by Lucy Lambert
“That’s usually what happens when someone finishes work. They go home. So yeah, I’m back. And you’re still here.”
The intensity in those eyes turned away from me when he looked up at the ceiling and scratched the back of his head.
“Yes, well, I figured it was rude to just leave. And you still have my shirt. Where do you work, anyway?”
“You’d better hope we can get that laundry back, or this shirt will be mine,” I said, “And I work at a diner down at the other end of town.”
The other end of town was about two minutes by car away. Seeing him made me think about just how damn small Pleasant was.
“So… are you heading out?” I said. I leaned my shoulder against the wall, trying to look casual.
Dash looked at me again. “No,” he said finally, “There’s something about this place I need to figure out before I move on.”
“Maybe if you tell me more about yourself I can help you to figure that part out,” I said, hearing the hope in my voice.
“The less you know, the better. And just because I’m staying doesn’t mean I intend on staying here,” he said, indicating my house with a quick glance around the living room.
Then he reached up and touched his puffy cheek, frowning a little at the pain.
“You put the cold pack down when I left, didn’t you?” I said, “Well, come on then.” Before I even thought about it, I grabbed him by the bicep and pulled him back into the kitchen. Then I plunked him down in a chair and pulled a bag of peas out of the freezer. The cold pack he used before was no longer cold.
“It’s okay,” he started, lifting his hand to ward me off.
I pushed it aside before wrapping the peas in the tea towel again. I touched it to his face gingerly. Even so he sucked a quick breath through his teeth.
I could feel his eyes searching my face and tried not to think about it. I let my own eyes examine the bruise. “Yes, if you keep something cold against it it’ll go down quick enough.”
“Sounds like you’ve dealt with plenty of black eyes before,” he said. We were so close and his voice so low that the sound of it reverberated in my chest.
“You know the story. Only daughter when dad wanted an only son. He taught me not to take any bull from people. Sometimes that comes at the cost of a black eye every now and again,” I said.
“And sometimes at the cost of getting held by two men while a third gets ready to…beat the hell out of you,” he replied, skirting the implications of Bobby’s true intentions.
I bristled at that. I never did like taking help from people. That got me in trouble sometimes, too. “It wouldn’t’ve been so bad. I could’ve handled it just fine.”
“Of course you could have… ow!” he exclaimed.
In my irritation, I’d pressed the bag against his tender skin with a bit too much force.
“Sorry!” I said, pulling the bag away. And again, before thinking about it, I leaned in close and blew gently on the bruise, pursing my lips the way my dad used to. “Is that better? …oh.”
We were close enough to kiss. I knew.
He knew it.
His eyes, sharp and green like some ancient and impenetrable forest, locked mine. I still had my lips pursed.
Slowly, I forced them to relax.
Something passed between us. Electricity, maybe. Some energy that suffused the nerves and fibers of my body with a tingling awareness.
A tingling awareness of him.
It’s just hormones. Hormones and adrenaline. He rescued me… Yes, I can admit that he did that. To myself at least. And he’s handsome and quiet and I KNOW I know him somehow.
He stared back at me. His bruise glowered an angry purple beneath his green eyes. His hair framed his face.
His hands twitched on his lap. One lifted, and my mind went immediately to it reaching up and touching my cheek. Gently at first. Then with more desire as it wrapped around to my neck to pull me in.
But it didn’t. His hands stayed there, resting on those armored pants that made up part of his biker outfit.
I caught myself wondering if maybe there were some tattoos beneath that armor.
“Thank you, that does feel nice,” he said finally. He took the cold bag in its tea towel wrapper and touched it to his bruise again, forcing some space between us.
He glanced away, as though nothing had happened. But something had happened, and I knew that he knew it, too.
“Good. So…” I got to the part that made me most nervous. The part that made a hundred little butterflies beat themselves senseless against the walls of my stomach. “Are you going to stick around for a while, or are you hitting the road again?”
I crossed my arms and leaned back against the kitchen counter in front of the sink.
He considered me again. Heat started low in my stomach and slowly spread its way up and down through my body.
At least I have this shirt of his buttoned up all the way, I thought. I hoped that heat would stop below the level of my throat.
He was so different from the men I knew. So different from brutes like Bobby and his two numbskull friends.
I knew that was ridiculous. How could I know something like that? I’d known Dash, if that was his real name, all of two hours. I couldn’t explain it, though.
Maybe that’s what I’m so attracted to him, I thought before I could stop myself. And for that thought, I wanted to scold myself.
How original, Ellie. You’re attracted to a handsome, rough-looking motorcycle-riding man shrouded in mystery. Not to mention he beat three men up in one go. Real original.
And of course I couldn’t forget about that boulder-sized chip on his shoulder.
“That depends,” he said.
“On?” I said, my heart giving a quick flutter before I could help it. I’d been a little more than half expecting him to pull his helmet on and roar on out of town and out of my life before I got my chance to figure him out.
“Do I get my shirt back?” he asked, nodding at me.
