“What are you grinning at?” I ask her.
“Nothing,” Parker answers too quickly. Even in the dim light, I can see her cheeks pink up.
“Uh-huh, looks like nothing,” I tease her. I’d pay a million bucks to know what was going on in her brain right now.
“I, uh… I like Anita,” Parker fumbles as we reach the bike.
“Everyone likes Anita,” I say as I put my jacket around her shoulders. I’m starting to like the way she looks in it. “You should meet her wife, Josie. She’s wild. They went to Vegas with Gran and Sally a couple of years ago. They got carried away and their weekend turned into a week, comped, at the Cosmopolitan.”
Parker laughs, “You’re joking.”
I shake my head and grin at her. “Nope, they all got matching tattoos, too.”
“The dice on Sally’s wrist?”
I nod. “Gran got hers on an ankle, Anita’s is on her shoulder, and I haven’t seen it, but apparently Josie got a tramp stamp.” Parker cackles, head thrown back.
“God, I couldn’t keep up with them.”
“No one can,” I reply. “Or at least, no one should.”
Lightning keeps flashing in the distance, not so close that we’re in danger, but I can smell rain in the air. I hurry us onto the bike and we pull out of the lot, gravel crunching under the tires. Parker holds on tight as headlights fly by us.
We’re still five miles from town when the skies open up; cold, heavy rain falling in sheets. The summer heat doesn’t last more than a couple of minutes in the deluge. We’re soaked through by the time we hit Main Street and I can feel Parker shivering behind me, her helmet tucked down behind my shoulder.
“How far out do you live?” I shout back at her.
“Fifteen minutes,” she yells, gesturing to the east side of town. I put a hand on her thigh, resting behind mine. The soaking wet denim is chilled, and she gives another racking shiver.
“Nope. Not happening,” I mutter. No way in hell I’m going to keep her on the bike for another fifteen minutes, shivering like that. That, and I’m not willing to risk laying down my bike on wet pavement with Parker on the back.
I swing to the left and head towards my house.
She smacks my thigh. “You can’t keep kidnapping me!” she yells over the wind and rain pelting our helmets, but I just shrug. From where I’m sitting, it looks like I’m going to get away with it. I should feel guilty, but I don’t. And I should be miserable, all cold and wet like this but the way Parker’s pressed against me, her thighs spread around my hips, arms wrapped around my waist, a hand on my stomach and a palm on my chest, I feel like a goddamn king.