“No.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m wondering if maybe you’re due.”
He caught her chin with his fingertips. When she didn’t jerk away, he turned her attention from the bike to him. “Is it the Harley you don’t trust, or is it me?”
She did not answer immediately but neither did she look anywhere else. It was when his fingers fell away that she said, “I think it might be me that I don’t trust.”
Sullivan merely stared, silenced by her answer.
Ramsey’s nod was hardly perceptible. “You didn’t consider that, did you?”
“Nope,” he said, and put a hand to the back of his neck as though thoughtful. “Is it true?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
He nodded. “All right.” His hand left his neck but before it fell to his side, he plowed his fingers through his hair. “What’s the plan, then?”
“We should probably go for a ride. Let things sort themselves out.”
Before she could change her mind, Sullivan helped her strap on the helmet. He put on his own and then mounted the bike. Ramsey followed suit, swinging her leg over the back of the Harley and sliding onto the leather seat right behind him. He turned his head so she could hear him. “You can hold on to me or just sit there, rest your hands on your thighs. Up to you.”
She nodded and kept her hands on her thighs right up until the moment the engine roared and they began rolling down the driveway. At first, she held his jacket, but when they turned onto the street Ramsey flung her arms around this waist. She imagined he was grinning, but she didn’t care. She closed her eyes and held on.
Ramsey peeked occasionally to get her bearings. She was aware when they merged onto the highway. She could feel the speed increasing but the ride remained smoother than she imagined it could be. It seemed that very little time had passed before she glimpsed an off-ramp sign for an exit five miles east of Clifton. She tested her mettle, loosening her grip and sitting up a little straighter. She opened her eyes and observed the familiar landscape with the fresh eyes of a passenger. A hundred yards on her right, a log house she’d never seen before nestled among the trees. A narrow creek ran parallel to the highway for at least half a mile before it meandered away into a large grove of pines. Sheep clustered on a hillside.
Somewhere along the way she had stopped hugging Sullivan. She was sitting upright, her hands resting lightly on her thighs. She could turn her head now and observe the view on her left. Sometimes what she wanted to observe was the back of Sullivan Day. She imagined that she would eventually tire of staring at his broad shoulders or watching the way his dark hair swept his nape below the helmet, but she believed fatigue would not set in anytime soon. Of course, she didn’t trust herself. How could she? She was confronting a situation that was uncomfortably familiar to her. She couldn’t even pretend that she thought she would act differently this time around. It was the certain knowledge that she would go down the same path that made her erect barriers in the first place. Recognizing she was following a pattern was not necessarily enough of a catalyst to make a change. If that were true, she would have never gotten on the bike, never put her arms around Sullivan Day, never answered the door when he rang the bell, and never agreed to a second date.
Ramsey felt her shoulders rise and fall on a sigh she couldn’t hear. Better, she thought, that it was delivered to the wind.
Sullivan felt Ramsey clutch him soon after he took an off-ramp and then turned onto a narrow chip and tar side road. She relaxed after a few miles as she accustomed herself to the dips and curves and the bumps he could not avoid. They only saw a few cars, all of them coming from the other direction. He slowed each time, not so much to give them a wide berth, but to ease Ramsey’s anxiety. He could feel her tense when she saw a car approaching.
He was still trying to work out what she meant about not trusting herself when he slowed the bike and took a left into the gravel parking lot of Theo’s Shoot and Shots. The lot was crowded with Ford and Dodge trucks, a couple of SUVs, and five bikes at the front porch rail. He parked at the end of the line and indicated that Ramsey should dismount first. When she was off the bike, he removed his helmet, and dropped the kickstand into place.
“You all right?” he asked, looking her over. She didn’t respond immediately, and his expression shifted into concern until he realized she was taking inventory. When she finally nodded, he grinned. “You’re sure?”
“I am. It was…” She paused. “Invigorating.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Very good.” She looked around. “Shoot and Shots? You brought me to a biker bar?”
“Do you not see the trucks?”
“Okay. You brought me to a redneck bar?”
“Theo’s,” he said, pointing to the sign that rested on the green shingle porch roof and ran almost the full length of it. “Theo’sShoot and Shots. Theo Constantinides is Greek.”
“That doesn’t disqualify him as a redneck. Everyone around here gets assimilated by the Borg.”
He laughed. “You don’t even know where we are.”
“True. But there’s a rebel decal on that truck over there, and I’ll bet you a dollar we are still far north of Mason-Dixon.”
“Not touching that. C’mon. Let’s go in.” Hoping that her dubious look was mostly feigned, he ignored it. “Bring your helmet.”
