Page 12 of Promise Me Sunshine

“Hey!” Backpack Guy shouts. “You gotta pay for my bike, you dick—damn it!”

“I took a picture of his license plate,” Miles tells him. And then he bends down, picks up the bike, and starts clearing us off the street.

“Here, I’ll take it,” Backpack Guy says dejectedly.

We all start walking down the block toward a bench, the bike dragging forlornly along with us.

Backpack Guy collapses onto the bench, but when I just stand next to it, Miles taps my shoulder and gestures for me to take a seat.

I scrunch up my face at him. “I’m fine now. You can”—Igesture at his jogging clothes—“carry on.”

He obviously doesn’t believe me. Hands on hips, frowny skepticism, et cetera.

“You’re not going to run off and try to fight another potential WWE contestant?”

“No. I won’t. But he had it coming.” I plop onto the bench.

“He really did,” Backpack Guy agrees with me. “It seemed like you wanted to light-saber his head off,” he says.

“Good thing I left my light saber in my Elmo sweatshirt.”

He cracks up. “He had no idea he messed with the head of theSesame Streetgang.” This cracks me up too, but our laughing jostles the bike and one of the pedals clanks onto the sidewalk. “I built that bike myself,” Backpack Guy groans. It was definitely once a thing of beauty.

“Next time I see that guy…” I trail off, because the adrenaline is waning and everything is starting to make less sense, including me.

“You’ll what?” Backpack Guy prods.

“Honestly I have no idea,” I say, so genuinely befuddled that he laughs and that makes me laugh and then the bench is shaking again as we descend into hysterics. “I’m Lenny, by the way.” I hold out my hand and he takes it.

“Jericho.”

Miles, who has not laughed, is standing in front of us with his arms crossed. He texts the photo of the license plate to Jericho and then there goes that sparkly backpack, the bike squeaking and groaning as he waves at me and Miles and makes his way into the night.

Speaking of disappearing into the night…

“Okay…” I say. “Well, thanks for the assist back there. Um. Bye.”

I wave over my shoulder and start walking away from Miles because now that it’s just the two of us, well, it’s just the two of us and there’s an awkwardness that I have zero ideas on how to ford.

“Wait. Hold on.”

Miles catches up to me and I stop. He’s glowering down at me and my face reflexively glares back.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay? From that fall? It looked like Jericho knocked you down really hard.”

“Oh. I’m fine. It didn’t hurt.”

He tips back on his heels. “I thought I saw you hit your head.”

“I didn’t.”

I’m walking again and, unfortunately, so is he.

He clears his throat. “You don’t want to, ah, I don’t know, swing past an urgent care?”

I look up at him incredulously but I don’t slow down, desperate to get to the train stop just ahead. “Seriously, Miles. I’m fine.” I take two steps down the stairs toward the train and turn to look back at him. “You can go jog, or whatever. Have a good night.”

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