28
“Hand me that,” I say to Birdie who’s standing near the bench. She swipes the wrench off the top and swings it to me and an underhanded arc. I move to catch it and grunt loudly in pain. My ribs are still bugging me and my arm is itchy under the stitches that Cress put in my arm.
“They aren’t very good at being sneaky,” she says, leaning over the hood as I angle my head back to watch Riggs slide his hand around Cress’s lower back.
“Great, so he gets to play lovey today and I’m stuck tuning this fucking cramped engine for the race tommorrow?” I huff. “It’s my fucking birthday.”
“Aw, grumpy.” Birdie teases. “Finish what you’re doing and we can go out for drinks.”
“No one is going anywhere,” Riggs pipes up and I’m tempted to throw a wrench at him to curb the fucking ‘everyone has to do their part’ speech that’s about to come out of his mouth.
I turn and take the rag from Birdie who leans against the hood of the car with me as Murphy spins in his computer chair to listen.
“You aren’t locking me up for my safety. I want to go out,” I instantly argue.
“Slow your roll, Rapunzel.” Riggs glares at me. “You got your ass kicked by a booty call. I don’t want to find out what happens when someone your size jumps you.”
“Fuck you,” I really consider throwing the wrench that time.
“I just figured we could have a barbecue, like we used to…”
I stare at him. If she wasn’t here, we’d be doing exactly what we always did—ignoring that any of us have birthdays in the first place.
“Loverboy wants to bond over burgers?” I ask, forcing a smile to my face.
“Rafe,” Birdie huffs beside me.
“It was just a suggestion,” Riggs says, trying to approach the conversation gently, but I’m still uneasy about Cress’s presence.
It’s suspicious and no one seems to want to talk about it.
Cress just shows up here, needing help after not needing anything from us for years.
It’s weird and Riggs knows it, but he’s too busy making eyes at her while we all get assaulted by some unknown villain in the streets.
He’s trying. Let him. Koa’s encouragement rattles around in my brain.
“No, no… it sounds nice. I’d like that.” I swallow the sting of resentment hoping that she proves me wrong but if she doesn’t at least one of us is ready for the fallout.
“Are you sure?” Cress asks, her voice soft and sweet as ever. Everything about her itches at my skin and I can’t explain it to anyone.
“Yeah. Birdie and I can go pick up a cake.”
“We can?” She sounds caught off guard.
“I’m sure you’re just as stir-crazy as I am.” I give her a look
She grins, the bruising around her eye has deepened but the swelling is gone and I can see the glimmer in her iris again.
Thank God. For two days we held our breath hoping that she wasn’t permanently blinded from it, waiting for the results from her visit to the eye specialists.
But she was given a clean bill of health and we all inhaled with relief.
“Yeah, and anything else we need. Make a list,” she says quickly.
I clean my hands a little deeper on the rag and grab my helmet, watching Cress out of the corner of my eye as she makes a list for Bird. When she’s done, Birdie shoves it into the pocket of her jeans and follows me toward the bikes, only stopping to grab a back pack from beneath her work bench.
“Race you?” She smiles, pulling on her helmet as she swings her leg over the Rebel. She and I both know that my bike is faster but it doesn’t stop her as she revs the engine and takes off without warning.
“Cheater.” I laugh under my breath as I pull from the garage in the direction she went.
The road into the city is quiet and the feeling of the bike vibrating beneath me brings clarity to my thoughts as we swerve in and out of traffic.
Birdie is being reckless and my heart is in my throat as she looks over her shoulder and changes lanes into oncoming traffic and back without looking.
She’ll be the death of us all.
I lose her in the traffic but a horn honks up ahead and traffic jerks to a stop before she pops out the other lane and down a side street.
I swing myself to the right, following her as closely as I can.
I know exactly where she’s going but this is about the ride, not about the destination.
Birdie knows better than anyone that the only way to get me out of my head is to put me on my bike, and I appreciate her easy nature when it comes to spontaneous plans.
She pulls down a residential street and cuts her engine before climbing off.
“Doing it in the day is risky,” I say to her as I cut mine. She starts digging through her backpack and hands me a black bandana that I tie around my face without argument.
“It makes you feel better,” she says, doing her own hot pink one around her nose and lips. “Besides, it’s a birthday tradition and if he hasn’t figured it out yet, I don’t think ever will.”
