“Don’t fucking‘T-Mo’me,” I tell him. “Tell me you’re not having sex with Julia.”
I’m not sure what I feel first when his features fall and his eyes beg me not to push the issue. Maybe it’s that I feel nothing. Maybe it’s that I feel everything all at once, like I’ve been hit by a fucking freight train.
“I’m not having sex with her,” he tells me, and his eyes pull shut as if he’s bracing for impact. “We called it off last week.”
My fingertips are numb.
My entire body burns, but in the same breath, I can’t feel it.
My vision blurs.
The only sound I hear is the whooshing of my blood in my ears.
Mine? Or his?
Kill him, a voice in the back of my mind tells me.Go back into the office, pick up the baseball bat, and use it to beat in his fucking skull until there’s nothing left but hamburger meat.
An icy calm washes over my body as the distance closes between us and my hand finds its way around his throat. Fear floods his features, maybe shame, too, as my face closes in on his and I drop my voice to nearly a growl.
“How was she?” I ask him, my jaw tight as I speak through my teeth. My grip tightens. “She get nice and wet for you? Huh? She get on her knees for you and suck your dick? Did she swallow?”
“Tri—”
A cough cuts off the rest of my name, his head shaking in a silenced plea.
The image of my best friend splayed out on the concrete flickers behind my eyelids, bleeding from his mouth, his nose, his ear, somewhere at the top of his head. It forces my hand free, and as I step away from him with my mind being carried out of the shop and onto another plane that I’m not certain actually exists, Connor rubs a hand against his throat, breathing deeply.
“I know you’re pissed,” he says. “You should be. I— Tripp, I swear to God, It wasn’t—”
My eyes move to his, and I pull in a breath, letting it out through my nose as I reach for my helmet to slide it onto my head, offering a hard flick of my jaw to slam the visor closed.
“Fuck yourself, Schepp,” is the only parting that I offer him before the door slams shut behind me.
The number one rule of the road that my friends and I hold both ourselves and each other to is to never ride upset or angry. There’s an assessment that pilots give themselves – the IMSAFE – and we’ve always promised each other that if we don’t pass that assessment, we won’t get on the bike.
Right now, I fail that assessment spectacularly.
The world screams past me anyway, streaks of color whizzing by as I breeze through a blessedly traffic-free road, weaving from lane to lane. The fabric of my t-shirt slaps against my skin as the wind whips it in all directions, the sound of my engine barely loud enough to try to drown out all of the noise in my head.
My wife’s moans. The way that she whines right before she starts to come. The sound of my name on her lips.
His name in place of mine.
My speed picks up again as I zip through an alleyway between two apartment buildings and hook a left as I exit, hitting a fresh stride.
I’m nearly to an entry point to the highway when red and blues light up behind me. A siren sounds from the patrol car with a few warning blips as it works to catch up to me, and I consider for a second opening the throttle and seeing just how far I can push my bike before the engine quits on me.
With a glance to the long pendant hanging off of my side mirror, I take a breath and pull into an empty gas station, slowing to a stop in the parking lot as the car follows, coming to a stop too close to my bike for comfort.
My eyes flick again to my side mirror to watch as the officer climbs out of his car. I can already tell by his gait that we’re not going to get along. I don’t like cops, even the few I’vehad positive interactions with. For every one of them, I’ve met five more who were assholes. I’ve met a handful who have preconceived notions about people on sport bikes, and I can smellthisguy’s prejudgment from a mile away.
A few careful and quick taps on my phone screen bring to life the camera on my dash, just like every other time that I’ve been pulled over. A gift from my older brother, who doesn’t trust me to not get myself into trouble at every turn.
“Go ahead and take off that helmet for me,” the officer calls out as he approaches.
I comply, hanging the helmet over my side mirror before carefully slipping my drivers’ license and registration from their place in my thigh bag to hand them to him.
“Where are you headed tonight, sir?” He asks me, shining his flashlight on my license.
