Page 39 of Lily's Eagle

“Whoa, I don’t know about you, but I need a drink after that,” he says, breathlessly, his eyes sort of glowing.

“There’s no alcohol on the Rez,” I say automatically.

“Then we’ll go somewhere else,” he says. “I passed a barn full of it on the way here, if nothing else.”

“I should…maybe stay…”

He’s looking at me very intently and kind of forlornly, waiting to hear the rest of what I’m going to say, making me forget all my arguments.

“Come on, let’s go,” he says once I fall silent again. “Don’t you want to spend some time with me? Aren’t you glad I wasn’t killed just now?”

He chuckles as I look at him sharply. “Of course I’m glad you weren’t killed. But what are you doing here anyway? Did Cross send you?”

He chuckles again. “Come on, I’ll tell you all about it over a drink.”

Way to go, avoiding my question. He takes my hand and I let him lead me back to his bike. I feel eyes following us and I smile at a few people, but only get somber expressions back. He remembers to pick up his helmet from the grass where he tossed it, and when we reach his bike he opens the seat to reveal my helmet, the black and red one I used to be forced to wear when I was younger. I don’t wear it anymore, because I love the wind in my hair too much.

“I thought you might need it, so I brought it,” he says as I stare at it and make no move to take it and put it on my head.

“Thoughtful of you, but I’m good,” I say. “What’s life without a little risk?”

He shrugs, puts his on top of mine and closes the seat. “We’ll see, I guess. Though maybe we already used up all our luck today.”

He chuckles at his poor attempt at a joke, and I ignore it.

“You have a lot of questions to answer, just so you know,” I say as he mounts his bike and waits for me.

He grins at me. “Yeah, I know.”

I’ve ridden on the back of his bike so many times over the years that climbing on behind him feels like coming home in a lot of ways. Maybe I should get off and go back to the memorial. I don’t know if I should go back down the road that leads back to Sanctuary. I’m trying to leave it behind.

“Let’s go,” I say anyway, and the bike rumbling to life beneath me just completes the ideas of home in my mind. And the wind in my hair, as we ride off, the night in my face and Eagle to hold on to, is the cherry on top, I guess.

The ride doesn’t last long. Not nearly long enough. And in some ways it’s too long.

He stops in front of the huge liquor store in the abandoned town just outside the Rez, which is lit up and full, even fuller than it was on the day I came here.

“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” I say, eying the drunk people stumbling around on the lawns and sidewalks, some even on the road. Even more are sitting around, leaning on each other and whatever else there is to lean on.

“The nearest other place to get a drink is at least an hour away,” he says. “I don’t feel like riding all that way right now. I feel like getting at least halfway drunk. Besides, what is it that they say? When in Rome something.”

“You’re being mean,” I snap.

“They’re hopeless drunks,” he counters as he dismounts. “I’ll be right back. Stay with the bike, just in case.”

I thought him having kissed me and me rejecting it would make our next meeting awkward. It hasn’t yet. Maybe it’s because we’ve known each other for so long and so well. But more likely it’s because of that scene with the guns.

He returns fast, carrying a bottle of vodka, a carton of juice and a couple of white coffee cups.

“They didn’t have orange,” he says, showing me that it’s apple juice. “But this goes too.”

He hands both to me to hold.

“And now what, we just plop down anywhere?”

“I thought we could find a nicer spot,” he says, gets back on the bike and takes off.

And a couple of minutes later, he does in fact find a much nicer spot. He’s good at that kind of thing. It’s a little clearing in the grass under a tall tree with a trunk wide enough for both of us to lean against. A wall of lush bushes with meaty leaves hides us from the people in the sorry town and there’s nothing but the starry sky above us and the road full of twinkling red and white lights leading off into the distance.

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