by J. C. Allen
Damn, Eve, you’re a mess.
“Have you already forgotten that this Derek-guy isn’t exactly living the straight-and-level life, either?” Crystal shot back. “If I had to guess, I’d be willing to bet good money that he’d be able to take care of himself.”
“From the likes of Rock?” I said.
I figured I might as well put it out there. I was quite literally caught between a rock and a hard place—the hard place being my feelings for Derek—and I worried now that the rock would just obliterate the hard place, crumbling it into nothingness. Derek may have hated Rock, but I doubt that he truly knew the depths to which Rock would sink as a human being to get his way.
But Crystal sure as hell didn’t seem fazed by that, because she only shrugged.
“This isn’t some fantasy where I accidentally meet the perfect man, Crystal. Something will go wrong. Maybe not between us, but certainly when Rock finds out if nothing else.” I said. “It always does.”
“It might not be,” she shrugged. “And maybe you’re right; maybe all this won’t work out. And, if that’s the case, at least you’ll have this moment—a moment that interrupted all the bullshit and rancidness of our lives—and we can reminisce on it together after the shit’s hit the fan.”
That seemed a very nice way of overlooking the fact that I might not be alive to reminisce over all of this if shit hit the fan.
But Crystal was accomplishing something—she was making me feel better.
“It’ll be a nice memory to look back on, won’t it? But, then again, maybe you’re wrong. Probably, you’re wrong, but I’ll just say maybe for now. Maybe it will work out, and, honestly, I’ve heard of crazier things happening. Either way, you’ll never know if you don’t take the leap, right?”
“You really think so?” I asked as I bit my lip. My heart was racing.
And to me, that said it all—for as much as the feelings of self-loathing and self-sabotage could infiltrate my mind and make me nearly cancel the date with no damn good reason, I still wanted it to work.
The second Crystal said it was possible, my heart leaped at the opportunity.
I could try and bullshit others, but I could never bullshit myself.
And as it turned out, I really couldn’t bullshit Crystal either, because she saw right through it all.
Maybe this all felt a little manic-depressive of me, but I just couldn’t help but now feel that it really would all work out. Perhaps Derek and I would flee to some faraway island, where the name “Rock” meant the objects on the ground or our favorite bartender, not my future killer. Maybe we could flee to Europe and we could pretend to be French or German. Maybe…
Hell, just maybe, Derek would not leave my side.
The sands of time were finicky, but as long as I could see him coming, so long as I knew in advance if things were going to change, I could handle them.
And right now, the only thing “changing” was that I needed to get my shit back together in time for the date.
“Go on, now,” Crystal smirked. “And don’t forget to have fun, girl.”
“I’ll…” I nodded and took a deep breath. “I’ll try. I really, really will.”
“Just make sure your ass gets back here by 4:30 p.m.,” she said, tapping her wrist even though it didn’t have a watch. “That gives you over five hours to have a nice date. If y’all were meetin’ in the evening, that’d be enough time for dinner, some drinks, and for you to be each other’s desserts.”
“Oh, God, Crystal,” I said, laughing way too hard at the joke.
“Just sayin’! You have plenty of time to have a good time and get a good time.Just hurry back here and don’t you dare have him drop you off at the corner. Worst thing in the world would be for Rock’s minion to see this boy and then he’ll make sure you never see his pretty ass again.”
Even though such a note was a bit morbid and dark, I appreciated it all the same. Crystal was right, I did have to be back by that time—probably earlier, actually, given my current outfit did not scream “I take it up the butt.”
But what it did do was set barriers within which I could be as free as a pigeon above the city. So long as I got back by… say, 4 p.m., I could do whatever I wanted within those five hours. Whatever. I. Wanted.
Just thinking those three words as closely together as I did felt like nothing short of a miracle.
And, speaking of miracles, I looked at my phone in conjunction with the sound of a distant motorbike. It was 10:54 a.m. Derek was not only going to be on time, he was even going to be a little early. A true gentleman, through and through.
“You’re flying solo now, sweetheart!” Crystal said just before I opened the door. “It’s all on you.”
I sucked in a deep, calming breath and thought Derek—thought of his eyes, his words, of him—and started for the stairs that would take me to the building’s entrance where he was waiting for me.
I loved Crystal, but she’d gotten one thing wrong.
“No,” I whispered to nobody. “No, I’m not flying solo.”
Thanks to him.
“Not anymore.”
The afternoon sun hit my eyes, and I had to blink a few times from just how bright it was. I felt a moment of utter shame as I realized that I was advertising to Derek and anyone else who cared to look that I wasn’t accustomed to sunlight. The idea of leaving my apartment before sunset was… well, it just didn’t happen but once in a blue moon.
And if it did happen, it was to do something like buy a dress that Rock had mandated I spend two thousand dollars on. It sure as hell wasn’t to give myself personal enjoyment or satisfaction.
And then, just around the corner, speeding his way faster than could possibly be safe—but a speed that told me he truly wanted to be here—appeared Derek. He parked right by the side of the apartment, kicked the stand down, and hopped off, leaving the bike running for a quick exit.
