Chapter 20
Byrdie
Makhi snaps his fingers in my face, scaring me half to death. “Enough of that shit. Let’s go.”
I’m sitting on my bed hours after we talked about the diary, staring into space. Nash and Vonn wanted to talk more about what to do with the diary, while Nance started cooking a meal no one was interested in eating after we picked at our breakfast.
I felt so bad for Nash. We had so much fun last night. This morning, he was laughing until I found the diary, which destroyed his mood. He looked so troubled that I wanted to give him a hug, but it felt like he was pulling away from all of us.
Nash snaps his fingers in my face again, so close to my nose I wrench my head back.
I’m torn between flinging a pillow or my lamp at his head for snapping his fingers at me like a dog.
“Stop doing that,” I mutter, deciding a pillow won’t hurt him enough, but a lamp might kill him.
“You heard me,” Makhi repeats and walks out to the open doorway. “If you promise not to kill us both, I’ll let you have a go at riding my bike.”
My anger evaporates, and curiosity takes its place. So does excitement.
I sit up. “But I don’t know how to ride a bike. Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Probably.” Sticking his hands in his pockets, he strolls away. “I guess I won’t let you ride after all.”
But he doesn’t say it as if he actually means it. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I swear he sounds amused.
Almost like he’s toying with me.
When the sound of his footsteps fade, I scramble off my bed, stuffing my feet in my sneakers and snagging my hoodie on my way as I run out of my room.
He’s in the garage, astride his bike with a helmet on his head and one helmet held out to the side for me to take.
Am I so easy to manipulate? He was so sure I would follow him that he was ready and waiting with a helmet.
I can’t believe how easily I let him play me. Again.
I scowl at his back, tempted to turn around and walk away from a ride I’m not ready to admit I was—and still am—excited to go on.
With one twist of his key, he has the bike’s engine purring.
Scared he’s going to leave me behind, I hurry toward him. “Wait!”
He doesn’t move as I stuff the helmet on my head and climb on the bike behind him.
“You said you were going to let me ride it.” I have to shout to be heard over the loud engine that makes my seat vibrate.
I can barely drive a car. Constantly changing schools and moving from town to town with my mom didn’t leave me much time to learn to drive at school. The little I learned was from Mom letting me practice on quiet roads and empty parking lots.
Why does the thought of being in control of a bike with an insanely powerful engine seem so exciting?
Am I stupid?
The helmet muffles most of his laughter, but not all of it. “Hold on.”
I hold on.
We speed out of the garage, out through the front yard, and the gates that slowly open for us.
And we fly.
My mind is clear when he pulls his bike to a slow stop on the side of the road, near where he took us before, just above town.
There’s little else up here except a windy, dusty road, gravel on the sides that dip down onto clumps of itchy-looking dark green bushes and trees.
It’s not truly a mountain. More of a staggered dip than a sharp incline.
Steep but not so terrifying that I wouldn’t want to get too close to it in case I fell.
I move to climb off the bike once Makhi has kicked the kickstand with his boot.
He pulls his helmet off, setting it on the ground beside the front wheel. “Wait there.”
Confused but excited that this is my first lesson in riding a bike, I stay where I am. My confusion grows when he pulls my helmet off, sets it on the ground, and motions at me. “Up.”
Up?
He takes my right hand and helps me to my feet. I throw one leg over the bike, but before I can move away from it, he nudges me back to sit on the seat with both hands on my hips.
I have a very sudden and very vivid flashback to his promise to fuck me on his bike.
“Why do you do that?” he asks.
I blink, surprised. “Do what?”
“Stare into space? Disappear inside your head.”
I push him away, but not for the reason I thought I would. I thought he’d brought me up here for sex. I'd say no to him and push him away. Instead, I do nothing when I think he’s going to fuck me on his bike and push him away when he just wants to talk.
“I don’t know,” I lie.
He doesn’t blink as he takes a small step back and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Bullshit.”
I shake my head. “I don’t—”
“You do know. I’m calling you on your bullshit the way Nash or Vonn would call me out on mine. Why do you do it?”
“Is this because you feel guilty for firing me and slamming a door in my face?”
“Yes, and no.”
“Why the no?”
“Answer the question, and I’ll tell you.”
I give him a long, probing look, trying to read him. He meets my gaze steadily.
I’m struck by how handsome he is in a black leather coat, jeans, and black boots.
It makes me painfully aware of my shaved head and rumpled oversized sweats.
