and she was so much smaller than I was! Why wasn’t she in agony, too?

  “I’m doing just fine, thanks,” I said. “But I appreciate that you care so much.”

  She smirked. “That’s cute that you think that.”

  Somehow, I managed to finish, but not before she did. She took a long drink of water as I put down my own fork.

  “You still lost,” she said. “And now I’m ready to go back home.”

  “We haven’t gotten the bill yet.”

  She pulled her wallet out of her purse and extracted a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. “I think this should do it.” Then she stood up and started to walk out. I had no choice but to follow her, yelling over to the waitress that we’d left cash on the table for her.

  We found the jeep, but instead of climbing in the back like I expected, Stella held out her hand. “Keys,” she said.

  “You’re driving?”

  “I’m driving. If you want to sit in the back, feel free.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  I went around to the passenger side, secretly relieved that I wasn’t going to have to drive. All I wanted to do right now was relax, and maybe take a nap.

  “We’re going to go back to my house and get the bikes,” St
ella said. “We’re gonna ride up Mt. Tamalpais. Nothing like a grueling ride after a good meal.”

  “Uh... what?”

  She burst out laughing. “Ha! Nothing. We’re not actually going to do that; I just wanted to see the look on your face.”

  I leaned back in the seat, relieved that I wasn’t going to have to even attempt to act like I could go on a ride like that right now. And it was nice to see her laugh. Not that I was going to tell her that.

  Chapter 6

  Stella

  The place that Cole had taken me to hadn’t been what I was expecting, but I hoped that he hadn’t been able to tell. And the food really had been amazing—in fact, I’d be happy to go back there many more times so I could try everything they had to offer. Even if—or maybe especially if—Cole would try to take me on in an eating contest. Guys were fools like that; they seemed to think that just because they were bigger or stronger, they were inherently better at everything. Not true! Though I didn’t want to admit it, today had not been that bad. Parts of it had been rough, too—trying to finish the Annadel ride—but I’d actually had fun. Cole was not uptight or egotistical, as I’d been anticipating, and he was a good rider, not that that meant anything. It certainly didn’t mean that I wanted to have him around—but it did help that he wasn’t completely annoying. I was still thinking about it that night at dinner, which consisted of linguini and clams. It was just my mother and me; Dad had left that afternoon for London for a week.

  “How did it go today?” my mother asked. “You were out for a while.”

  “Are you keeping tabs on me?”

  “No, but I did happen to see you wheeling your bike out of here, and then I didn’t hear anything from you till much later.”

  I shrugged, twirling pasta around my fork. “The day was fine.” I took a bite, slurping a loose strand through pursed lips. My mother frowned. “I went to this new restaurant that I really enjoyed.”

  “Oh? That new bistro in North Beach I had told you about a while ago?”

  “No. It was down in the Tenderloin.”