Suddenly, I couldn’t begin to understand what I’d been so nervous about. There was no judgment in his gaze, no doubt or disdain; if anything, he looked a great deal more relaxed than he had the last time I’d seen him. Funny, given how I probably look a hell of a lot more stressed than last time despite having to help him kill a man last time.
I realized that he was, in fact, already standing by me. I blinked at this, in part against the still tolling brightness, but mostly at how sudden and right him being there felt. He had moved like a ghost, as silently and quickly as a supernatural being might.
Or, more likely, I was just so smitten with him and so unaccustomed to the bright lights of the sun that I had failed to realize he had just shown up as a man normally would. He was human.
But a damn sexy and handsome human at that.
My eyes fell on his face in time to see his lips pull up in a smile in response to me. In a graceful, shrugging motion, he whipped out a pair of aviator sunglasses and held one out before me. In an embarrassing and ironic reflex, I blinked at them, too.
Well, if you’re going to self-sabotage, I suppose it makes sense to be a fool on the little things first.
Derek chuckled, flipped open the glasses, and eased them onto me. His thumbs grazed my temples as he finished, the rims nestling in behind my ears, and I my entire body shivered. It was kind of amazing, really—I’d had true sex with this man, and he’d made me come in ways I thought my body never would, and yet the mere act of him pressing his warm, bike-scented thumbs onto my temples made me practically quiver on the spot.
“Sorry about that,” Derek said.
It was nice to know that I knew that he meant it—wasn’t just saying the words out of some socially mandated reflex. He truly was a gentleman who had not meant to press the glasses so hard on my forehead.
“N-no,” I stammered, still riding on the delicious chill his touch had delivered to my otherwise overheated senses. “It… it wasn’t a bad shiver.”
Oh goodness, Eve. Just be yourself and stop apologizing for everything! You can still be Eve Kellerma
n the woman, not just Eve the whore who needs saving.
Be the first one today.
“Ah,” Derek said, his grin returning and actually growing. “Well, then I’m not sorry.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at that. I need to follow that example. Confident and smooth as butter fresh out of the store.
He presented a hooked arm before me, and I saw for the first time that he was donned in a leather jacket the fit him perfectly. And this man, like the knights of old, rode in not on a chariot but upon a fiery, chrome stallion.
I guess he has the last name Knight for a reason.
It was then that I realized that the form-fitted leather jacket wasn’t a thing like an expensive business suit, but like prized armor. The modest, fitted black tee peeking out from behind the open leather, the perfectly faded jeans, and the worn-down-but-heavily-loved boots—all of it didn’t just look good on him, it looked right on him.
Just like a knight’s armor, I thought again, remembering the conversation I’d just had with Crystal.
I wondered to some extent if this was his gang’s uniform—certainly the leather jacket was, although the jeans was probably a bit of a stretch—far more likely he had thrown those on for comfort. Perhaps it was somewhat surprising, but I found it incredibly attractive that he might be daring to wear his gang’s uniform to grab me, considering whose territory this was.
Then I looked back up at him—realizing that I’d been ogling his body, and without a lot of shame or subtlety at that—and saw that he was still holding his arm out to me.
Over the past few months, I’d seen plenty of men raise their arms to me. In those circumstances, I knew I was either about to be slapped or that my head was about to be forcefully guided someplace that man thought it would serve a better purpose. Instinctively, for half a second, I began to flinch at the prospect that Derek would do the same.
Now, however, the arm that was held out to me was neither violent nor demanding. It was inviting. I blinked again, still stunned by just how surreal this all seemed, and forced myself to look up; forced myself to meet his eyes. I could not get rid of my instincts with just a single moment like this, but I could begin to adjust accordingly.
And I had a lot of adjustments to do, because Derek… Derek Knight…
At that moment, with Derek seeming so perfect, I needed to know what could be read from his eyes…
His eyes, despite his life, despite the certain troubles that followed as the leader of a gang, despite whatever mysterious past he had that he had not yet revealed to me, seemed to dance with the kind of excitement I had trouble letting myself having at this moment. That was not to say they were out of control, quite the contrary, but that they had a controlled excitement to them.
This is going to be fun, I thought. A man like you, Derek Knight, doesn’t come around very often. Forgive me if I fuck up. I won’t lose you.
“Hmm?” Derek hummed questioningly, and I realized that I’d spoken my thoughts aloud. Case in point, Eve. Case in point.
“O-oh! Oh my… I didn’t mean—” I groaned, mortified. “I was just thinking, and… it was just something that my…”
I sighed, inhaled, and forced myself to calm down. There was no point in lying, given that everything I had just shown was laughably out of whack.
“I’m just nervous, that’s all.”
“You too?” he asked.
I stared at him, confused.
“‘You… too’?” I repeated, the words seeming alien to me.
How the fuck…
The idea that Derek—this absolutely certain and perfect man standing before me—should be nervous about anything, let alone the date I’d been wracking my brain over, seemed beyond absurd. Here was a man who had killed an enemy on our last date, had escaped Rock’s clutches, and had taken a bruised or broken rib in the process, all with the nonchalantness of a CIA agent…
And “you, too?” He was nervous?
