Even though I keep to my promise as we start down the road, keeping my speed at the limit, her arms are wrapped so tightly around my waist while we ride that I feel like one of those squeeze toys whose eyes pop out when you apply too much pressure to their bodies.
Her body presses firmly against mine, and even in her fear, her fingers flex against the fabric of my shirt every now and again. There’s excitement somewhere underneath all of the rest of it; like I knew there would be.
It’s one of the things I like so much about riding. There’s something about it that rewires my nervous system, even just for an hour or two, and it reminds me just how alive I am. The risk, the reward, the fuckingthrillof it all.
“Lovey, I have a question,” Julia’s voice crackles through my Cardo, and I offer a pat to her hands to let her know that I’m listening. “Why do you always make me wear this ridiculous suit?”
My hand moves from hers to rest at the outside of her thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” I tell her.
The line between us is quiet for a moment, eventually broken by the sound of her blowing out a breath, seemingly directly into the mic, as she leans against me.
“You’ve always been my protector,” she says.
Chapter 7
JULIA
18 years old
Ididn’t think that my entire life could fit into three small suitcases. I always thought that, when the time came, I would need one of those big trucks designed for hauling heavy freight.
Yet, here I am, standing on the sidewalk and watching my boyfriend lower three small suitcases into the trunk of the car that he’s been living out of for the past month. My mom watches from the living room window as Tripp opens the passenger side door for me and I climb inside, casting one final glance back at the life that I knew.
Tripp shoots a hateful glare in her direction, the same one that he offered his own parents as his life was packed away, and he settles into the seat next to mine before starting the engine.
“You don’t need them,” he tells me.
“They called me a slut, Tripp,” I sniff, wiping the back of my hand against my nose. “What are we supposed to do, now?”
“We can just drive. B gave me some cash. We can just go and see where we land,” he says. Dropping a hand onto my innerthigh, he gives me a squeeze. “You’re not a slut; and even if you were, it wouldn’t be anyone’s fucking business but your own.”
My hand skims the length of his arm and I lean across the center console to rest my head on his shoulder as my eyes drift closed.
Sometimes, I think Tripp is the only person who really sees me.
He knows when I’m upset, even when I don’t say it. He can feel when I’m stressed about something. He has all of my food orders memorized at all of our favorite restaurants and he always brings me a stockpile of my favorite candies the day before my period starts.
He didn’t accept Edie or Brody’s offers to stay with them because it would have kept him too far away from me.
He knew something was wrong when I called him tonight just because of the way that I breathed.
I’ve never thought before that someone would go to the ends of the Earth for me, but I think he would.
“They’ll tell everyone that we ran away,” I tell him.
Moving his hand from my thigh, he places it on my cheek, and I melt into his touch.
“Fuck it,” he says. “Let them.”
My fingers wrap around his bicep, and as we come to a stop in front of a red light, he pulls my face in his direction.
“I’m gonna marry you one day, Jules,” he promises, “and I’ll never let anyone hurt you again. No one, okay?”
One day, I’ll tell him about the future that I see for us. The horde of kids running around in the back yard of our light pink house – not too big, not like the ones that we grew up in. Cozy. With nightly family dinners that I’ll have to learn how to cook, but I won’t mind. It will make me happy to take care of my family.
Tripp will fight me on the color for a while – an hour, maybe. He’ll want to keep it neutral; a nice beige or even a crisp, clean white – but he’ll give in to the pink eventually.
