Page 59 of When We Were Reckless
If only he knew how untrue that was. On top of everything else, I was a shitty friend too.
I pulled on my helmet and gloves, mismatched because I was always losing one, and climbed onto my dirt bike. A two-stroke I’d modified for freestyle. A real beast. Cool as shit with custom orange, black and white graphics.
No sooner had I gotten my bike out of the garage than my mom turned up, sporting a visor, a polo shirt, and shorts. She was carrying a jug of water, and a gigantic tote bag was slung over her shoulder as if she was planning to stay the night.
“Did Dad kick you out of the house?” I joked as she marched right past me and grabbed a beach chair from the back of my garage.
“If you insist on risking your neck for this sport, I’m not going to let you do it without supervision, now am I?”
“So you’re going to sit in the heat and watch me do jumps? What if you get heatstroke?” We’d had thunderstorms last night, but now the sun was burning through the clouds, and it was going to be another scorcher.
“I won’t get heatstroke,” she scoffed. “I’ll sit in the shade, and I brought my Kindle and snacks.” She patted the bag on her shoulder. “So, don’t you worry about me.”
“You do know I’m twenty-seven, right?”
“It doesn’t matter how old you get. You’ll always be my baby. So I’ll always worry about you. I worry about all my kids. But right now, I’m especially worried about you.”
I knew this because she’d told me at Sunday dinner last week. “I’m getting back on track.” I rolled out my shoulders. “Getting my life back together. So you don’t need to worry about me.”
For the first time in months, it felt like I was telling the truth. I smiled at her just to prove it.
She nodded, a slow smile forming on her face. “Good.” She patted my shoulder. “Because I can always tell when you’re lying. You’ve never been very good at it.”
About an hour later, when I stopped for a water break, my mom looked up from her Kindle. “So… have you met anyone special? A nice local girl, maybe?” She sounded so hopeful. My mother’s greatest wish was to have all her kids married and settled and living within a ten-mile radius.
“You need to stop reading those romance novels.”
“When the right one comes along, you’ll know it. And just like Jude and Brody, you’ll be a goner,” she said with a knowing smile.
I didn’t want to crush her hopes by telling her that I’d given up on love, so I remained silent.
* * *
I decided to drive my pickup. It didn’t seem like a good idea to rock up to a doctor’s office on a motorcycle.
“This was really unnecessary,” Quinn said on the way to Austin. “I’m perfectly capable of going on my own.”
I side-eyed her. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. My gaze lowered to her crossed legs. When she caught me staring, she tugged down the hem of her little white dress. It was so short it barely covered anything.
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to go on your own because I’m taking you.”
“Watch the road.”
Reluctantly, I returned my gaze to the road.
“We’re going to be early,” she complained.
When I’d shown up, she had just gotten home from the gym, and I’d given her exactly ten minutes to shower, change and get in my damn truck. She hadn’t been too happy about that. In fact, I’d never seen her this grouchy.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled.
In my experience, when a woman said nothing was wrong, it usually meant the opposite.
“Come on, Sunshine Girl. Tell me what’s going through that pretty head of yours.”
She sighed loudly. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”