I bristled. “That depends,” I replied.
“On?” He said, turning the bag of peas around to find a fresh cold spot to touch to his bruise. I detected the slightest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“When are we getting the rest of my clothes back?”
He shrugged. “No time like the present.” Then he stood. He unrolled the peas from the towel and put the bag back in the freezer. When he couldn’t figure out where the tea towel went, he folded it and placed it on the table.
It was an oddly gentle, delicate move that I hadn’t expected. Something so little it shouldn’t have been noticed. But I noticed.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He didn’t wait for me. He started for the door.
Chapter 7
DASH
I’d been on my own for so long now that my first instinct was to go for my bike. Its chrome gleamed in the sun and it sat in the driveway waiting for me like some faithful animal.
“Wait!” Ellie shouted behind me, shoving the screen door open and bursting into the world.
It was a quiet, residential street. Too quiet, I realized. I looked around. The houses were empty, the former owners not out at work but gone completely. Many of them were big old things, a mix of red-brick and aluminum siding.
In the sun and the warm breeze they looked stately, if somewhat rundown and the worse for wear.
The sun beat down on my black body armor, which was a strong mix of leather and Kevlar. The heat worked its way into my back and shoulders slowly, like the fingers of a masseuse.
I guess that the town of Pleasant wasn’t so pleasant to live in, anymore. I’d had to take some old county road just to get here. The highway bypassed it by miles, and the town suffered for it.
“What?” I said. I stopped and looked back at her. She stood at the top of the porch steps, her hands balled into fists which in turn pressed against her hips. She looked a little flushed.
She also looked
beautiful, with her hair swaying in the breeze like it did. She had a lovely face and a strength behind her eyes that staggered me when I caught glimpses of it.
She was also still wearing my shirt
“You just want to hop onto that bike of yours, roar on down to the laundromat, grab my clothes and ride along back here?” she asked.
“…yes?” I replied.
“Skipping over how you plan to carry laundry on that thing, what if Bobby’s gone and told his dad some biker roughed up him and his boys? And by his dad, I mean the sheriff.”
My competitive nature, which served me so well back in New York, wanted me to blurt out that the two of us could tell dear old dad what really happened. The realist in me quashed that idea.
It was the word of a vagabond and an ex-girlfriend against the word of the sheriff’s own son and said son’s friends.
I didn’t want to spend the next few nights in the holding tank. Especially since if anyone ran my prints or took a good look at me that might see who I really was.
So I swallowed my pride and said, “well, I’m open to suggestions.”
Ellie chewed on her lower lip, glancing between me and my bike. There was something endearing in that expression.
And also something that seemed to tug at some strings of memory long left slack.
“We should hide your bike. Sheriff or a deputy might drive by and see it,” she said.
“Really? Don’t other people in town own motorcycles?”
She started down the steps, the wind tugging at her hair some more. I caught myself wondering how her hair smelled. Or how it might feel with its long strands sliding between my fingers.
“Of course. But none of them live here. That sort of thing might go unnoticed in the big city, but here it won’t. We can wheel it into the back onto the patio,” she said, nodding down at the concrete path that led around the side of house to the back yard.
It made sense, but I hesitated. It cemented my staying in town longer. I hadn’t stayed in any one town longer than a few hours in months. A hot blade of uneasiness ran up inside my stomach.
“So is it going to be like the fight? Going to make me do all the work myself?” Ellie said. She snapped me out of my daze and I frowned at her. She smiled at that, “Thought that might get your attention.”
She hopped on the bike and stood it up, then used her heel to push the stand up. All before I could do much more than lift my hands in protest. I hadn’t expected that. She seemed almost comfortable on the machine.
Still, it made me uncomfortable. No one had touched that bike but me. Not for servicing, not for gassing up.
Besides, she might dump it, I thought. Though watching her, I found that unlikely. Still, it gave me an excuse.
“I’ll do that,” I said. I strode over and grabbed the handlebar, putting my other hand on her shoulder. She tensed at my touch and then relaxed. “Because I’m remembering that fight differently from you.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. She shrugged away from my hand and then stepped off the bike.
I wheeled the machine along behind her while she led the way. There was an old concrete patio at the back of the house, a single white plastic lawn chair sat on it now.
There were a few lighter patches on that concrete where more furniture used to sit. I thought maybe a table, more chairs. Probably one of those things with the big umbrella.
It was a place that used to be happy and joyful but was now silent. Much like the town itself.
She shoved the chair to the side and I moved the bike into position, levering the kickstand back down and letting the bike’s weight settle on it.
“What’s the next step of your master plan?” I asked.
The tone of my voice surprised us both. Sarcasm. When was the last time I was sarcastic? I wondered. Ellie looked the same question at me.
She recovered quickly, though. “Next, I’m getting you out of those clothes.”
Now it was her turn to hear what she’d said and how she’d said it. I watched a line of flushed heat rise up her throat.
“I… I mean that you need to change. If Bobby or the other two see you, even at a distance, they’ll recognize you right away.”
