Chapter 12
CONNOR
“Alright, up and at ‘em.” My sister’s voice floods into my dream as something heavy lands on my stomach. “Back to reality, you go.”
I groan, grinding the heels of my palms against my eyes as I stretch out on the couch. The thing on my stomach rolls off of me and onto the floor. Opening my eyes allows me to see that it’s my helmet.
The too-small blanket that I’ve been living under bunches at my feet and I pull in a long breath before yawning. It has to be five in the morning. The sun isn’t fully shining into the windows, yet, and I can hear Irina’s boyfriend milling around the house while he gets ready for work.
“You’re kicking me out?” I ask her as I pull myself to a sitting position.
“Yep,” she nods. “You said ‘a couple of days,’ it’s been three. I put a sandwich in your backpack and filled up your water bottle. Go.”
I look at my little sister, standing in front of me with her arms crossed over her chest while she waits for me to move from the couch. Her hair is down today, pulled to the side to cascade over one shoulder. She’s only half-dressed, with pajama pants paired to a sleek blazer.
“I also said I need to clear my head,” I remind her. “You’re kicking me out before I’ve cleared it.”
“Yeah, because this is what you do, Connie,” she tells me, dropping to sit on the coffee table. “You pick someone who’s completely unavailable, you get attached, you get scared or you get hurt, and you run. It’s not your fault, but it is your problem.”
“Awesome,” I grumble, “a psych analysis first thing in the morning.”
“Oh, I’ve had you pegged as anxious avoidant since I opened my first textbook,” she tells me as I push myself off of the couch, twisting my back to stretch it. “And as the almost-professional, I prescribe you exposure therapy. Go home. Deal with your married fuck buddy.”
“Those words should never come out of your mouth,” I groan.
“Girlfriend.”
“No.”
Bringing herself to a standing position, she faces me, pinching her face into something resembling sympathy and something else resembling pity.
Her hands come up to my cheeks, firmly squishing my face between her palms as she holds my gaze.
“Sometimes, the hard thing is the right thing,” she tells me as she releases me from her grip. “You told me that. I already told Grady that if you’re still here when he gets home, to toss your stuff outside and lock you out. Go home and do the hard thing. It’s time to stop running.”
I’m only offered enough time to pee, brush my teeth, and throw on some gear before I’m practically shoved out of the front door and onto the lawn, where my bike is waiting for me.
“Yeah, I love you, too!” I shout to my sister as she runs back into her house to slam the door shut behind her.
As I settle onto my bike, I quickly type out a message on the phone mounted to my gas tank.
I sigh, weighing my options as I slide my gloves onto my hands.
Do I really meet her at her job and break her heart in front of everyone she knows?
Or do I insist that we meet somewhere else, where I can give her some time to get herself together before she sees another person?
Whatever choice I make, none of them will feel like the right one. She’ll wind up hurt, and it will be my fault, just like Tripp’s hurt will be.
Irina is right; I get it wrong, and other people pay the price for it.
I pull off my helmet as I settle into a parking space next to Julia’s SUV, but I don’t bother taking off my riding jacket. I don’t plan on being here long, and if I have to make a quick getaway, I don’t want to waste time trying to get my gear back on before I do.
With a quick text to let her know that I’m here, I see her stepping out of the salon. She looks around the lot, which is more full than I’d hope for today, but it’s fine. I’ll make it work.
We can’t do this anymore. I’ll leave it at that and I’ll zoom away without giving us the chance to climb into her back seat and screw each other – or even worse, talk.
“Hi,” Julia says, tying the strings of her apron around the front of her.
She’s got to be standing five, maybe six feet away from me.
Good.
I lean against my bike, bracing my weight with my hands, and I sigh.
“I’m just gonna come out and say it,” I tell her.
“Connor, wait, let me—”
“We can’t do this anymore,” I say.
Her eyes widen as she blinks away her surprise, and she lets out a breath that seems to release tension from her entire body.
“Oh, thank God,” she says, taking the steps necessary to reach me. Her hands reach for mine as my face twists. “I’ve been trying all day to figure out how I would tell you the same thing. Not because I don’t care about you – I do. It’s just…”
“It’s Tripp,” I shrug, and she nods in response with a squeeze to my hands.
“He’s my husband,” she says. “I know it might already be over, and I know it might be too late, but if there’s any hope at all, I have to try.”
