Easy to Hide

Chapter 1

The next step isn’t major, not if you are a normal person.

He asked me out. I said yes. The next step is to go and have fun.

But I’m not a normal person. I stumble onto my tiny porch, tugging on the thighs of a pair of too-tight jeans I got from Goodwill.

The fabric is trying to become one with my legs.

Chase is a leg man. So of course I covered mine.

The oversized, once-white T-shirt swallows me whole, completing my just-rolled-out-of-bed vibe.

Chase picks up a shiny white helmet and extends his arm toward me, the strap dangling across his fingers.

His hands are strong. Those fingers don’t seem like they’d belong to a musician.

They aren’t slim and delicate. There’s a manly virility there that makes me wonder what it would feel like to have his hands on me.

How those fingers would feel pressed against my skin.

Is his touch light and soft or strong and claiming?

I tug at the neck of my shirt, suddenly feeling way too hot.

“Bike or car? Or I can go back to my place and trade the bike for my truck.” Chase offers after the helmet, but it dangles a beat too long. He lowers the helmet slowly.

I press my chapped lips together before I admit, “I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”

Translation: I’ll do something dumb and kill us both.

I glance at the shiny helmet swaying from his fingertips. The moment stretches out as I glance back at my car and then at the bike.

Just as he turns to put the helmet back into the compartment, I rush forward and snatch the thing from his hands. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to try it.”

Chase offers a teasing smile. “Bike it is.”

I assume he has more words than he’s said, because he seals his lips as if to keep himself from saying more.

Chase grabs his helmet. It’s different than mine, and before I look up, it’s on his head, fastened under his chin, and the face shield is flicked up when he turns toward me.

Meanwhile, I’m still struggling with the chin strap on my vintage-style golf-ball-head type of helmet, wondering how tight the nylon strap should be.

Chase inclines his head toward me. “I’d tighten that quite a bit more.”

“It’s not that loose.” I demonstrate by poking a finger between the strap and my chin.

Chase steps towards me and reaches for the piece of nylon, tugging the strip in one swift motion. I gasp as the strap tightens under my chin. Every inch of my body responds poorly. Nerves flare to life as fight or flight kicks on.

Frantically, I claw at the band trying to loosen it. There’s no thought in my mind aside from GET IT OFF! I’m pulling like it’s a rope around my throat. But it’s not rope. It’s a helmet strap. And I’ve loosened it all the way, and I’m shaking.

Chase backs away as I go feral. He watches me, saying nothing. I wonder how crazy I look. He’s probably too nice to ask for his helmet back and leave.

I laugh, “I’m trying to avoid a wattle under my neck. I’m vain. Very much so.” Should I give it back to him and let him out of this?

Chase’s icy eyes lock on mine. He knows that’s not it. I swear he can tell what happened. What memory the strap triggered.

He nods slowly, as if fully sympathetic and understanding. “You didn’t quite get it. There’s a bit of a roll right there.” The delivery is perfect. He lifts a hand and points at my chin.

My fully firing freak-out protocol is suddenly doused with the unexpected. A joke. My jaw drops. Words tumble out without thought, “A roll!”

Chase steps closer to me, slowly. The dry breeze carries his scent and fills my head.

He smells like sandalwood, and is that sweat?

I want to lean in more to find out, but he lifts his hand.

I freeze in place. My heart is thumping, still a bit freaked from before, although the spark of laughter released most of the emotions that rushed me.

Chase presses his fingertip under my chin, lifts gently, and shuts my mouth. “There, that’s better. That wattle is all gone.”

My eyes widen as I swat his hand away, laughing. “Ass. How could you say that to me?”

“My mistake.” He grins deeply, and a set of dimples appears on his cheeks.

The early morning air makes me bolder than usual. If I make a total ass out of myself, I’ll be gone soon anyway. So I press him. “No, say it. No lies.”

He laughs, goes to run his hand through his hair, but the helmet is in the way, so he folds his arms over his chest. Chase cocks his helmet head to the side. Smirks. “Are you sure you want to begin this way?” His voice is light, but serious.

I nod once. The wind is stinging my eyes, but I don’t look away from him.

My voice is barely a whisper, “You can tell, right?” I raise my brows at him, wondering if it’s so obvious.

My ex liked to call it breath play. Since then, I jump when something tightens around my neck.

It’s a reaction. A fear that became so deeply ingrained, I cannot hide it.

Something silent passes between us. I can’t tell if it’s a sore spot he doesn’t want to press or if he knows he’s walking on ice that’s barely holding me up. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that to him, but it was so obvious, and now I don’t know how to back out of this conversation.

