For You

Chapter FOUR

I sneezed, twice.

“You won't sneeze if you shut one eye,” Sawyer said, squinting at the sky. “Nature's sunglasses.”

I closed one eye and sneezed a third time.

“Takes practice,” he said.

“Doesn't everything.” I pulled my sunglasses from my purse and put them on.

Sawyer leaned over and peered into my purse, which was full of stuff like granola bars, suckers, and loose napkins.

“That's a mom-sized purse,” he said, then, “Ooh, suckers! Can I have one?”

I clutched the purse closed against my stomach. “Not cool.”

Unfazed, he chuckled. “Fine, I didn't really want a sucker.”

We stopped next to a big motorcycle, and he handed me a shiny black helmet.

“No way,” I said. “Nu-uh.”

“I had two glasses of beer over four hours. I assure you, I'm as sober as when I got up this morning.” He rubbed his chin, which had some dark stubble from not having shaved for a couple days. “Nope, I think I'm more sober than I was this morning.”

“I don't ride on motorcycles.”

“Not even one as sweet as this?”

The bike was gleaming in the afternoon sun like a physical manifestation of pride and joy. The tank was black on top, with a gold-colored stripe that had the Harley Davidson logo stretched along it, the words almost unrecognizable until you got close. The bottom of the tank was gray, with some darker spikes that looked like a tribal-style tattoo. The black seat was scooped down at the front and higher in the back, where the passenger sat. All the chrome along the engine and the exhaust pipes was clean and shined brighter than most people's jewelry. Two rear-view mirrors, also polished to a dazzling shine, rose above the bike's handles, on either side of a curved windscreen.

“It is a nice bike,” I said.

He snorted. “Nice?”

“I don't know anything about bikes, or riding them.”

“But you know how to hang on, right? You could put your arms around me and hang on tight.” He smirked in a way that made me want to punch him or kiss him.

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Not on a gorgeous day like this.” He breathed deeply, his broad chest expanding as he leaned his head back and sunned his face. “We'll detour down to the beach and get that salty sea breeze. You'll be begging me to take you bike shopping before the end of the day.”

“Maybe another time. I should get home and use the extra time to catch up on laundry.”

He gave me another sexy, mocking look, as if to say, laundry is for losers, so I just buy new clothes every week, like this super-tight, brand-new T-shirt I'm wearing to show off my big chest and arm muscles.

“And dishes,” I added.

He grabbed some mirrored sunglasses from the bike's cockpit and put them on. “Dishes. Sounds serious. Hop on and I'll give you a lift home.” He held the helmet out to me again, and I accepted. “Take your sunglasses off first, shorty,” he said.

“I'm not short.”

“It's an expression. Shorty.”

Squeezing the tight helmet onto my head gave me a wave of panic, of claustrophobia. Once the helmet was in place, my panic receded. The lower part was tighter, hugging the base of my skull, but I had enough room inside the bubble of it for my ears to be comfortable. I put my sunglasses back on, careful not to poke myself in the eye.

Sawyer grabbed for my purse, and I stepped back reflexively.

“Gimme that,” he said. “That strap's too short to go over your helmet, and you can't wear it loose over your shoulder like that.”

I handed him my purse and he looped the strap over his head, then twisted the purse around front, above his belt. My ample purse looked tiny on his muscular frame.

He got a mischievous look. “Do you like my fanny pack?”

“Stay out of there.”

“What if my blood sugar gets low and I need a sucker desperately?” He groped the leather purse along the outside. His eyes were hidden behind his mirrored sunglasses, but his lips were curved up in a smile. “Just doing a weapons check. Hmm. No handgun. Phew. What's this?” He outlined the shape of a slim cylinder. “You don't wear lipstick, so I'm guessing this is pepper spray. Am I right?”

“None of your business.”

He threw one long, muscular leg over the bike and righted it. Looking over his shoulder at me, he said, “Buckle that helmet and get on.”

“But you don't have a helmet.”

“The cops around here are pretty lenient if the helmet's on the passenger. Plus this guarantees you I'll drive extra-safe, doesn't it?”

I buckled the strap under my chin, pinching my skin. “Shit!”

“Don't pinch yourself.”

“Thanks.” I stepped up to the bike and got on the back, careful not to touch Sawyer, and rested my hands behind me on the loop of metal behind the seat.

“You'll throw my balance off like that.” He turned the key and the engine shuddered to life, the leather seat trembling between my legs. “Put your arms around my waist.”

“I've got my hands on this bar back here. Isn't that what it's for?”

“Aubrey, don't be a wuss. Put your arms around me and hold on tight, so you can lean when I lean, just don't—”

The front of my helmet cracked the back of his head. I wasn't used to having to think about my head being so much larger than it was.

He rubbed the back of his head, his fingers lost in his wavy, brown hair. “Yeah, just don't crack me on the back of my head.”

“You should be wearing a helmet.”

He hit the throttle and the bike lurched forward a few inches. “Was that a joke? Did the sad girl just make a joke?”

“Just an observation.”

He revved the engine again, drawing the attention of a few people getting out of their cars in the bar's parking lot.

