“Hey,” I said, taking in the sight of him in his leather and jeans. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I got off early,” he answered, leaning forward so that his face was only a few inches from mine. “And there’s something that I’ve been wanting to show you. On a proper date.”
“Does that mean our last date was improper?” I asked jokingly, and the corner of Ash’s mouth lifted in a sly smile.
“You know it,” he said, before offering me a second helmet and nodding toward the back of his bike. “I promise you, this one will be just as amazing. All you have to do is get on.”
My wild side immediately wanted to know where Ash was going with this. I imagined jumping on that bike and letting him take me to some distant place, somewhere where magic felt real. But I hesitated, and glanced further down the parking lot to where my car stood. Ash looked over his shoulder in the same direction, then back at me with curiosity in his eyes.
“Actually, I…” I paused, and sighed. “I kind of have plans with Calder. I promised I’d meet him at the station after work.”
“You could still do that,” Ash replied, not lowering the helmet he’d offered. “We won’t be too long, and I could drop you off right at the front door.”
“What about my car?” I asked with a frown forming on my forehead.
“We’ll make a plan to get it home.” It seemed like Ash would have an answer for every point I raised. I was pretty sure by now that he wasn’t going to back down without giving it his best shot. “Come on, Rhea, aren’t you at least a little curious?”
“I am,” I admitted, sighing. “You promise you’ll take me to the station?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Okay, but you have one hour.”
“Calder’s shift only ends in an hour and a half.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes, pretending to be annoyed, but my heart was already ablaze with curiosity about where Ash wanted to take me. I hoped that Calder would forgive me for my detour, though I had the feeling he’d be angrier with Ash than me.
I took the helmet and clambered onto the back of the motorcycle. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” Ash answered mysteriously, waiting for me to get settled before he made the bike roar to life. The noise would have drowned out any further questions, so instead I simply held on to Ash’s body and let myself go along for the ride.
I recognized the first few turns, but then Ash headed in an unfamiliar direction. He wove through wide and narrow streets toward downtown. This time, it looked like he wasn’t going to take me out into the woods. I wondered what kind of places Ash frequented in the city. Maybe a biker bar or some dark secretcoffee shop in an alley? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think he’d take me to a disco skating rink or a show at the theatre.
Finally, Ash turned down one more narrow street at the edge of the city center, and stopped at the corner. I was surprised.
The place that he’d parked in front of was an old ice cream parlor that looked like it had been empty for several years. The signs had lost some of their letters, the paint was flaky and had lost its color, and someone had sprayed graffiti over parts of the walls. The windows were dusty and dirty, and I couldn’t really see anything inside from this distance.
Ash got off the bike first and took off his helmet. I followed with some hesitation. This didn’t exactly seem like a very romantic date destination, and I had never figured Ash to be the ice cream type. I’d seen him more as the ‘bitter coffee and sushi’-type. But even if hehadbrought me here for ice cream, the place had clearly been closed for a while.
“Uhm…” I started, glancing around the street. There wasn’t much else around; an old arcade and a convenience store that seemed close to its end, too. Nothing that would suggest an incredible evening with a mysterious guy, or some hidden gem that only certain people knew about.
“Come sit with me,” Ash said, not answering any of the questions that must have been clear on my face. He perched on the curb between two cracked slabs of cement, one of which had weeds growing through it.
I gave the street one last glance before I walked over to Ash and sat down next to him on the weedless side of the curb.
Ash was quiet as he pulled two nips of whiskey from the inside of his leather jacket and offered me one. I laughed at that; that was more like Ash. I opened mine and took a sip, as did he. The bitter liquid burned my mouth slightly. Not exactly somethingI’d describe assmooth,but then again, I didn’t know a lot about whiskey in the first place.
“So, this is an interesting choice,” I finally said, using the nip to gesture to the parlor behind us. “Not exactly what I’d pictured you’d want to show me.”
Ash looked at me with something more serious in his eyes and he sighed. “I used to come here all the time, when it was still open.”
From the tone of his voice, I realized that this place must have meant a lot to him. I stayed quiet, hoping that he would tell me more, that he’d show me something deeper about himself than I’d seen until this point. He didn’t speak for a moment, simply taking another sip.
Then, he glanced over his shoulder.
“I used to come after school,” he continued slowly, as if it was difficult to put the story into words. “I didn’t want to go back to an empty house.”
I watched his face, where an expression somewhere between nostalgia and sadness had taken root. I hadn’t known he’d had a lonely childhood, and it made me wonder about his parents. What were they like? Did he still speak to them, or had he lost contact? What kind of childhood did he have?
