Chapter 26 Rachel
Currently playing: Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf
I’m going to get a motorcycle.
Rachel: That’s a shame. All your beautiful Greek God skin is about to go to waste.
Come with me.
Rachel:Tempting, but I like to keep my body parts intact.
I would never let anything happen to you.
Rachel:For some reason, I actually believe that. You can pick me up, but only because I want to talk you out of this as much as I can.
Unfortunately, Adam wasn’t kidding about his poor decisions. He really was going to get a motorcycle.
I spent the entire ride to the dealership pulling up statistics on my phone and reading them aloud. Only with each pie chart and graph, he would shrug and say something like “I’m not as reckless as those guys.”
My hands waved around. “It doesn’t matter how great a driver—or rider, I guess—you are. It’s other people I don’t trust.”
We fought back and forth before he parked, letting out a deep exhale and looking over at me from the driver’s seat. “I’m buying one. I’d love for you to get on board with it.”
I held my eyes to his for a moment, checking for any signs there that said he would consider driving out of this parking lot without a life-taking fun wheel, but there were none. His gaze held mine, and my heart picked up speed until I broke the contact to look around the lot.
We hadn’t spoken about the kiss from last week. Not really, anyway. After I went back outside, Layla came rushing to me.
“Are you okay?” she’d said. “Crew said you were sick up there. Oh my gosh, you look flushed. Have you not been drinking enough water?” She gripped both sides of my face and pulled me to her.
It was her wedding day, an evening where she should be whisked away by her husband in a night of bliss and love, and yet she’d found me and fussed over me while, two minutes prior, I’d been upstairs kissing her new brother-in-law. The wave of guilt over me had gnawed at my heart like a dog with a bone, and I swore to keep all eyes focused on her for the rest of the evening, never once leaving her to have to get up to refill her drink or stock up on Crew’s fish tacos.
After a while, I noticed people filtering out. Adam was long gone, leaving only me with the couple. And Liam, of course, considering it was his house.
Liam and I had stuck around in silence, picking up the empty cups and scattered trash, collecting folding chairs and tables and essentially putting his back yard back to its normal state. He’d stewed the entire time. Something told me he was hung up on his ex-wife. Meanwhile I stayed quiet, only thinking of Adam.
The next day he’d texted me.
Adam: We’re okay, right?
Of course. You’re my best friend.
Adam: Mine too.
So no more kissing?
Adam: Probably for the best.
Probably.
So we went back to normal after that. Or an augmented version of normal. I’d kissed him before, of course. But that had been over a year and a half ago, and since then, we’d gotten so close that if things didn’t go back to normal, I wasn’t sure what I would do. Adam was the only stable thing in my life at the moment, and ruining that by kissing him was something I wasn’t prepared to take on.
I hadn’t seen him since the wedding, so when he randomly messaged about the bike, I was happy to go to see him.
“So,” I dragged the word out, looking around the lot surrounding us full of motorcycles. “Where should we start?”
The young bike salesmen in their khakis and black polos stood near the dealership’s door, circling like sharks, with their eyes on us. Adam reached into his back pocket, unfolding a piece of paper with information for the exact model he wanted.
“Yamaha R6. Preferably blacked out.” He looked down at the creases in this paper before folding it back up and sticking it in his pocket.
I snorted. “Oh wow. Did you print out a map to get here too? What else is back there, a picture of your glory days and a receipt from your senior coffee?”
“Stop.”
“You gonna go home and fall asleep in your recliner watching Antique Roadshow after this?”
“You’re such a pain.” He rolled his eyes and turned off his car before stepping out.
One of the sharks, a younger one, made his way straight to us, his little legs swiftly taking off like a bird at the beach looking for a stray Dorito.
“Good afternoon. Is there anything I could help you two with?” He smiled at us, and I did my best to not zero in on the tiniest spinach leaf between his teeth.
“Yamaha R6?” Adam dipped his brow as if that was a fully sentenced question and not a bunch of letters strung together with a question mark at the end.
My lips lifted as I watched the blond sales guy sputter. This was a common occurrence. When we’d go out to eat, Adam would order like he was new to Earth’s customs and hadn’t been taught that you needed more than a few basic words to socialize. I used to get onto him, tell him it was rude not to ask how someone was doing when they asked you first. He shrugged and said I don’t care how they’re doing. Which was an odd contrast, considering every time we left a restaurant, he would deep clean the table and seats, stacking our plates and cups so it was easier on our waiter.