“Sometimes,” his dark lashes lower before he meets my gaze, “lies are all we have.” Chase doesn’t have that cowboy drawl, but he uses it now—intentionally. The word sounds lazy and a little hot. It probably makes other girls melt.

Wow. He just offered me a way out of a serious conversation if I don’t want to have it right now. I’ll take it. “I’m not going to swoon at your crunchy country accent, Chase Desparaux.”

“How’d you know my last name?” The corner of his mouth tugs up on one side as he takes a step toward me.

The way he moves is hypnotic. It’s hard not to stare at him.

That broad chest under the blue button-down, the way the wind tugs at the shirt, revealing a little skin.

The way those corded muscles in his arms slide up into his shoulders.

The smooth rhythm of his body makes me consider tossing the helmet across the yard just to watch his body in motion. So I can drool.

I’m in his face, flushing a bit. “Wouldn’t you like to find out?”

“I would,” he purrs. He’s so close that his breath washes across the bridge of my nose.

That’s totally sandalwood. It’s like he rolled through a grove of sandalwood trees.

And something else. What is that? He smells good.

He’s tall. But not skinny. But not a Mac truck either.

My gaze drops from his eyes to his lips.

The color is perfect. I bet that coral looks red when his dark stubble grows out, and his lips have been thoroughly kissed.

Where did that come from? I force myself to look away.

“Well,” I dart back to our conversation like I wasn’t thinking about his mouth, “what’ll it be? Truth or lies?”

I put my hands on my hips, daring him, like truth telling is a game.

Part of me worries this will have lasting consequences, but with that email showing up in my inbox, I know I need to get the hell out of here anyway.

It’s not like I’ll be around in a week if this plays out horribly.

Besides, I’ll never tell him who I really am, and with all the other truths scattered about, he’ll never think I lied about something so basic, like my name.

But Chase doesn’t play along. Instead, he arches a dark brow and says, “Surprise me.”

A frown steals my smile and tosses it into the cow pasture over the hill. I want to stomp my feet. “Surprise you? What does that mean?”

“It means you say what you want. I say what I want. We sort the lies if there’s need.” He straddles the bike in one swift move before revving the engine to life.

My face is scrunched up when he says to me, “Hop on.”

I adjust my helmet strap so it’s a tighter fit and take a deep breath in. After approaching the bike and lifting my foot once, I lower it to the ground. I’ve seen motorcycles, but I never paid attention. I know there are hot pipes. But I don’t see where to step.

I admit, “I don’t know how to get on.”

“I believe you.” His eyes sweep over my skin-tight jeans, like he couldn’t help himself. His gaze didn’t linger. It was more like he couldn’t avoid glancing at me. Chase turns away and jabs his thumb at the pegs sticking off the back of the bike. “One foot there and swing your leg over.”

For a moment, I hesitate and wonder what the hell I’m doing.

Riding a motorcycle with a hot guy around town is not hiding.

This is the opposite of what I should be doing today.

No, I should be getting cash from Lizzie and getting ready to run, but my God, I miss people.

And this guy, I don’t know. He’s not the type to have a motorcycle.

He’s the type that holds a baton and gets lost in classical music.

This man is an odd combo. I want to know more.

The bike is purring, the exhaust throwing off heat. I’m wondering how to get on with the bike so high off the ground. Chase is already on the motorcycle, sitting in the seat, waiting.

I come up alongside the bike, gingerly testing the peg with a sneakered foot while standing on one leg.

“It’ll hold you.” He looks over his shoulder at me. “Put your hands on my shoulders to mount.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls…” I mutter the words, expecting them to be obscured by the engine noise.

Gripping the handlebars, he looks me in the eye and grins. “True.”

Forgetting myself, I bark out a laugh. “Wow. Classy.”

Chase lifts his chin slightly and offers a lazy smile. “You don’t need class when you’re riding America’s favorite stud.”

He says it right as I put my hands on his shoulders. With one foot balancing on a piece of metal and my leg swinging high over the backrest, I sit down hard on the narrow butt cushion.

I’m on the back of the bike, proud of myself, and not sure where to put my hands. Still grinning, I blurt out, “So were you voted into that title? Or was there a survey afterward?”

He chuckles. Points a finger at me over his shoulder. “ScanTron survey. Bring a number two pencil next time.”

“A pencil is not a good nickname for your—AHHHH!” He gases the bike before I can finish. Instinctively, my hands go for his waist, and I’m torn between holding on and jumping off.