Next To You (21 page)

‘Yep,’ he said, overtaking a Cadillac, passing a pickup truck, and weaving in and out of traffic.

‘What’s next, a handbrake turn?’

Will glanced at her quickly. ‘I’m so sorry. Am I frightening you?’

‘No.’ she laughed. ‘I’m having fun. You’re so sedate when you drive your Volkswagen, but now …’

‘But now?’

‘Now,
The Dukes of Hazard
comes to mind.’

‘Yeeee-ha!’

***

Alex spun the key ring on his finger, around and around as he stood beside the beat-up baby-shit-yellow van. He’d set his bag of ‘groceries’ on the ground and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it as he peered around the van’s front end. In a few minutes, she’d walk through the supermarket’s automatic doors, and push a shopping cart to the old Triumph Spitfire that had been her grandpa’s.

He’d waited for her all day today. His stomach hurt a bit from all the waiting. He’d had four slices of pie as he waited, as he sat lost in memories and fantasies until the number 22 bus she took home passed by the plate glass window of the diner where he’d eaten all the pie.

He’d spent most of the afternoon at the diner, drinking coffee and eating pie and the cinnamon twists he’d made, until her bus went by. When he left the café, he drove to the street adjacent to hers and parked close to the alley spot near her place. Settled in position across the street, he’d kept an eye on her for the rest of the evening. He’d watched her walk her stupid rat-on-a-string dog, watched her stand outside and chat with the same-sex couple in her building, watched her go inside, and watched the lights glow in her apartment.

It was getting cold; Indian summer was ending. The chill made the urge to piss more urgent, as did all the coffee he’d dunk. Close to seven, his overburdened, coffee-laden bladder decided to exert another urgent need. He’d gone to piss beside the dumpster in the alley and nearly missed her Spitfire pulling from the laneway alongside her building.

Frantic, he’d sprinted to his Mustang and drove the direction he’d seen her go. He’d been about to give up and circle back to park up the street from her place, to camp out there until her lights went off, but he spotted her car in the brightly lit parking lot of a Dominick’s supermarket.

Chilly, he leaned against the baby-shit-yellow van in that parking lot, he wondered if he’d be able to get into her car and wait for her there, where it would be a little bit warmer out of the evening breeze. It was an old car; the cloth roof would be easy to lift. It would be simple to jimmy the lock and slip into the passenger seat, except Alex knew that was creepy. He didn’t want to frighten her. He just wanted to talk.

Mostly.

Shivering, he had to piss again. He left the paper grocery bag that he’d filled with fast food refuse from his car at the side of the van, and moved to the back. He whizzed against the rear tire.

A better, more civilized idea would be to offer to help put things inside her little Spitfire. He could follow her back to her place, and then offer to carry her groceries upstairs, but for some reason he liked the thought of meeting her as she pulled into her garage. Once she’d pulled into her garage he could help her take the bags from the trunk, and then maybe … he could fuck her on top of the car like he had once before.

Jesus, she had liked that.

She’d pulled him down on top of the car. She’d liked how he pushed up her dress and moved the elastic of her panties aside. His jeans bunched around his knees, and she’d liked wrapping her legs around his weight as the little car bounced and their flesh slapped …

‘Just what is it you’re doing, exactly?’

Cock in his hand, Alex lost the lurid memory. He stuffed himself back into his jeans and zipped up, turning, saying sheepishly to the man who’d spoken, ‘Oh, I’m so embarrassed. I’m really sorry. I’ve had too much coffee and I wasn’t going to make it insi …’ His eyes level beneath the paper white chin of a well-dressed man who stood with his legs slightly apart, hands behind his back. Lit up by the nighttime orange lights of the parking area, hard eyes stared down from a broad white face.

Caroline’s big boyfriend leaned forward. He spoke quietly, calmly. Alex found himself leaning in to listen above the sounds of the cars moving in the lot.

The man said, ‘I’ve been watching you watching her. I’m surprised you don’t have a pair of binoculars. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what your history is. I don’t care if you still think you have a relationship with her. If I see you hanging around again, if you come anywhere near her, near her apartment or where she works, if you try to touch her, you
will
eat your fingers one by one. Do you understand?’

‘Go to hell, you ghoul,’ Alex croaked.