“Sure,” he said, actually giving a nervous-looking shrug with a single shoulder. On him, though, it looked so boyishly cute that it just worked that much against the claim. He can do no wrong, let’s be honest.
Seeing him acting so uncertain with no earthly reason to be gave me a boost of confidence, and it occurred to me that, if he could feel nervous and look like that, then maybe all my nerves were just in my head, too. Who knew?
Maybe all his perfectly executed movements and gestures had seemed just as awkward and clunky to him as all of my own actions had seemed to me. Maybe—just maybe—all of this was even more perfect because of that. Maybe we both had spent far too much time in the past few months in our head, and we weren’t used to someone who could pull us back into reality for reasons like this.
“You know,” I chimed, deciding to roll with my newfound confidence as I eyed him up and considered what he had not worn. “It is illegal to ride without a helmet. Especially since I’ve seen how you ride. You came in her like a kamikaze!”
If Derek might have drawn any offense, I made sure to prevent it from rising by taking his arm and joining him in strolling towards his still-running motorcycle. I had now swung in the opposite direction on the confidence pendulum—now, I felt I could do no wrong. I could call him a man whore and he’d find it humorous. I could playfully threaten to steal his bike and he’d use it as an excuse to touch me.
Suffice to say, I hadn’t done this whole dating thing very much. If I had, I knew I’d have much better self-control than I did now.
He offered a smirk in return.
“Are we really going to discuss legalities? I know you’re a smart one, but I didn’t know you could be my lawyer too.”
I blushed, ignored it, and chuckled before giving a subtle shrug.
“I mean, I’m more of a finance gal myself, but I suppose it’s fair. I guess I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Good thing you’re not more of a lawyer type,” Derek teased, squeezing my arm and drawing our first mutual laugh of the… afternoon.
I almost said night, but in some ways, this would be better. We wouldn’t have to compete with the rest of the date-goers and visitors to do whatever Derek wanted us to do.
Which, speaking of…
“So, where are we going?”
He grinned at the question and moved to retrieve the only helmet. Helmet? How did I miss that? I raised an eyebrow at the sight of it as he held it out to me.
“So you do own one of these!” I exclaimed, accepting it, amazing myself with how easy it was for me to slip into a comfortable banter with this man. And he never wears it? Is he out of his goddamn mind?
He shrugged. He looked as if someone had suggested people who drove regular cars needed to wear helmets too.
“It usually serves as a space holder for my parking spot back at home,” he explained. “But I figured it’d serve a greater purpose if I brought it with me today.”
I blushed at that, feeling strangely flattered. I did suppose of the two of us, even if I wasn’t driving, I was more apt to do something stupid and crunch my head on the black pavement beneath us.
“I take it you don’t give many rides then?”
Damnit, Eve…
“Less than you’d think,” he admitted.
I grinned at that and chuckled, finally accepting the helmet. Well, if we’re on the topic…
“So how many girls have ridden with you,” I said with a smirk.
“More than I’d like,” he said. “But you’d be the first one to wear that helmet.”
I looked down at the helmet for a moment, confused.
“I don’t understand,” I said. Does he just not offer passengers the helmet? Does he wear it when he has them? I….
“I never wanted a passenger before today,” he explained. “All the others were… well, let’s just say they were more for appearances than for anything else. You’re the first girl I’ve known would be riding—the first one I had plans to ride with—and, because of that, you’re the first girl I’ve broug
ht the helmet for.”
I caught myself staring down at the helmet again, momentarily stunned by the symbol of the gesture. There were elements to Derek’s story I knew I didn’t need further details on, but there was a lot to be said about what he had just stated that left me unbelievably touched. The first one ever to have plans to ride with? The first one he brought the helmet for?
I…
“Everything alright?”
Damn, Eve, how much of this date are you going to be spending in your head?
* * *
“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “It’s just the first time a guy’s bothered to remind me about protection. It’s…”
I gave a half-smirk, realizing halfway through my joke that it probably wasn’t the most tasteful joke I’d ever produced.
“It’s usually the other way around.”
Too late now.
I caught sight of a blush forming along the stubble of his jaw, and he seemed to be wrestling for something to say in response. No response came. I knew he found the joke somewhat funny, but he probably thought it would look in bad taste to laugh.
I giggled at the display. I hadn’t anticipated finding him squirm so amusing, but now that I had seen it… maybe this wouldn’t be the last time such a joke came out today.
“You said that just to get a rise out of me, didn’t you?” he asked.
I shrugged, but my giggling hadn’t stopped.
“Maybe.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Kinda,” I said. “I’d apologize, but your response was… cute. Forgive me.”
He groaned at my choice of words and let his shoulders fall in defeat.
“‘Cute.’ Just what every guy aspires to be,” he playfully whined.
“Well, if they don’t, then maybe they should,” I countered, slipping the helmet on, buckling and adjusting the strap, and then moving to climb onto the bike behind him.
I had the sensation like I was about to leave Earth and fly to outer space, the way putting that helmet on felt. I felt so official, so… like a football player putting his shoulder pads on, it meant there was only one way forward, and that was on the bike.