I ran out of the house after Makhi so fast that it never entered my head to grab one of the hats that Nash ordered for me to keep me warm until my hair grows back.
And even though it’s cool out here, and my head is naked, I’m not thinking about how cold I am. I’m not thinking of anything.
“You’re doing it again,” Makhi says.
I blink to bring him back into focus.
He’s closer, and I neither heard the scuff of his boots nor saw him move.
He’s right.
I keep disappearing into my own head and I never know what sets it off or why.
I lick my lips. “It’s easier, I guess.”
He cocks his head. “Easier than what?”
I shrug, looking away. “Remembering.”
Feeling. When I’m in my head, I can’t feel anything.
“And?”
I lift my head to look at him. “And what?”
“There’s something else.”
I scowl at him. “What makes you think there’s something else?”
“No one spills all their secrets just like that, and especially not to the person who was responsible for them getting hurt.”
My smile feels stretched thin. More of a grimace than true amusement.
“Getting hurt,” I echo quietly, the wind catching my soft words and cradling them between us.
Getting hurt doesn’t come close to what happened to me.
To what he did to me.
I reach for the helmet beside his bike's front wheel. “I want to go back now.”
“No.”
One word delivered so casually, I assume I misheard him.
But no. I couldn’t have. It’s one word. Two letters. He absolutely said what I thought he did.
I abandon reaching for the helmet to put it on. My eyes return to him, eyebrows practically at my forehead. “No?”
“We are going to talk, you and me.” He closes the distance between us and sinks into a crouch in front of me. Close. “I’m not taking you back until we do. And there’s no retreating inside your head. Not here. I won’t let you.”
“You won’t let me?” I was slightly cold before, more my head without hair to keep my scalp warm from the cool wind blowing down the road. Those two insulting, controlling, manipulative words blast even the idea of being cold away.
“No.” He smirks as he repeats, even louder, “I won’t let you.”
I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been this close and smirking at me.
I shove him. Both hands against his chest. Hard. He grunts as his back smacks against the dusty graveled side of the road. It sounds like it hurts.
Good.
“You’re an asshole.”
A bigger asshole than Reginald and I thought a cat that demanded attention only to turn around and swipe you for it couldn’t be beat.
I twist in my seat and start looking for the keys to his bike.
I practically taught myself to drive a car and how to play the piano.
Riding a motorcycle can’t be that hard, can it?
His keys aren’t in the ignition or near it, and there are no secret compartments he could have tucked them in without me seeing him do it.
“Where are the keys?” Still searching, I keep half my attention fixed on him in case he shoves me on my back as payback.
Chuckling, Makhi gets to his feet and dusts himself off. “In my back pocket.”
I don’t believe him until he fishes the very keys I was looking for out of the pocket, waves them about in what can only be a way to irritate me some more. My molars grind together, and I feel like a bull he’s flashing a red flag at.
Grinning, he returns the keys to his back pocket and crosses his arms.
“Give them to me.” I hold my palm out.
“No.”
“Fine.” I start walking down the hill. “I’m walking back.”
“We’re an hour away. Do you even know what direction is the right way?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t be that confident if I were you. It’s going to cost you a long walk back.”
He did this on purpose. Drove me away and confused me with all those turns, so he could force me to talk to him.
I swing around to face him. “I don’t want to talk to you, Makhi.”
“Tough shit.”
I resume my long walk back to the mansion, hoping I’m going in the right direction. We went uphill and briefly downhill as well, so as much as I hope I’m going the right way, I’m not a hundred percent sure I am.
“Are you sure you want to commit to that direction?” he calls after me, amused. “`Cause I wouldn’t if I were you.”
I take a few more steps, then I stop as my doubt—and his confidence—makes me second-guess myself.
Nothing looks familiar. It’s fifty-fifty whether I’m even going in the right direction. My luck has never been good. Other than that miracle window I used to run from Jeremiah, and landing in a house where Nash hired me without wanting to see a resume I didn’t have, nothing has worked out.
Do I really want to risk walking and learn an hour later that I was going the wrong way?
I turn around.
Makhi hasn’t moved from beside the bike. He has his arms crossed and a smirk on his handsome face that makes me want to shove him.
I lift my chin. “Tell me which way I have to go.”
“No.”
“I hate you,” I say.
He cocks. “So come over here and hate me.”
I want to hit him like I did on the roof, but that isn’t me, so I turn around and keep walking.