A big palm flashed forward to settle against the van just beside his right ear. Alex jerked back to avoid it, his head
clunked
against the rear window.

‘Tell me you understand.’ It was murmured with quiet coolness.

‘Fuck you, Casper.’

‘That’s not very original. Try, fuck you,
Mister Casper
.’

There was another rush of movement. Alex found himself nose to nose with a large face, his head framed between two big arms. He wrenched sideways, turning his cheek into the van’s metal exterior. ‘Let me know when you grasp my meaning.’ The man whispered into his ear.

Alex heard himself splutter hoarsely, ‘Jesus Christ. Okay. Okay. I get it!’

‘How very fortunate for you.’

Will grasped the back of Alex’s jacket collar, lifting him, leading him like a wayward schoolboy towards his Mustang, his toes barely on the ground.

‘Take out your keys, get in your car, and go home, Alex.’

Alex got in the Mustang, and turned over the ignition.

Will shut the door and the car peeled off across the lot, shooting into southbound traffic. He watched until the old Mustang disappeared in the night.

He didn’t like what he’d just done. He’d taken a leap out of the box of his easy life and it was oddly satisfying, weirdly revitalizing. For a moment he thought it made him feel younger, but more than anything he felt awake when he hadn’t even realized he’d been sleepwalking through life. The sensation fueled his limbs better than a jolt of morning caffeine.

He jogged inside the store and apologized again to Caroline for having to return that very important phone call.

Chapter 9

Maybe it had something to do with watching an episode of
Biker Build-off
with him. Perhaps it was because she was comfortable with him, comfortable enough to do anything. Whatever it was, somehow Will had persuaded her to climb on the back of his motorcycle for a short ride to Quincy’s.

Only now, after she had pulled on a leather jacket and a helmet with a built-in wireless speaker and microphone, Caroline had second thoughts. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,’ she said.

‘You’ll be fine. We’ll just zip over there and I’ll drop this off,’ he said, stuffing an envelope into a black pouch that looked like an old Pony Express saddlebag. He straddled the seat, his leather pants making a creaking noise, and he held the bike steady. He offered his arm. ‘We’ll be fine, Caroline. Trust me.’

Pulling down the helmet’s visor, Caroline took his sturdy arm and swung a tentative leg over the seat to settle in behind his back. It was instantly claustrophobic. Heart
ka-thumping
, perched on the pillion, the big bike wasn’t even moving, and she waited for the panic attack to set in, but William didn’t give her time.

The bike came to life with a throaty rumble. Two seconds later, he pulled away from the driveway, and she squeezed her thighs together, careful to keep her feet out of the way of the long chrome muffler pipes. Two seconds after that, she dug her chin into his shoulder, wrapped her arms high under his armpits, and her fingers wove together in desperate prayer.

Will stopped the bike. His black-booted foot came down on the pavement. He turned and smiled at her through the visor of his helmet. One gloved hand reached back to rest on her thigh and he spoke over the rumble of the motorcycle’s engine, ‘Okay, Squirt, listen,’ he said, the sound coming through the speaker in her helmet. ‘Please put your arms around my waist. It’s easier to steer if you’re against my back instead of under my arms. Follow my body as I move, but if you see me come off the bike unbuckle your fingers or else you’ll be dragged along with me or the bike, all right?’

She nodded.

He patted her leg and then moved into traffic.

She clung to him, hating that the helmet wouldn’t let her bury her face in the leather on his back. ‘This jacket I’m wearing isn’t safe, is it?’ she said. ‘Maybe we should do this when I have a better leather jacket, one more like yours instead of a crappy, thin, leather blazer and a pair of jeans. I need big boots like yours too. I need combat boots and a flak jacket. I don’t know how I let you talk me into this. I want to get off.’

‘Don’t we all?’

‘I don’t think this is going to excite me to that point.’

‘Give it a minute or two. You’ll love it.’

‘What if I don’t? Can you slow down a little?’

‘I’m not even doing fifteen miles an hour. Are you really scared?’

‘Scared? No William, I’m
petrified
.’ Caroline dug her fingers into his jacket, hard, trying to get through the leather and into his skin. They went over a small dip in the road and she rose up off the seat almost the same way she did on a roller coaster, which made her want to wrap her legs around him and hang on like a koala gripping a tree.

