Prologue
Nova Rae Jenkins
‘98 Is Ours
Recommended Song: All My Life By K-Ci & JoJo
The night didn’t fall so muchas the people slid down the block like a velvet jacket shrugged off a pair of shoulders too broad to fake hardness, warm air folding itself into alleys and over car hoods, lifting the smell of carne asada smoke and low-grade weed and that sharp tang of brake dust that always lingered near the bus stop. Streetlights hummed in their own tired choir, buzzing halos over gum-stained concrete, moths doing their doomed worship dance while the palm trees rattled above us like gossip that couldn’t keep quiet. A ’64 Impala crept by on whitewalls, chrome winking every time it kissed a stray pool of light, bass rolling from the trunk so thick it rearranged the air—I Got 5 On It leaking out like it owned the entire block. Somewhere down toward the taquería, somebody wolf-whistled down the street, the sound slinging itself between the liquor store and the laundromat like a rubber band that never snaped.
I laced my fingers under the back of my hair and twisted it into a quick knot, the cheap butterfly clip biting down like it meant to hold me faithfully, then pulled my helmet by the strap and let it hang from my fingertips while I looked at him the way a girl looks at the future when she knows it might run. Ro was posted against his Yamaha R1 Street Bike like the world had been engineered to fit his shoulder blades, white tee clean enough to glint under streetlight, Ben Davis overshirt hanging open and cocky, creases on his black Dickies so sharp a careless hand might come away with a lesson. The gold rope chain lying against his collarbone caught flickers of orange from the bodega’s neon beer sign, a little molten pulse every time he tilted his chin. He had one glove on, half off the other, knuckles nicked from some earlier argument with the day—nothing swollen, just history written in red the way men sometimes write it when words fail them, and pride won’t. Those beautiful messy curls I loved running my fingers through. His swagger hit like no other and I couldn’t get enough of him.
“You ready or you just out here lookin’ like a mixtape cover, yadadamean?” I teased, letting my hip slide into the bike’s shadow, my voice wrapped in gloss and warning.
His pearly white teeth caught the light thrown from the streetlights. “You love a show,” he drawled, thumbing the second glove into place like the leather owed him rent. “Don’t front. You peeped the fit twice.”
“Three times,” I confessed, a smile tugging at my lips as I rolled my eyes. “And I’m only counting ‘cause God likes the truth.”
He chuckled low, the sound catching in his chest like a match strike. “On God, huh? Aight then. You ready to ride or you tryna pose until the moths vote you Prom Queen?”
I pulled my pastel green helmet up and over my head, cheek pads kissing my beautiful mahogany skin, the worldnarrowing to the oval of my visor glass and the hot, sweet press of my own breath. “I ain’t no queen,” I whispered, buckling the strap with a click that felt like a covenant. “I’m the whole altar, Ro.”
“Say less,” he rumbled, swinging a leg over the Yamaha like sin stepping into a suit, the Yamaha R1’s fairings black enough to swallow light with red pinstripe ghosting the edge like a secret. He turned the ignition over and the engine woke like a big cat pulling itself out of the tall grass Lyon Chrest Graveyard never cut until it was time for a funeral. The engine’s rev ticked up in a lazy wave, then steadied like a heart that had decided to wait before running. He leaned toward me—visor up, eyes glittering brown with something that wanted to be wild and gentle at the same time. “You on yours or you ridin’ back?”
“I’m on mine,” I countered, voice dripping with honey and dare, turning toward my Kawasaki like a woman returning to a language only she speaks right. Ninety-eight ZX-6R street bike, candy-plasma green that was candied. I palmed the tank, the metal cool and smooth under fingertips that shook only when I thought too long, then slid a leg over and let the weight settle through my thighs, rubber and soul touching asphalt at the same time. The key turned with that crisp little clack that always feels like a door unlatching in your chest; the Ninja coughed, then blossomed into a silky hum, pipes whispering ‘shhh’ like secrets were about to get their turn.
Toothpick Tony spilled out the liquor store just now, door chimes chirping after him like a snitch trying to stay on the payroll. He had a neon green Arizona in one hand, a pack of Now & Laters in the other, and a grin so wide it looked like it rented extra face to make room. The inevitable toothpick wrestled the corner of his mouth, bobbing with every syllable. “Ayy, lovebirds,” he crowed, cocking his chin as he strolled toward us, oversized white tee catching the night breeze like itwanted to be a sail away. “Y’all do the paperwork yet or we still on that Romeo-and-Hood Juliet vibe?”
I flipped my visor up and peered at him over lashes I’d brushed with the cheapest mascara that somehow still believed it could hold form, the corner of my mouth tipping because Tony’s foolishness was the kind that keeps a block alive. “Mind your business, bro.” I scolded, playful, letting the truckload of affection hitch a ride under the reprimand. “You got a battery charged for that handy cam or you gon’ be out here filming off vibes?”
