“I do.” He looked intently at her. “It’s one of the reasons I love music. If I want to motivate myself or cheer myself up, I just play certain music.”
“Me too.” She reverted to their initial topic. “I would love to go, but my Wonder Woman costume was damaged in my last rescue mission—can I go incognito as a normal human?”
“Much preferred. See you outside infifteen?”
She nodded.
Fifteen minutes later, she wheeled her bike out front. She snapped on her helmet.
“What’s in the backpack?” Jake asked.
“Suntan lotion, picnic blanket, water and a bare minimum of food supplies in case we get hungry.”And no work phone.There was no way her job was going to interfere this time, and she didn’t trust herself not to check her phone if she brought it.
“And there’s no vendor within sight?”
“What can I say? I get grumpy when hungry. I like to beprepared.”
“Spoken like a true scout.” He asked, “Any chance you’ve got some of your homemade chocolate chip cookiesin there?”
“I gave all the homemade ones to you except for those I sampled to make sure they were edible. But I have some apples and some powerbars.”
“Wine?”
“I thought we were going for a biketrip.”
“I’m not the one who brought an emergency food supply.” He biked towards Columbus Avenue. “Let’s pick up cookies at Levain Bakery.”
“Now you’rethinking.”
They biked over to Levain Bakery, and she held the bikes and his helmet while he went inside.
“This completely defeats the purpose of the bike ride,” she said as he handed her the bag of heavy cookies and she added them to herknapsack.
“Depends on the purpose. I’m thinking of a fun afternoon enjoying the view of the Hudson River and the park.” He biked ahead. Audrey kicked herself mentally, thinking that maybe the online dating algorithm understood her better than she did herself, and Dan really was her right match—why, oh, why had she said that the purpose of a bike ride was exercise? She was doomed to a life offly-fishinglectures. She raced to catch up to Jake and pulled next to him at thered light.
“Okay, up or down along the river?”she asked.
“We’re heading up. I have the afternoon planned, including dinner.”
The whole day. Including dinner. Audrey buzzed with excitement, but she couldn’t. She should go into work. She really should. And she had left her work phone at home. She couldn’t even check it in the bathroom. He bicycled ahead towards the river. But she’d regretted it the last time she had ditched their date to write a brief. She might not get another chance. She could work really late on Sunday and Monday.
She caught up. “I’m impressed. I love going for bike rides. I did a semester abroad in Amsterdam and I loved that I could bike everywhere.”
“One of my best summer jobs was working as a travel editor for my college’s travel guide. I covered Holland one year, so I spent the summer there. I loved it,” Jake said. They passed the bronze statue of Eleanor Roosevelt and entered RiversidePark.
“My semester abroad at the University of Amsterdam ranks as one of the best times of my life,” she said. She’d been “off.” The classes had been stimulating yet doable.
As they entered the biking lane by the Hudson River, Audrey glanced over at the rippled blue water. A few sailboats floated out and about; a tugboat chugged up the Hudson. Across the river, New Jersey’s coasts were green forest with tall beige buildings poking out likesentinels.
“I did a year abroad in Australia. Great fun. If music hadn’t taken off, I might’ve moved back there aftercollege.”
They swapped stories about their adventures abroad, laughing out loud as each sought to impress the other. Jake won. They moved to bike single file to allow another person to pass and then returned to biking next to each other. She breathed in thesaltyair.
“Okay,” Jake said. “Top five favorite countries that you’d return to in a heartbeat.”
“Holland, United Kingdom, Kenya, Costa Rica, Spain. You?”she asked.
“Australia, Kenya, Vietnam, Italy, Scandinavia.”