Page 42 of Filtration Play
“Damn, that beauty handles so well.” He ran a hand over the body of the Ducati.
“What’s your dream bike?” they asked.
“God, it changes all the time. But I’d love to get my hands on an old Suzuki GSX-R750. Just to see how it feels.”
“Do you own one?” they asked as they began to walk toward the beach.
Ollie shook his head. “Nah, bought my car at seventeen, an old Subaru Legacy, and I’ve continued to repair that one. Maybe down the line, once I start making enough to afford something nicer, but the past few years have been about settling in my apartment and job.”
Fin wrinkled their nose. Ollie was so mature they often forgot how young he was. Twenty-one was a decade ago for them, and it had been a decade filled with discovery, all bruises, skinned knees, and split lips. The temptation to give him shit about his age rose in a big way, but they’d already seen him flinch over comments. That was a sensitive spot. And bratting was only fun if everyone was on board. “An old Suzuki would be hot as fuck to drive. Have you ever thought about doing a long bike drive?”
“God, I’d love that.” He jammed a hand into his pocket. “That sort of trip might get kind of lonely, though.”
“Come with me” brimmed on the tip of their tongue, but they swallowed the words back. What the fuck was happening to them?
However, Ollie was one of the few people they felt at ease around. Who quieted the loudness that sometimes emerged in their head. The crew at Whipped was their family, but everyone had started to couple up. Had begun to find the person they went to first about problems, joys, celebrations, and the loneliness had tugged at their heels a bit more. How long would it be until folks drifted away and forgot about them? Found their own families and left the one at Whipped?
He cast them a wry glance. “Growing up with four siblings makes having space complicated. You need it, but too much and you miss the chaos.”
They let out a low whistle. “Damn, I can’t even imagine having that much family, let alone ones I’d miss.”
“Were things always rough?”
The question was innocuous, sure. But oh, the way it sliced through.
Because the years of Dad’s drinking, his outbursts, his rage had compiled to the point they couldn’t see anything else. Couldn’t peel back to the before times. And watching Mom silently accept all thosethings, refusing to stand up against him, to stand up for them stacked a wall higher and higher between them.
It hadn’t always been like that.
However, the good memories hurt more than anything.
“We did normal family shit when I was real young.” Fin stared out at the expanse of the water before them. The late afternoon sun glittered over it, filled with the hope and promise they’d left behind a long time ago. The sight of the Golden Gate Bridge cutting its mark against the bright blue sky struck them square in the chest. They’d witnessed this view countless times through the years, but in the past, they’d been by their lonesome.
Yet here Ollie stood next to them. Their mind drifted to memories they hadn’t broached in a long, long while.
“Dad lost his job. The unemployment hit around the same time his mom and dad, my grandparents, died in a car accident caused by a freak storm, and then he started to drink. He probably always had those tendencies but never enough for me to notice. So he got stuck in that spiral, and…well, he never climbed out of it.”
Honestly, some days, they were terrified of becoming him. Of experiencing too much pain and losing themself.
They were so broken it would only take one more push to shatter.
“I’m shocked that didn’t happen to my dad when Mom died,” Ollie said.
Fin risked a peek in his direction. His shoulders were hunched, and he stared out at the sea too, as if a glance would cost too much.
“I barely knew her,” he said, “but my older siblings still get wrecked around anniversaries. Dad sinks into his depressions, and with all of us out of the house, I worry about him by his lonesome.”
Fin swallowed hard. They were far out of their depth with this exchange of feelings. Once in a blue moon, they’d engage with theirfriends, but they were the first to crack a dark joke to detour out of this territory.
And yet the pull toward Oliver Hale was magnetic, one they no longer wanted to deny.
“You visit, though, don’t you?” Fin said, their skin prickling. “All of you.”
“Oh yeah.” Ollie chewed on his lower lip. “As much as we can.”
Fin’s throat tightened. The envy rising in them mixed with warmth in the same breath. “It only took knowing you and Julian to gauge, but your family, you care about each other a ton. It’s so damn clear.”
Ollie’s eyes met theirs, the unsaid growing stark in the air between them.