Four years ago Birdie escaped one of the roughest relationships I’d ever seen her in and hasn’t been in one since. She chalked it up to clouded judgment and poor intentions, but she never really admitted the truth of it all.
The guy was bad from the start.
On more than one occasion she came home banged up, hiding bruises and cuts from Riggs and Koa, telling them time and time again that she fell off her bike or got into it with some girls at a bar.
Excuse after excuse flooded out and every single one protected him.
I only knew how bad it was because she slipped up one night.
I caught her outside Soundwave in an argument with him and he hit her.
I’ve never in my life seen Birdie cower.
Until that day.
She’s always been a stab-first, clean-up-later kind of girl, and God, do we love her for that, but with him it was like all the fight was sucked out of her.
She couldn’t lie after that, and I made her promise not to go back there ever again.
Since then it’s become sort of a tradition to terrorize him when we can.
He lives in a pretty shitty end of Phoenix and getting caught is part of the thrill, but it’s been three years and it hasn’t happened yet.
The sound of spray paint knocks me from my memory and I see her covering his ring camera with it before she drags the paint across the front of his door. “What’s the message this year?” She’s drawing a heart in bright purple when she looks over her shoulder.
“I’m thinking ‘I can’t go within a hundred yards of a school’ vibes.” She pauses to think about it before she starts writing heinous claims.
“Those are serious accusations, Bird.” Pride creeps into my tone.
“Good.” She says with a smile as she refocuses. By the time we’re finished the whole front of the house is painted like a foul-tasting mural. “We should probably go…” She points to a neighbour standing on the step squinting at as.
“Hey, if we’re arrested at least Riggs can’t boss us around from jail.
” I nudge her and we toss the cans to the side before jogging back to the bikes.
On the way back we stop for cupcakes and the rest of the things on Cress’s list. Before we pull into the garage we stop in across the street to let Bowie and Jet know about dinner.
As we’re unpacking the groceries they wander over with some cases of beer and a bottle of tequila.
“Happy birthday, handsome.” Bowie smiles brightly and kisses my cheek as she shoves the bottle into my arms.
“Hands off my girlfriend,” Jet snaps and I put both in the air.
Jet is Bowie’s complete opposite. They’re all dark clothing, with a blunt pitch-black hair cut that frames their mean stare and features so sharp they’re a safety hazard.
Fuck Bowie, I want them. Hell, I’d even sit cuck just to see how bossy Jet is in bed.
“She touched me first,” I defend and take a step back with a cheeky smile as Bowie winks at me.
“She does it on purpose!” I point and Bowie shrugs.
The sun is setting over the back yard but Cress has gone out of her way to make it feel special and it makes me forget how she abandoned us. Just for a moment.
There’s lights strung up I’ve never seen before and they hang over two tables that look older than me, but she’s shoved them together and decorated with whatever she could find.
It looks warm and full of intention. It makes me feel good and I don’t necessarily hate that she went out of her way to do it.
“Happy Birthday.” Riggs’s fingers dig into my shoulder as he passes by with a tray of food that smells delicious.
“Feel better?” Birdie asks from beside and I look down at her with a small nod. “Good. Let’s get drunk and make Riggs regret his life.”
I laugh and follow her to the table.
We crowd around it and everyone finds a spot, settling in together in fits of laughter and hushed story telling. I’m completely lost in all of it when my phone vibrates.
Unknown
Happy Birthday. Hopefully it’s not your last.
I inhale slowly, trying not to give away the fear that trickles up through my fingers into my bloodstream.
I look at Riggs, lifting my phone with the intention of telling him, but he’s locked in conversation with Cress and I’ve never seen the expression he wears in my entire life.
Never, not once. Not even when we’re fixing cars, racing, or doing something illegal. He looks alive.
I swallow the dread and shove my phone away.
“I didn’t ever think that we’d get back here,” Birdie whispers so quietly that I almost miss it, scared out of my thoughts. I turn to look at her and she’s watching everyone else with watery eyes.
“No crying on my birthday,” I remind her with a tiny nudge.
“He’d be proud of us,” she says next, and I agree
“It’s nice, this.” I admit.
“This is everything,” she says. “We have to protect it, Rafe.”
“We will.” I take her hand under the table and squeeze it tightly as I bring the bottle of beer to my lips. We will.