I offer her my understanding by way of a firm nod, not wanting to ruin a peaceful ending by throwing any more words into it. Her hands fidget with the string of her apron for too many moments too long before her body pivots toward the salon.
“There’s a meet tonight,” I tell her. “Are you…will he be there?”
“He’ll be there.”
Reaching forward to offer another tight squeeze of my hand, she presses her lips to my cheek.
“There’s another world somewhere, where we don’t have to choose between the things that matter to us,” she tells me. “Whatever this was and however short, it mattered to me, and I’m sorry.”
“I’m only sorry about parts of it,” I admit as I pull my helmet back into place.
Her lips pull into a wistful smile and I throw my chin down to close my visor before starting the bike again.
A clean break is good.
No one is crying. Tripp doesn’t know.
I’ll probably feel guilty over this for the rest of my life, but at the very least, I can say that I’m not lying to my best friend anymore.
There have to be a hundred riders here. Maybe more; and this is after the peak in attendance that we had a couple of hours ago. It’s the biggest meet I’ve been to in years.
Bikes of all make, model, and color surround me at every angle. Supersports, cruisers, even a few motocross guys are here on their dirt bikes. The smell of gasoline hangs in the air with the loud revving of engines and conversation.
I give Tripp a nudge with my elbow as someone rides past on a bright, fire engine red Panigale.
“If you quit smoking now, it’s only six years until you can get your own,” I taunt.
He’s not wearing any gear tonight, because of course he isn’t. Just a loose muscle tank that shows off many of the tattoos covering his skin, a pair of jeans, and his favorite worn-out Chucks.
It drives me insane. One day, he’s going to get himself killed if he doesn’t start gearing up.
One would think that, with as many friends as we’ve buried since we met, it would inspire him to put on a fucking jacket, at the very least.
“Shut the fuck up,” he laughs, rolling back his accelerator to let the engine of his bike purr. “You ready to get out of here?”
“Stop for a fill-up?” I ask.
He offers a quick thumbs up before slapping his visor closed and tapping on the screen of his mounted phone to bring to life the teeny-bopper pop music that he likes to play while we ride.
I let my engine roar as I carefully follow him through the others, until we make our way past the group and onto the open road.
“You had a couple fans,” he tells me through our shared comms system.
I hesitate, my grip tightening on my handlebars.
“Yeah, well, I’m not really looking for anything right now,” I tell him honestly.
His head whips in my direction for just a heartbeat, and I don’t need to be able to see through his dark visor to know that his brow is furrowed and he’s looking at me as if I’ve just started speaking to him in a foreign language.
“You’re always looking for something,” he teases.
“Things change,” I tell him.
A tilt of his head and a rev of his bike’s engine tell me that he’s gotten my message loud and clear.
As he lowers his chest to his fuel tank, I do the same, gliding smoothly up alongside of him. We pull into the parking lot of the first gas station that we come across, and as we slide off of our bikes in the quiet night air, Tripp’s demeanor shifts.
I’ve done the same thing before, more than once. I might even feel it happening to me right now. The high from the meet is fading, and the demons that were quiet there are louder, now that the environment is different and the excitement has dissipated.
I glance in his direction every few seconds while we fill up and get our visors cleaned off.
With our tanks full and Tripp pulling off his helmet to reach for his pack of cigarettes, I jerk my head in the direction of the storefront, telling him without words to roll his bike over there and away from the fuel stations.
Pulling my own helmet over my head, I rest it on the seat of my bike.
“You’re off,” I tell him. “Need to ride backpack?”
He shakes his head. “Just a smoke break.”
I watch while he paces through one cigarette, and then another, smashing their spent ends beneath the toe of his shoe.
My eyes move between the inside of the store and the lone person working behind the counter inside, and the dark, poorly-lit road that we pulled in from. We’re not in a great area, and we shouldn’t stay long, but I don’t think we’ll be moving for a while, at least.
The sound of the single, buzzing street lamp at the end of the lot screams in the back of my head while Tripp paces around his bike, stopping every once in a while to zone out with his focus on the asphalt beneath him.
“Hey,” I say, hushed as I kick a foot against Tripp’s. “You keep disappearing.”
His head shakes as he flicks the ash off of the end of his cigarette, bringing his hand up to scrub the heel of his palm against his forehead.