“Maybe you should try a form of exposure therapy. Try trusting your body for a while and see what happens.”
Silence fell again. Thinking about trusting his body reminded him of his visceral, blood-hot response to Erin. There was a clear-eyed awareness in her eyes, one that the shocking, dangerous connection sparking between them hadn’t put out. That, he thought, was a woman who would call bullshit on his stories. Maybe it was a good thing she’d turned him down.
“That’s our time for today,” Colleen said. “I’ll see you next week.”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks,” he said. He hoisted his backpack and walked out.
It was raining again. He paused under the overhang and pulled out his phone. A text from Rose, almost identical to Keenan’s but for the suggestion he come over for dinner later in the week. And another text from Keenan.
Can librarians date students?
Jack flipped up the collar of his jacket. Good question. She’s not my teacher and I’m not really a student.
Enrolled in classes = student. Maybe ur not losing ur touch.
Good point. He’d stop back tonight, see if that was the problem.
Is she hot?
Jack thought about this. Hot usually meant tight clothes, bright lipstick, shiny hair. Hot meant dancing in bars, drinking too much, coming on strong. It did not mean slacks and cardigans, shadowy glimpses of the curve of a breast when she reached for a book that was “foundational in the field of PTSD treatment research” so he could write a paper for a class he didn’t want to be in while living in a city he didn’t want to come home to, not just yet.
How the fuck was he going to describe Erin Kent? He had literally nothing else to do besides write the psych paper, so he took some time and thought about it.
Remember when Hawthorn was on that classic movie kick and made us watch all those Bogie and Bacall movies?
Ur crushing on Bogie?
Jack leaned against the metal pillar holding up the small awning. There was the Keenan he remembered.
You got a problem with that?
Not at all.
She’s like Bacall. Not hot. All woman.
He sent the text, then got in Rose’s BMW and drove over to Grannie’s. Using his spare opener, he opened the garage door to find her sensible Toyota Camry missing, giving him an unimpeded view of his dust cover-shrouded bike. For a long minute he stared at it, listening to his body.
Yes. This was exactly where he should start.
He swept the cover off the Ducati 1099, neglected over a long winter. At first he’d made excuses—the winter weather, a wet spring—but Colleen’s advice was sound. The bike needed an oil change and a quick tune-up, both things he could do in Grannie’s garage. All he needed was a new filter. Since everyone he knew in town had turned him down for lunch, he’d swing over to the dealership and pick up what he needed to maintain the bike. He snagged his helmet from a shelf, swung his leg over the seat, turned the key, and roared down the driveway, into the rain.
Other drivers on the road looked at him pityingly through their closed windows, but Jack barely noticed the cold, let alone the rain. Being wet, hungry, and exhausted was the norm for him; it was almost harder to be warm, dry, and adequately fed. He was supposed to want to be warm, dry, and adequately fed. Instead he wanted to be living by his wits in the shadowy world of covert operations, and he couldn’t, because of the fucking tremor. Which, interestingly enough, didn’t happen when he was on the bike.
But it might. It was unpredictable.
Despite his upturned collar tucked under his helmet, rain trickled between the sheepskin and his neck, and his jeans were soaked through by the time he parked at the dealership. One of the salesmen was waiting with the door open after he’d pushed the bike onto its kickstand.
“Not many people ride in weather like this,” he said as Jack strode through.
The showroom was empty. “No other ride,” Jack said with a smile.
“Panigale 1099? Nice.”
“Thanks,” Jack said. “She’s plenty fast.”
“I’d like to see that,” the salesman said. “You should bring her down to the track.”
“You guys still run an open track night?” Jack said.
“We do. Next Thursday. Bring her by.”
“I’ll think about it,” Jack said, then tipped his head. “Parts department still through there? I need a filter.”
“They’ll hook you up, man,” the guy said.
He squelched down the linoleum hall to the parts counter and asked for oil and a filter. While he was waiting, he let the noises filter into his brain—the alternative rock station, the sound of an air-powered socket wrench in the shop, the phone ringing, the sound of a woman’s voice coming from the showroom.
A woman’s familiar voice.