Sawyer growled back over the rumbling engine, “I have a bad memory. You said you wanted to go by the beach, right?”

My response was drowned out in the sound of the engine as we pulled out of the parking lot.

The power of the bike amazed me, moving as if the laws of gravity and inertia didn't apply. After only a few seconds in the parking lot, I could understand the allure.

Sawyer rode carefully, waiting for a clear break in traffic before turning out onto the road. As we traveled, my fears calmed down.

Even with cars, I'd always been afraid of driving anywhere, imagining accidents even at the first mention of a road trip. Accidents were one of the main ways people had left my life, so it wasn't like I was imagining the worst just to torture myself. My father died in a motorcycle accident when I was too young to know him, or so my mother had told me.

Vehicles of any kind made me nervous. Once I was on the road, though, like when Bell and I were moving somewhere new, I got a sense of calm behind the wheel. Even highway speed didn't seem so fast—it's not that fast if you drive two miles under the speed limit. I had a valid driver's license, but getting pulled over by a cop would be as bad as an accident, because I had no idea what they'd find if they ran my name through the system.

My nightmares were deserved. An innocent person didn't have those worries.

I tightened my arms around Sawyer's torso, feeling him sway left and right as we made turns, me moving in harmony with him. It seemed very intimate, this riding a motorcycle together. I had to trust him, but he also had to trust me not to throw off the delicate balance.

My hands were sweating, despite the wind rushing around us. Was it the feeling of his muscular stomach under my forearms? Or of his strong back pressed against my chest? His body was warm, and a light sweat was forming underneath the front of my shirt, where his heat was radiating into me.

After a few minutes of riding, I was calm enough to look around more and admire the scenery. The trees looked more lush as we approached the water, and the houses turned into mansions with large lawns and new fences.

The rumble of the bike drowned out everything, until its roar became equivalent to silence in my head, drowning out the sounds of the city, but more importantly, drowning out my thoughts. I wasn't thinking about the pile of laundry at home, or what I was going to pack in Bell's lunch, or what I was going to do if she kept having problems at her new school.

For the moment, I was just a girl on the back of a motorcycle, heading to the beach with a cute guy.

When we got to the beach, Sawyer pulled into the parking area and turned the bike off. The sounds of the world returned, muted.

I let go of him and jumped off the bike, quickly yanking the front of my shirt repeatedly to get some air in there.

He rested the bike on the kickstand and swung his leg over with far more grace than I had. Reaching back, he fanned the back of his T-shirt as well. “Man, you are so hot, Aubrey.”

“Sorry.”

“Do you have a fever? Should we take you by the hospital?”

I stopped fanning my shirt and pulled the helmet off. I shook my hair out and rubbed at the red marks on my forehead that I could see reflected in Sawyer's mirrored shades.

He licked his lips. “That looks good.” He nodded toward a woman with two kids Bell's age walking by with drippy cones.

I said, “Gimme back my purse and I'll buy you an ice cream.”

It was past dinner time now, and a double-scoop cone looked like it would hit the spot. The kids with the ice cream stopped walking and stared at Sawyer. Was it the swirling seascape tattoos all over one forearm like a sleeve, or the smaller tattoo looping across the wrist of the other arm? Or were they looking at the ladies' purse he was only now taking off?

The mother shot me a dirty look and rushed them on their way. Why me? I wasn't the one with the tattoos. And besides, weren't tattoos normal nowadays? Why did people have to be such judgmental a*sholes?

I looked around at the young families and silver-haired retirees on the boardwalk. There were a lot of those brown slacks rich people wore. Maybe tattoos weren't so common in this area.

Sawyer handed my purse to me and pointed to the row of shops across the street from the boardwalk. A third of them seemed to sell ice cream, but he told me the very best one was off the beaten path, just down a side street.

“You know this area well?”

“I might.”

“How? Did you grow up around here? In a la-dee-da mansion like that?” I pointed up at a house perched on the hill behind the shops. The house next to it was a glass box, but this house had a circular column with a peaked roof, like a turret on a castle.

“I did.”

“Is your family rich or something?”

Grinning, he said, “Yes, we're very rich with dysfunction.”

I gazed up at the beautiful houses again. “Must be nice to look out over the ocean.”

“Where'd you grow up?”

“Here and there. Mostly in the country.” It was my usual, vague bullshit answer, but he gave me this look that said he didn't buy it. “Ever been to North Carolina?”

“Can't say I have.”

“I spent some of my time there, but we moved around a lot.”

“Why's that? For your husband's job?”

The wedding band was tight on my sweaty finger. “Mm-hmm,” I lied. The lying didn't seem so bad when there weren't any actual words.

We had ducked down the side street and some people were coming out of the ice cream shop. The man coming out held the door for us, and he seemed to cower, shrinking away from Sawyer, with his eyes wide open and his knuckles white around his cone. The man's wife scurried past us and grabbed her husband's elbow to drag him away.

I glowered after them. “What the hell?”

“Guess I look like trouble,” Sawyer said.

