Nobody, they say, is a hero to his valet.
—JOHANNWOLFGANGVONGOETHE
Iguess I have to wait for Gemma. Again.
I want to be irritated, but I actually feel a little guilty. Even though Ididleave her a voicemail about class, I’m supposed to be the reliable one here.
I wouldn’t mind if a real criminal compared me to a witch doctor, but she’s not a real criminal. She’s just a menace. Like Dennis. Which, I suppose, makes me Mr. Wilson.
All eyes turn to watch the woman sail out the back door of the precinct. Her long hair ripples in the breeze as if this is a scene from one of her movies. Her summer dress ripples too. Except it’s not a dress. She’s wearing weird pants that kind of look like a dress. Whatever. It’s the footwear that concerns me most.
Of all the days for her to wear fancy shoes. Maybe sheshouldhave just gone home. Except class wouldn’t have been the same without her.
I cross my arms to keep from letting down my guard and remind myself I don’t want class to be “the same.” I want it to be free from all the drama she causes. Especially the drama inside me.
“Gemma!” Charlie’s trademark enthusiasm.
“Hey, Gem.” Kai’s casual welcome.
The rest of the class calls out things like “glad you made it” and “you wouldn’t have wanted to miss this.”
She smiles and waves like a real Miss America. Well, she smiles and waves to everyone but me. This is the opposite of past classes, where she followed me around with a lovesick grin. And I thought it was going to take firefighters to dampen her attraction. I’d been able to smother those flames all by myself.
My students seem to be looking back and forth between the two of us, and I know I’m not imagining the smirks and snickers. I know because Harris is both smirking and snickering as he slaps me on the back.
I shoot him a warning glare.
He holds his palms up and backs away, but the apples of his cheeks appear to be straining against a flood of laughter. “Shall I start the motorcycle demonstration?”
I nod toward his white Harley, already aligned to snake its way through a square of cones set up like the dots-and-boxes game I used to play as a kid. “Don’t let me keep you from showing off.”
He pops a helmet on and calls the class over. I stand back and watch Gemma expertly ignore me. I should be relieved, but I’m more entertained. Maybe even challenged.
Is she ignoring me because I didn’t respond to her erroneous adoration last week or because I’m not surprised she wore the wrong shoes on the worst day possible? I’ll find out when I refuse to let her drive in those things.
Harris pulls on his riding gloves, then swings a leg over his bike. “Maestro?” he calls to me.
That’s right. He needs his theme song. I stroll to the picnic table in the shade and hitplayon his phone. “Bad Boys” roars through the Bluetooth speaker he’d brought along for this exact moment.
The class breaks out in laughter.
Drew grins proudly. “Every year, I get to escort a huge motorcycle ride to raise money for the families of fallen soldiers. The very first year, the motorcycle dealership played this song as we pulled up. Now I hear it in my mind whenever I ride.”
Larry bobs his head. “I was there, man. Great ride.”
Harris responds by throttling the engine, and I feel its rumble in my chest.
While the men in the group, especially Larry, marvel at Drew’s cornering skills, Gemma looks a little bored. Her gaze bounces around like a pinball. Until it accidentally meets mine, then I might as well have been one of those pinball game flippers, knocking her attention back to Harris. Game on.
I wait until Drew’s demonstration is over and he’s divided our class into groups of three to drive our vehicles around the old parking lot turned into a makeshift track. Naturally, he puts Gemma with her homeboys and leaves them to me, while he takes off with three other students.
I retrieve a radar gun from my cruiser and show everyone how to point it at Harris when he zips past in his own demonstration. Through it, I watch him weave around cones, then step on the gas, washing us in a wake of warm air.
I hold up the digital screen. “Forty-two miles an hour. Not bad.”
Larry’s shadow falls over me in his eagerness to hold a radar gun for himself. “My turn.”
I hand the device over and catch Gemma watching us from the corner of her eyes. Before I can even lift an eyebrow, she’s all enthralled with Harris’s group in the distance, trading seats for someone else to drive.