Again there was that stirring inside me while we watched each other. Ellie tried hard to maintain eye contact, but kept glancing down.
I kept thinking about how lovely she looked with some color in her cheeks. Real color. Not the fake stuff the women back in New York applied every morning.
It went on too long. I couldn’t deal with this sort of thing, not now. Maybe not ever again, I thought. At least, not until I’d found what it was I was looking for.
Whatever that happened to be. Whatever it was, maybe it was here, in Pleasant. Something was keeping me here. Some invisible magnet which drew me back whenever I considered leaving.
“You’re right,” I said. My voice was a knife cut through the silence and tension. Ellie’s shoulders sagged when she relaxed.
“Of course I’m right,” she said. Then she reached up to the collar of her — my — shirt. “Will you, uh, be needing this…?”
I considered it, remembering going into her room. Maybe this time I could see a little more. But I couldn’t. It reminded too much of the man I’d left behind in New York. The man I’d been running from.
“Not yet. You can keep it for now. I have a few more things here…” I said. I knelt beside the bike, opened up the saddlebags and began digging through them.
I could feel Ellie behind me, desperately curious to lean over my shoulder and look at what I kept hidden.
I’d done my best to pack light. After all, how much could you really fit into a couple old saddlebags hanging off the back of a bike?
I’d also tried to leave as much of the old me behind as I could. No suits waited for my questing fingers in there. No ties and no glossy black loafers, either.
My fingers did find the pair of nicely broken-in blue jeans—some old Levis I couldn’t even remember buying—and a shirt almost the same as the one Ellie wore except it was a light, baby blue color.
I also had the presence of mind to grab some spare socks and boxers. “This change of clothes include a shower?” I asked over my shoulder.
I thought the open, windy air of the road kept me smelling okay, but if I’d learned one thing on the road it was this: don’t refuse a free shower.
Not much of a moral lesson, but it was about all I had to my name except the bike.
“Shower? Yeah, I guess. If you can make it a quick one,” she said while I stood up.
“Sure,” I said.
Twenty minutes later I sat in the passenger seat of Ellie’s Ranger while she guided the old truck down one of Pleasant’s many cracked and semi-deserted streets.
“How does it feel?” she asked, pulling up to a four-way stop, glancing each way, and pulling through with a grunt from the engine.
“How does what feel?” I replied.
“Not driving for once. From the way you looked, you’d been out there on the road a while. Nothing but you and the bike. I know it can get to a person.”
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I watched the cracks in the sidewalk move by, sometimes in a blur when we picked up speed, sometimes so slowly I could pick out the individual blocks of concrete that made them up.
The sight was only occasionally punctuated by the sight of a car or, more often, a pickup parked at the curb or in a driveway.
“Strange,” I said finally.
“You’re not one for talking, are you?” Ellie said. It wasn’t really a question.
She didn’t say it to sting, but rather in that joking, sarcastic tone she seemed to take with everything and everyone.
It did feel a bit odd, sitting there without the bike’s saddle between my thighs. I found my body missed the steady thrum of the engine, and my ears noted the lack of the of the exhaust’s drone, so long my only companion.
I used to say so much more, I thought. Back when peopl
e hung from my every word. Once, Harvard Business School had paid me a disgusting sum to speak for ten minutes at a graduation ceremony. And they weren’t the only ones.
I can’t even remember what I said there. It had probably been something about hard work, perseverance, putting your career before everything. All that sounded like Greek to me inside Ellie’s Ranger.
Still, some desire tugged at me. Some little, insidious voice in the back of my mind whispered to me, You can have it all back. You want it all back.
I didn’t, though. Maybe not ever. I hardly thought now about how my company was doing without me. And so far I managed to resist the urge to check the stock on free library computers and the like.
I didn’t even have a cell phone. There was something so freeing about that.
Still, all this made me feel that gnawing absence inside me that much sharper.
“What makes you think we can get your clothes back?” I asked. I wanted to change the subject. I didn’t want to bring her down with me. “Won’t the good ole’ boys still be there, waiting for us?”
“They probably got bored by now,” she said. Perhaps sensing my mood, she gave me a sidelong smile and added, “Besides, if they’re still there you can just beat them up for me.”
“Right,” I said. I thought about how my Kevlar body armor sat on the bureau in Ellie’s spare room. Armor that could stop a punch. Maybe even turn a knife blade.
Suddenly my cotton button-down didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.
I glanced out the window again. I didn’t recognize this row of houses. More two-story affairs. “Are we going a different way?”
We passed an intersection and I saw that we drove on Poplar St. We’d just passed Grove St.
Some naturalistic person had apparently named many of the streets in town after trees and other forest things. Something I hadn’t really remembered about the town from my teenage stint here.
“Yeah, this way will take us around to the other side of the block so we can get in through the alley… so, think maybe I’ve earned that last name of yours yet?”
I didn’t have to look to know that she kept glancing at me. The steering wheel creaked a little when her fingers squeezed around it.