When I finally reach Frogtown, my riding group is already at the coffee shop that sits alongside the L.A. River. Which, thanks to torrential rains this winter, is still flowing in May.
Marcella has my flat white waiting for me with outstretched hands by the time I reach the group.
“My baby,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Mm-hmm,” she says, distracted. “Do you think my neck skin is looking saggy?”
I glance at her neck before I catch myself. “What? Shut up.”
“Pardon, but Nora Ephron wrote an entire essay on this very topic,” Marcella says. “It’s valid.”
The flat white is creamy and hot and exactly what I don’t needafter a four-mile bike ride, but I appreciate the second shot of caffeine. “Mar. Your neck looks fine.”
“I bet you’ve never even looked at your neck,” Marcella says with deep distaste. “You have the skin of a toddler.”
“My fave beauty productsareendorsed by preschoolers,” I say. “And when I say your neck looks fine, I mean it.”
She pulls out her cell phone and turns on the selfie camera to inspect her neck. “Hm. Maybe. For your birthday this year, let’s go to Seoul and just get a ton of treatments done for ourselves. You can be my translator.”
I’m spared from this conversation when our bike group starts getting a move on. A ragtag group of adults with varying athletic abilities, we take the path that follows alongside the river, which runs about nine miles from Burbank down to Elysian Park. Here, in Frogtown, the river is filled with greenery and wildlife, one of the few areas of the river with an earthen bottom. Thick groves of shrubs and trees dot the center of the river, which has a concrete basin on its sides. It’s one of those mornings when everything feels exactly right and you can’t imagine ever complaining about anything ever again.
“My thighs are feelingthe burn!” Marcella shouts, making several other riders around her laugh. She’s never given up her class clown mantle. Mar and I met in a run club almost eleven years ago and we bonded because we both immediately hated it and ditched halfway through our first run to grab martinis at a dive bar. She made me laugh so hard I almost peed in my overpriced leggings. We started this bike club as a bit of a jokey nod to our friendship origin story, but the joke’s on us because now we’re obsessed.
The wind whips a long strand of one of my braids into my face and I try to bat it away at the exact same moment someone in front of me slows down on their bike. I grab my handlebars with bothhands to avoid them, but I overcorrect and find myself veering off to the right—on the side of the river.
The bike tips over and I instinctively curl my body into itself as I hit pavement. Hard. But it doesn’t stop there—the momentum of the fall sends me rolling down the concrete incline toward the river. After a few painful seconds, I’m stopped by something leafy and green.
I hear shouting voices as I lie there and register what just happened. Shooting pain starts in my right side and my arm feels like I seriously shouldn’t move it. Fuck.
When I try to lift my head, the world spins and my eyes tear up from the disorientation. In my blurry view, I see a pair of feet jogging up toward me. I think it must be one of the other riders, but I realize I’m facing the river.
The feet—in men’s boots—stop by my head. “Hey, you okay?”
It’s a man’s voice and he’s concerned. I wonder if I look busted up. I blink to clear my eyes and try and move to look up at him. “Um, kind of?”
“Don’t move!” He crouches down. I register blue jeans and bright yellow socks peeking over his boots. “Okay, I don’t see any blood.”
I smile and it hurts. “Amazing news.”
A low huff of laughter. Then he says, “Just in case, though, I’m going to call nine-one-one.”
Something about this delivery is very considerate and I feel instantly soothed. “Okay, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” There’s an amused tinge to it before I hear him on the phone with the operator. The call is quick and the guy is talking to me again before I can zone out. “I’m Ellis, by the way.”
Ellis. Somewhere, buried deep under panic, I understand this name is cute. “Cassia. Hi.”
“Hey, Cassia. So, you’ll be getting some help soon.” He’scrouching down now and when he leans over, I catch a flash of a silver chain beneath a white T-shirt. Then I see his face.
I blink at the sight.
“Thanks, again,” I say as I try not to stare at the devastating combination of wholesome and beautiful in the features of a mixed-race Asian guy in his twenties. Not a day over thirty, that’s for sure.
“Of course.”
Something occurs to me. “Did you run down here? Or are you a river troll?”
Again, the huff of laughter, but now it’s matched with two incredibly deep dimples. “I was working down at the river, actually.”