“Girl, it’s juiced,” he bragged, patting his flannel pocket where the camcorder bulged like a small, guilty conscience. “I’m Spielberg with it. Real movie—no bootleg wobble, swear to God.”
Ro cut him a look that landed somewhere between big brother and co-conspirator. “Do not put a finger on that record unless I tap you, feel me,” he warned, tone dry as a desert wind. “You jump the gun and we all on a VCR greatest hits tape down at the swap. Chill.”
Tony popped an imaginary collar and chewed the toothpick like it owed him money. “Fo’sho, fo’sho. I’m background, baby. Atmosphere. Soundtrack. I’m the wind.” He flapped the tee and grinned harder. “A windy king.”
“Get out the street, Windy King,” a passing uncle barked from a faded blue Civic, laughter curling out the window before the light caught him and slid him along.
Ro braced both hands on the bars and shot me a look that wrote its truth without ink. “Let’s go.” I nodded once, closed the visor, rolled throttle until my Ninja purred like a cat getting ready to claim it’s prey and kicked off the stand. He eased out first, slow enough to make the pipes sing a promise and not a threat. I fell in behind his rear tire, the white line slipping past in a hypnotic zipper that told the night to open wide. Weflashed past the liquor store, past the laundromat with its row of watchers perched on plastic chairs like they were waiting on justice to finish tumbling dry, past the panadería, leaving a lingering cinnamon and sugar down the block like a blessing that came with change for the bus.
The street opened and we fed ourselves into it, two knives through velvet, chrome drinking every neon we passed and spitting it back in trembling streaks. A bus whooshed up to its stop and the doors exhaled; a woman stepped off balancing a toddler on one hip and a grocery bag on the other and gave us both that mom look that’s half prayer, half pleading don’t die in front of my kid. I lifted two fingers from the clutch in a salute so small it didn’t cost me any balance and felt the mercy of it circle back.
We took Crenshaw South, the boulevard ribboning itself under our tires, murals sliding by in a slideshow of saints and sinners and all the brown in between, hands with paint under their nails putting crowns on men the city forgot on purpose. A corner preacher worked an amped-up storefront mic with three faithful members in folding chairs nodding like metronomes, his voice tripping on deliverance and restoration and the kind of now that makes the police cruise slower. A group of boys stacked in front of the burger spot tossed us chin-ups of respect as we drifted through the intersection, one of them hollering, “Okay, Ninja bae, I see you!” and I laughed into my helmet because he meant it.
Ro glanced in the mirror, eyes catching mine for half a second, and tapped two fingers to his gas tank—our small yes, our road-ritual, “I got you”. I returned it with a boot tap to my peg, then leaned as he leaned, the Yamaha R1 Street Bike falling into the next bend, my ZX-6R street bike sliding in his slipstream smooth as a rumor that knows how to keep itself.
We left the heat pockets of the blocks and chased the air toward the coast, where the night turns cleaner and the light thins out into long, pale lines across the asphalt. The freeway on-ramp rose like a dare and Ro took it without blinking, engine note climbing from purr to growl to the kind of song that gets you in trouble if you hum it around the wrong men. The wind hit my chest and shoulders like a blessing that wanted to check my posture, and I laid down into it, jaw loosening against the pressure, tongue tasting salt ghosting up from the ocean like a rumor of God.
“You good back there?” Ro’s voice crackled through the cheap helmet coms we’d stolen from a swap meet box for eight dollars and luck.
“Boy, I’m better than good,” I breathed, letting the speed carry a grin across my face he could feel even though he couldn’t see it. “I’m brand new.”
“Keep it G,” he chuckled, opening his throttle like a promise, lane-splitting clean through a line of half-asleep sedans and a CHP Crown Vic that glowed but didn’t pounce because sometimes angels earn their check.
We rolled the 10 West until it blued into the 1, the freeway mouth spitting us onto PCH like a wave that had learned discipline. To our left, the ocean sniffed at the rocks and then slapped them for good measure, black water wearing a million white teeth. To our right, the cliff walls held old heat and old secrets, scrub brush scratching the wind the way a dog scratches a flea—distracted, irritated, unbothered. We throttled down and let the road breathe with us, the bikes settling into a pace that let our chests find each other through the coms.
“This it, Ro?” I whispered low because the grandeur on our left made shouts feel disrespectful. “This where you takin’ me to ask what you already know I’m gon’ answer?”
“You always ruin the reveal,” he accused with a warmth that felt like a hoodie fresh from the dryer, his laugh a slow roll under the engine noise. “I got a stop. You gon’ like it. On everything I love.”
