Page 63 of Bullet

She hesitates, searching my face, and then relents. Trespassing, damaging crops, going for a ride with a known outlaw. She’s bending laws left and right. Not seriously, of course, but I thought I had better break her in easy.

“If you swear that we’ll have zero encounters with anything rabid out here, then I’m good to go.”

“I can’t make promises about the aliens.”

“The what?” she laugh-gasps, hanging her helmet on the bike’s handlebars beside mine.

“They probably won’t be rabid. Just interested in abduction and experimentation.”

“Willa would probably joke about them doing butt stuff. She has a t-shirt that says something about that.”

My laughter only relaxes her further. I grab the blanket, unroll it, and offer my hand. She takes it shyly, but then links our fingers together tightly.

I lead her down the grassy ditch. They’re always steeper than they look, the grass surprisingly long even though it was cut in the late summer and baled.

We thread our way through the corn stalks, which are also taller than they look from the road.

“It’s like a maze,” she muses.

I stop not very far in, as I promised. I’m lucky enough to find a natural bald spot between the papery stalks. They rustle as I brush up against them to spread out the blanket. The wind is just strong enough that the swaying stalks provide a natural symphony.

The blanket is an old plaid thing that I use for camping out on club rides, but it’s clean. I washed it right before I went out for Lynette’s boots. The scent of fresh linen rises up to join the sweet fresh-cut hay and earthy smells around us.

Lynette sits down, tucking her legs under her, but then giggles when all she can see is dying and dried-out corn. She flops over, tucking her arms under her head. “Wow. The sky is incredible. I didn’t realize it was a full moon tonight.”

“It’s a few days off yet, but it’s getting there.”

I couldn’t have arranged for a more perfect night. It’s virtually cloudless, the moon a bright silver-blue disc directly above us, the stars shimmering brightly.

I’ve seen a lot of the world, a whole lot of ugly, but also some beauty too. Nothing compares to Lynette, with her pale skin and halo of dark hair, her normally carefully guarded edges gone soft, her face open. She stares up at me with such trust and hope. A survivor who has known the cruel side of life, the sharp blade of grief and loss, she’s all the more beautiful for having pulled herself singlehandedly through those struggles.

It’s no small thing for someone who has had to exercise immaculate control to give it up. She’d never naturally put herself at a disadvantage, but there she is, underbelly up and exposed, her fire and her ice, her past and present offered up to me so tenderly.

It’s a heady thing and I can’t move. I’m frozen in my boots, my toes touching the edge of the blanket, my heart rattling in my ribs, sputtering and backfiring, running too rich and then too lean.

Why the fuck didn’t I ask one of the guys at the club for some advice? How do you take that step from solitary into more? I want to, but all that naked trust is terrifying. I’m so worried that I’ll fuck this all up that I can barely get started.

Lynette curls upright and pats the blanket beside her, her expression bordering on concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I—yeah.”

“I know we came out here to have this special, romantic moment, but if you want to head back, I’m okay with that.”

I bend over, unlace my boots, and toe them off so damn fast. “I don’t want to head back.” I’m shitting myself over how nervous I am, but I hadn’t realized I was being so fucking obvious about it.

Lynette takes her boots off, sighing and massaging her feet. “I don’t know how you wear those clunkers all day.”

“You get used to it.”

Her index finger brushes over my hand. I have them tucked behind me, leaning hard on them in an effort to appear casual. “Are you nervous?”

It’s hard to give her an equal amount of vulnerability. I know what it’s cost her, because it’s nearly impossible to peel back all the parts of yourself. It physically hurts.

“Are you?”

She breathes in slowly and exhales, pushing her breath out like she does during yoga. I thought I’d blocked those mornings from my mind—her bent over, contorting her gorgeous body into all those wild shapes while I pretended to have my bodyguard shit together and not notice.

“Not nervous, really. More like terrified.” She tilts her head up to the stars. “Willa said we could just work out our frustrations physically, but I’m not the kind of person who can do that.”

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