Chapter Nine
E mma
“Do you always ride your bike to work?”
Emma nodded in reply, steering clear of Mitch, whose gangly legs looked even ganglier atop the too-small bike he was riding. “I do,” she murmured, wincing in advance as he nearly toppled over onto the sidewalk beneath them. Again. “It’s close enough to the house for me to be there in ten to fifteen minutes and it’s a nice cool down after standing in one of those hot boxes all day.”
“I could see that,” he murmured, nearly swerving into a mailbox.
Emma winced anew and asked, “Have you ... ever ridden one before? A bicycle, I mean?”
“I ride mine all the time back at school,” Mitch insisted, voice wavering to match the awkwardness of his slowly pumping kneecaps. “But this was the only one in Reggie’s garage when he let me borrow it earlier.”
Emma glanced at it more fully, realization dawning on her with every wriggle of the handlebars or flash of the rear reflectors. “I think that’s the same one his mother gave him for his twelfth birthday,” she chuckled. “I remember because she got it weeks before and asked me to hide it in my garage until the big day.”
“It’s definitely built for a twelve-year-old,” Mitch grunted, wobbling along beside her as Emma cruised along in rarified comfort atop her own super deluxe, luxurious-by-comparison beach cruiser, the one with the padded seat, rounded handlebars, generous basket and oversized tires.
“Stick around long enough,” she teased, anticipation churning in her gut as she admired his big fingers laced around the faded handlebars of her neighbor’s tiny BMX bike, “and you’ll need to grab one of these bad boys. Ride along in comfort like the rest of us grown folk.”
“And miss the chance to bang my knees on the handlebars ten times a minute?” he teased, wriggling his narrow behind to get more comfortable on the shredded banana seat beneath him. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“Summer’s coming up,” she murmured almost dreamily, the half-workday and unexpected trip to the beach, to say nothing of the stringy arm candy beside her, lulling her into a special place indeed. “You could always make a return trip back to Flamingo Shores. See the sights. Hang out with old, uh ... friends?”
He risked a sideways glance at her before turning his soft green eyes back to the road. His hair had dried en route, even more feathery and sun-kissed and alluring than ever. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
“What year are you, anyway?” Emma asked, trying to sound casual as she dug a little deeper into her Mystery Companion’s life. Reggie rarely came home from school, but when he did, he looked so much younger than Mitch, and it wasn’t just the few inches of height difference or the fact that he’d literally grown up next door to her, either.
“What year do you think I am?” Mitch teased.
“Come on, Mitch, don’t make me guess.”
Mitch frowned, an expression almost as adorable as his sun-kissed smile. “Okay, spoil sport, I’m a junior.”
“That explains the faux maturity,” Emma teased, earning a quiet blush from her riding companion. “But isn’t Reggie still a freshman?”
“They all are,” Mitch pointed out, leaning back slightly on his bike seat so that his feet didn’t nearly scrape clean his toenails every time the pedals swung around. “So now maybe you can see why I stick out like a sore thumb.”
“I don’t think that,” Emma snapped, a little too eagerly. “I don’t think that at all. I just think you really, really wanted to see a beach for the first time, that’s all.”
“I did,” Mitch insisted. “I really, really did.”
They rode like that for a little while, lost in their own thoughts, the pretty spring day warm and savory against their skin as Emma took him the long way home, just for a little more time together. The saltwater had dried on her skin by then, crinkly and tight and refreshing, like a day at the spa. She’d forgotten how nice that felt—damp hair, sunburned shoulders, sand between her toes and the Atlantic Ocean drying on her skin. To say nothing of having a sexy companion, wobbling on the BMX bike beside her.
“No car of your own back on campus?” Emma pressed, struggling to picture Mitch showing up on travel day in front of Reggie’s mom’s van, hat in hand, practically begging for a ride home with a bunch of party-hardy airhead freshman himbos and bimbos.
“Mom’s car shit the bed just before I headed back to school in the fall so I gave her mine,” Mitch insisted, sounding very Mitch-y in the process. “I don’t really need it on campus, otherwise, yeah, I would have driven to some beach myself long ago.”
Emma nodded, silently thanking Mitch’s mom’s car for breaking down. She glanced over, finding Mitch looking her way. “What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he insisted. “I guess ... it’s just, if I’d had my own car, and driven myself to some beach, it would have never in a million years been one three hours away from campus. And so I would have never ever met you and, well...”
Emma frowned. “You barely know me, Mitch.”
Mitch shook his head, somehow managing to look confident even sitting on a bike designed for someone half his size. “I know enough, Emma,” he sighed. “I’m no expert in these things, but I know quality people when I see them and, well, you just seem top-notch to me, that’s all.”
Emma smirked, blushing and nodding at the same time. “You’re right, kid,” she teased. “You’re no expert because, honestly? That’s the most botched come-on line I think I’ve ever heard.”
“Really?” Mitch seemed genuinely surprised, which somehow tracked.
“And yet,” she persisted. “It’s the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me.”
“Well, that’s just sad.”
Emma couldn’t argue with that logic. “Sure is.”
Mitch brightened then, squaring his shoulders and jutting out his jaw. “I have a lot more gobbledygook like that stored up in my brain,” he insisted. “If you’re interested, I mean?”
Emma nodded toward the approaching cul-de-sac, smiling quietly. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, huh, player?”
His hopeful face crumpled as quickly as a crashing wave. “What? Why?”
They slowed to a stop between neighboring houses, Emma’s on the right and Mitch’s home away from home for the next week on the left. He looked distressed, but no more so than the way she felt, deep down inside. “Listen, a week is a long time, okay? I thought we could pace ourselves and chill for tonight and...”
“That’s not how spring break works!” Mitch insisted, comically.
She couldn’t help but chuckle, flattered by his crestfallen expression and almost panicked replies. “Look, we had a great day together, didn’t we?”
“Sure, and I thought we’d have a great night together, too.”
“Let’s quit while we’re ahead and, tomorrow? See where the day takes us?”
Mitch nodded quietly, realization slowly dawning on him. Emma might have been horny, desperate, touch-starved and ... did she mention horny? But she was also stubborn, strong-willed and resolved. Mitch had to have realized that much, at least, in their short time together.
Their eyes met at the end of her quiet little street, treelined and filled with charming suburban houses as far as the eye could see. Green, grassy lawns, artfully trimmed hedges, not a leaf or a twig out of place. Quiet, safe, predictable, like her life itself for the last five years. Until he’d shown up, that is. Mitch. Her surprise college boy. Long and stringy, sweet and sexy, turning her whole life upside down in 24-hours or less.
“Is that what you really want, Emma?” His voice was quiet, but no longer pleading or surprised. In his tone she heard a genuine question, and gave him an equally sincere reply.
“Not at all,” she blurted. “But I think it’s what I need, you know? A little distance from all ... this.” She waved both hands at him, as if casting a spell, making him blush and smile at the same time.
“I suppose I should feel flattered,” he insisted, clucking a thumb and unfolding from atop his bike the same way he’d risen from the beach towel earlier that day, all arms and legs and that long, taffy-stretched, ooey-gooey middle. “But instead all I feel is ... lonely?”
Suddenly, Emma was the one feeling flattered. She admired Mitch one last time, his sagging baggies, his crisp new tourist t-shirt and that sad, crumbling smile before she kicked off from the street and pedaled slowly down her driveway. Halfway home she glanced back and called out over her shoulder, “That makes two of us, Mitch.”