“That was unreal. The guy acted like you were going to punch him.” As I looked at Sawyer, I saw a flicker of what the strangers had seen. His eyes had a hungry look in broad daylight, and his hair wasn't ponytail-long, but it wasn't cut short and conservative either. I'd made some assumptions about him because of the subject matter of his tattoos—seaweed and an octopus didn't seem that scary to me, not compared to demonic faces and tattoos designed to intimidate people. Sawyer's tattoos were artistic and beautiful, not threatening—or at least they were to me.

The tiny Asian woman who stood behind the ice cream counter glanced warily over at the cash register. Was she shitting me? Did we look like thieves? I shook my head in disgust at the small-mindedness of people. They want everyone to be equal, so long as they look the same and the women wear push-up underwire bras and try to look like magazine covers.

Sawyer didn't let her suspicion ruin the moment. He grinned at the woman. “Pam, right? I used to come here every day when I was only this tall.” He held his hand one foot above the counter top.

She squinted, then her eyes widened in relaxed recognition. “I know you! How you been? Who is this?” She looked over at me.

“This is my friend, Aubrey.” He fumbled in the pockets of his jeans and pulled out some folded bills. “What's your favorite flavor? You should let Pam guess. She's really good.”

Pam waved a hand at him. “No, I don't do that anymore. People, they don't like.”

“Pam's a psychic,” he said, eyes wide and serious.

She got a mischievous grin that made her look a decade younger. “Chocolate chip mint,” she said.

“Sure. Give me a double scoop of that.” She wasn't that far off, but it was one of the more popular flavors, after chocolate and vanilla. My real favorite was strawberry, but mint sounded nice.

She scooped the green ball onto a cone and topped it with a pink ball of strawberry, to my surprise.

“This one is memory,” she said, and she made Sawyer a cone of chocolate and coconut.

He insisted on paying, even though I got my wallet out of my purse and tried to physically push him away from the cash register. The guy was like a chunk of granite, impossible to move or intimidate.

We walked out and back down to the boardwalk, where I felt like a walking advertisement for ice cream. People stared at us and our cones like we had something special they could never have. They probably assumed we were on a date, just two store-robbers taking the day off from our crime spree.

I was pretty quiet along the walk, partially distracted by the psychic ice cream encounter. The more I thought about it, the more obvious the answer became. She must have been watching my face as she moved her hands over the different tubs of ice cream. She read my expression, like Sawyer had done with the sketch book, stopping on the frog drawing that made my eyes light up.

Was I so readable, so transparent? I didn't like that one bit.

Sawyer pointed to a bench, and we took a seat facing the ocean. The sun was maybe an hour from setting, and the clouds were tinged with orange already. Seabirds squawked at each other over the sound of waves washing over the rocks. The water looked inviting, but I knew it would be cold. Some blue-lipped kids in their bathing suits were nearby, daring each other to go in further.

“Dares,” Sawyer said, apropos of nothing.

I replied, “A shitty way to trick people into doing things.”

“You see everything as a battle of wills, don't you?”

I'd finished my cone and was twisting and folding the paper wrapper between my fingers. “If it's not other people, it's yourself, isn't it? You have to fight the urge to hit the snooze button, and that's how the day starts off. Then it's one battle after another until you drag yourself into bed, even though you just got your second wind and you want to stay up late reading while the rest of the world is quiet, and you can hear yourself think.”

He leaned back, stretching his arms out along the back of the bench, then folding the left one in so it wasn't behind me.

“I think of the alarm clock going off as an opportunity,” he said. “Don't hit that snooze button. Make every minute count.” He pumped the air with a closed fist. “Rah, rah, rah.”

Blinking into the bright ocean view, I said, “Speaking of time ...”

He jumped up and offered me his hand. “That's right. I've been avoiding it, but we should go look into the abyss. The abyss being the piece of garbage I'm trying to fool people into thinking is art.”

I stood without taking his hand, and we walked back to the bike.

The helmet seemed even smaller this time, triggering the claustrophobia again as I pulled it down over my ears. This time, I fastened the strap without pinching my chin fat.

The temperature had cooled, and as I got on the back and wrapped my arms around Sawyer's lean, muscled torso, I was grateful for the body heat.

We looped back the way we'd come, over the overpass and back toward the bar, passing it on our way. A few minutes later, he pulled into the driveway of a house that wasn't more than a dozen blocks from where I lived with Bell.

This old house wasn't the same as the one where the guys having the party had invited us to join them the week before, but it could have been that house's sister.

The porch was crooked and looked like it was trying to run away from the main house, which was old and sad, easily the least desirable house on the street. Its mismatched upper windows made the house look like it had a black eye.

I followed Sawyer up the porch stairs, careful to step on the right side—not the left—as he warned. A skinny red-haired guy was napping on a sofa on the porch, covered in a bleached-out patchwork blanket.

Sawyer pushed open the unlocked front door, saying, “Nothing inside to steal, so no need to lock up.”

I nodded in agreement as I tried to come up with an excuse not to step inside. My uncle knew I was with Sawyer, and he'd basically vouched for him, but should I be there? I wasn't afraid for my safety, but I still didn't want to go in. I liked Sawyer a lot more before that moment of seeing where he lived, back when he was just a cute guy trying to rescue me.

“It's not as bad inside,” he said, waving to invite me in.