“Uh, y-yes, sir. They’re over here.” The man directed us to the back left of the lot.
I snorted and whispered to Adam. “You’re scaring him.”
He grimaced at me, his eyebrows squished together and his head tilted. “I just answered his question.”
My chest vibrated as I shook my head and smiled to myself. “Okay, big guy.”
The poor salesman really did try his best to give Adam a sense of direction and advice toward the bike itself, but what he didn’t know was that if Adam Wells was interested in something, chances were he’d been up until three a.m. researching. There wasn’t a single thing Adam did without considering all sides.
Eventually the khaki-clad kid—Kole, I found out—gave up on winning Adam over and settled for simply handing us both a helmet and a set of keys to take the bike on a test drive.
Of course, knowing Adam, the helmet wasn’t enough, and he insisted they bring out some kind of riding gear. When they came out with only one set of riding pants and a jacket, he quickly pointed to me and said, “For her too.”
After we waited a while, someone came out with a smaller version of what Adam had. We each slipped on the pants over our clothes, and although they were baggy, I was comforted knowing I was safer now if something were to happen. Adam zipped up his jacket before turning to make sure mine was on right. He tightened the Kevlar-type material before looking me over once more. We didn’t have the proper shoes, but apparently, they didn’t have any inside. Adam insisted we would buy some for me soon, which meant he was going to buy this bike whether I tried to talk him out of it or not.
Once Adam checked my gear—three times—he nodded and walked me over to the bike he had in mind.
It was odd to find a motorcycle cute, but if I were to say one was quite adorable, it would be this one. Completely blacked out, just like Adam wanted, headlights tilted like little eyes looking at you. I was going to call it Toothless, but I wasn’t going to tell Adam that. He’d already told me once that my obsession with How To Train Your Dragon was a little much.
Adam slipped his helmet over his head, dark black encasing his face and leaving only piercing green eyes and a smattering of freckles for me to see. Calla’s thing for masked men? I was beginning to get it. It was all making sense now.
He held the smaller helmet out to me. I eyed it and then the bike. I knew he had done this a hundred times before. Nothing new on his end. He told me before about his buddies from when he’d first joined the military that had a couple of bikes. That they’d taken him on rides and he’d immediately gone to get his license in case he decided to get one. He never had before. I immediately warned him of the dangers, but somehow, that part only made him more excited. Either way, riding a motorcycle hadn’t ever been on my bucket list.
My lips twisted, and I sucked in a breath.
Adam’s head tilted toward me, and he lowered his voice. “Do you think I would ever let something happen to you?”
I considered it for a brief moment. Adam letting me get hurt? The same Adam who refused to let me spend the night alone when my power was flickering?
“No. I’m always safe with you.” I smiled at him, and he shook a helmet my way.
He comfortably took his seat on the bike, wrapping his hands around the throttle, squeezing and shifting to test it out. I hesitated to hop on until he turned to me, jerking his head back and patting the empty space behind him.
I’m safe with him.
I hiked a leg, lifting it to one side before trying to settle into the seat. It felt kind of like I was riding a horse, which I had never done, but I guess it’s what I pictured this felt like.
Adam looked back at me before double-checking to make sure my helmet was on. Then he gave me a quick tap on the thigh. I leaned into his back, wrapping my arms around his body and sinking into the heat of his jacket. My cheek tightened as I smiled against him.
His fingers wrapped around the throttle and pulled as the engine roared to life underneath us. My heart rate spiked, even though I knew Adam wouldn’t allow me to be hurt. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I squeezed my arms around his abdomen, pulling him close. The closer he was, the safer I would be. That went for all things.
“You good, Stevie?” He had to yell so I could hear him. His tone was joking, but still. I knew if I told him I wanted to get off right now, he would absolutely let me.
I nodded against him and unwrapped one arm to hold up a thumb. His right hand left the throttle to tap my thumb before forcing my hand back to his waist.
His left leg moved in some way and his hand pulled the throttle again as we slowly inched forward and took off through the parking lot. My hair whipped around the helmet from the wind, and I suddenly wished I’d brought a hair tie so I wouldn’t have an entire bird’s nest on my head later.
Looking both ways, Adam turned out to the highway and began heading down the road. Adrenaline pumped through me as he sped up, and I clung to him harder. More than ever, it was apparent that I had my whole life sitting in Adam’s palms right now. And no matter how thrilling this was, I knew I was always going to be safe with him.