“Tell me.” I smile, blinded by the excitement in his eyes, just from thinking about it.
“Superbikes.”
“Build them?”
“Race them. God, Jesse, all that power between your legs. The wind in your hair, the freedom of the open road. The adrenalin, the speed, the race.” He looks up at the black sky. “Could you imagine it?”
I smile, tossing my beer bottle in a hedge. I don’t need alcohol. I need this. The truth. I’ve seen him watching Moto GP. I’ve watched his concentration. I’ve found the superbike magazines under his mattress that he’s tried to hide from Dad like they’re sordid porn shit. “Then fucking do it, Jake.” He could do anything he puts his mind to. He’s just that type of person. I pull him to a stop and take his arms, looking him in his drunk eyes, hoping beyond all things I’ve ever hoped for that he’ll break free of the chains and do something he desperately wants to do. “You must do it.”
His floppy blond hair falls across his eyes, and I knock it away, knowing he’s probably incapable of coordinating his hands to do it himself. I’m going to have to start carrying him soon. “Yeah?” he asks, his grin crooked.
“Fuck, yeah.”
“Will you tour with me? Help fix my bike? Ride with me? Me and you, together?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, yeah.“I’m there, bro. All the fucking way.”
He clumsily falls into me, giving me the fiercest hug. The mushy twat. But, of course, I embrace it. “We’ll detail the finer points tomorrow,” he slurs, breaking away and pulling a miniature bottle of whiskey from his front pocket, opening and raising it. “But for now, we celebrate.” He downs the lot as he walks backward, taking him and the bottle out of my reach. “To freedom!” he chants raising the bottle, stumbling into the road. “And doing what the fuck we want.”
“Doing what the fuck we—” I blink, being blinded by the headlights of a car. And then I hear them.
Tires.
Screeching tires.
The sound of a horn.
“Jake!” I yell, my head snapping back and forth between him and the car. He’s frozen. Looks startled. “Jake, get out of the fucking road!” I start running, but my legs are lead, not carrying me as fast as I need them to. “Jake!”
My heart. I can feel it cracking.
“Jake!” I roar. “God, Jake, no!”
The car hits him, hurling him fifty yards up the road, and I slow to a stop, suddenly paralyzed. “No,” I whisper. “Please, no.”
The sound of his helpless body hitting the ground is chilling.
A sound I’ll never forget.
And the beats of my heart slow to nothing.
1
April2012
My nose wrinkles. My closed eyes clench. My waking brain pounds like a motherfucker. I open one eye and come face to face with an empty bottle, the damn thing practically touching my nose. I groan and roll onto my back, away from it. Good fucking God. My head feels like an army of soldiers is stomping its way through it.
I lift my hand on a sigh and rest it on my forehead, trying to compress the thuds. Painkillers. I need painkillers. And water. Get me some fucking water.
I drag myself up, resting back on my elbows, and peek around the room, searching for more evidence of my heavy night. I spy my clothes on the floor. But no others with it. No bra, no knickers. I hitch a brow in surprise. Don’t tell me I went to bed alone.
“Water?”
I startle and look at the bathroom door, finding a naked woman—her name escapes me—leaning against the door with a glass in her hand.
“You look like you need it.” Another woman appears behind her, also naked, except for the smile she’s wearing. I definitely knowhername. Fucking hell, what was I thinking entertaining Coral again? The woman is in love with me. I’m not assuming. She’s told me. Repeatedly. I knew getting into bed with her and her husband to fulfill their wild fantasies was a mistake. Now she’s left him. Now, I have a pissed off copper on my back. And now she’ll take me however I come, always drunk and, last night, even with another woman.
“Want some help up?”