‘You’re perfectly safe with me,’ he said.

‘I am?’

‘Of course you are. You can trust me.’

‘This is an issue of safety, not trust.’

‘Tell me something, did I accost you the other night?’

She said, ‘What night?’

‘The other night, when we slept on the couch, did I make an inappropriate move?’

‘No.’

‘I had ample opportunity, didn’t I?’

‘How would I know? I was fast asleep.’

‘You know I was the perfect gentleman you think I am, but to be honest I
let
you believe I was asleep. In reality I had you cuddled to my chest like my old little white sock monkey. It’s been a while since I simply slept with a woman, and I enjoyed it. It was a prime, grade-A, first class, top-drawer way to snooze. You were pressing yourself against me, snuggling up, and don’t think it didn’t turn me on. It did.’

‘What?’ Caroline had liked it too. A lot. She just wasn’t game to say it like he just had.

‘Did it turn you on too?’

‘Did it what?’

He laughed. ‘Come on. I know the headset works; you can hear me. Don’t be coy, Caroline. Did you dig sleeping with me as much I dug sleeping with you?’

‘Did I
dig it
? What year is this Will, nineteen sixty-eight?’ Of course she dug it. Of course she thought it was
groovy
. He felt safe. He felt like soft shelter. He felt sexy. He
looked
sexy in his black leather get up; it practically had her drooling in the same way when she saw him climb off the sofa the other morning, his tie askew, rumpled shirt untucked, hair sticking up. That morning, she waited for an awkward moment to pass between them. She’d waited for him to mention how they’d spent the night together. She’d waited for her face to catch fire, for the flames to burn her ears, when he walked into her apartment that morning, but the flash of heat never came. William walked into her house, joked about her yoga pose, smiled, and her heart did something surprising.

It quivered.

Quivered
.

It quivered and … and she had to stop this ridiculousness before it went any further, before she revealed she had developed a nonsensical crush on him in the last two weeks.

‘Yeah, you dug it too. I bet your face is red, isn’t it?’

‘William … maybe we need to talk about this again.’

‘I bet your face is probably a very pretty shade of red or a bright baby pink. I like that. I like when your face goes rosy. It’s pretty cute.’

Her grip slackened, and she lifted herself slightly, putting her head closer to his, trying to get a look at him, but knocking her helmet against his. ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘I’m saying lawyers, such as myself, and magicians know it’s all about misdirection. It takes a certain skill to mislead your audience.’

‘What?’

‘Tell me something Caroline, how fast are we going?’

‘I don’t know, but you’re certainly going in a new direct …’ She huffed. ‘You
shit
. Oh, you’re good. I never saw sleight of hand performed quite like this before. This is how you defused Yvonne’s anxiety on your first date, when she was freaking out about the violence in
Bonnie and Clyde
. You steered her attention away from the gore by kissing her.’

‘It worked well on you, didn’t it? I told you were safe with me. We’re doing eighty and you’re totally relaxed.’

Within a few minutes, he slowed and stopped the Fat Boy in the driveway of Quincy’s house. Her arms remained hugged around his middle. He put his hands over the top of hers.

‘Holy crap, I’m underdressed,’ she said, looking at the arched granite front of Quincy’s Romanesque Revival
mansion
. Holy crap. She knew someone who lived in an actual mansion. ‘I know you said Quincy was wealthy, but you didn’t say he was filthy, stinking, swimming in big bucks wealthy.’

‘Don’t worry. He’s just a normal guy who happens to have an obscenely healthy bank account. Okay, Squirt, you can stay on or hop off while I park.’ He squeezed her hands.

For a moment, she stayed where she was. Finally, she took her arms away and slid off the left side of the Harley, pulling off her helmet, resting it against her hip, fluffing her flattened hair.

William moved the bike back and engaged the kickstand. He climbed off, removing his gloves, and flipped up the tinted visor. He pulled his driving glasses from his nose, removed the helmet, and stuffed the glasses and gloves inside.

It was hard to not watch as William did these simple things. Caroline wanted to get on the bike again so she could snuggle back into him. Instead, she handed him her helmet and watched him strap it next to his on the ape-hanger handlebars. The experience had been exhilarating, but she wasn’t exactly sure if that was because she survived the ride, or because she liked hearing she’d been a sock monkey cuddled to his chest.