Page 25 of For The Weekend
Shit. I’m proud of her, andI’mthe one she’s turning inside out.
And I think it’s time for her reward. “Give me your bike.”
She blinks, confused. “What? Why?”
“Just trust me.” I hold out my hand, and she hesitantly wheels her bike over.
“What’re you gonna do with it?”
I lift the hunk of scrap metal. “Trash it.”
“What?” she nearly shrieks.
“How long have you had this bike?”
“I don’t know. About a year.”
“You’ve ridden this piece of shit for a year?”
She shrugs. “It was free, and I’m not going far.”
“That’s not the point.” I imagine her falling off the damn thing from the chain breaking again or having a flat tire in the middle of the road and getting into an accident. “This thing is dangerous for you to ride.”
“It’s not a unicycle,” she argues, and I stare at her for a moment, thrown off. The way her mind works. What I wouldn’t give to crawl into her brain for an hour or two.
“You’ve ridden a unicycle before?”
“I tried, andthat’sdangerous. I went face first into thepavement. I had blood?—”
“Please stop.” I close my eyes, not wanting to picture her bleeding or hurt.
She elbows my side, laughing. “The big guy gets queasy, huh?”
Only from the idea of her injured, but I’m not about to give myself away like that, so I motion for her to follow me around the block and across the street. She chatters away the whole time about nothing in particular. I open the door to my shop to a few curious glances from Luis and Shawn, but I pass by them silently as Eloise waves to them, greeting them happily.
I set down her rusted deathtrap because it’s going in the trash as soon as she’s gone, and then I tell her to close her eyes. I take her hand in mine to lead her to the back, positioning her so she’s facing her new bike.
“Open.”
There are a few seconds of silence, and then she lets out a low breath. “Is this…for me?” When she brings her eyes up to mine, I nod, and she covers her mouth. “Oh my god.”
I’m not sure if that’s a goodOh my godor bad, and I rub my hand over my beard and jaw. “Do you like it?”
She circles the bubblegum-pink cruiser, gingerly running her hand over the white leather seat, up the frame to the handlebars with the giant bow, and down to the wicker basket in the front. It’s a little girly.
A lotgirly.
But I assumed she’d like it.
Yet, she’s still not saying anything. I wait patiently until she turns back to me, tears in her eyes. “Roman…”
I lift my eyebrows in question.
“Is this for me?”
“Yeah.”
“You bought it for me?”
