(no subject)
I'VE CAUGHT UP! In fact, according to the NaNoWriMo word checker craph, I've caught up to tommorrow's word goal. Muahahaha.
I've introduced James' love interest. She had to show up sometime, after all, and they ARE in a gang. Where you're supposed to start young. Don't worry, tough, she does want to. And they're soulmates, so it's alright.
And, hey, I had my first girlfriend at age twelve. Here we go. 30,164 words!
“James, this is stupid. You’ll crash.”
“I’ve been taking lessons. I won’t crash.”
“You’re only twelve.”
“You forgot. It’s my birthday. I’m thirteen today.” I flip my visor down and gun the engine, leaving her behind.
On the way to the warehouse I have to go down a long straight, and I decide to find out how fast my bike can go. I pull onto the center line, in between the two lines of traffic and shoot forwards, gaze flicking to the speedo every couple of seconds. 70… 80… 100… 115…
A blue and yellow blur goes past in the other direction, and suddenly there’s a siren. I keep speeding up. I don’t think they had time to see the license plates, and they’ll have a hard time turning around. I shoot through a red light and turn left, hard, onto another street. I do the same thing at the next intersection, and the next, until even I don’t know where I am. Then, quickly, I dart down an alley and turn off the engine. I listen as hard as I can with my helmet on.
Engines. The blast of a horn as someone else pulls an illegal maneuver. Squealing brakes.
No siren. I’ve lost them. I turn the bike back on and slowly back out of the alley, keeping to every road rule I can remember, just driving until I find familiar territory, then go to the warehouse as fast as I can without risking another chase.
I roar into the warehouse, and there’s Job. He looks up fast at the sound of my bike and almost pulls a gun out before I take my helmet off and he realizes it’s me. He still looks tired, but he seems to have forgotten. He jumps out of the chair and kind of jogs over.
“Wow, where’d you get that? It’s awesome.”
“Joan gave it to me for my birthday, this morning.”
“Oh, that’s why you’re late then? Been honing around on it?” He shakes his head, in imitation of my dad, but he’s smiling. “I’ll have to watch the reports and see if you got spotted.”
“Actually, I did, and that’s why I’m late. I lost them, and I don’t think they saw my license plate, but I lost myself too. Had no idea where I was.”
“Well, fair enough.” He points at the machine. “I’ve switched it to making double-barreled shotguns. There’s one every three minutes. The trigger action machine jammed up a little while ago, but I fixed it. You can take one home if you like. I’m going home to sleep. Bye, Joan.”
“James. I’m James.”
“Oh, sorry James. You just look so much like your brother, y’know? And I’m tired. Bye, James.”
“Bye Job.” He leaves, and I go sit in the control seat, and pull out my phone. There’s no emails. I laugh when I see someone’s commented on one of my LJ entries that said I went skydiving the other day, and my parachutes didn’t work, so it was lucky I landed in a pillow factory. Someone believes it. Their comment: “I think I saw you. Was this about twenty past three in the morning?” I follow the link back to their page, and it’s the guy who claimed he caught a shark, so maybe it’s not all that surprising he believed me.
Nothing really happens for two hours. I text Julius and chat for a bit. I tell him about my bike, and he says he can’t wait to see it. When he turns up I show off a bit, and then swipe out and head out the door. As I’m buzzing along, five K on the legal side of the limit, I see a car that looks like Joan’s go past in the other direction, so, since I’ve got nothing better to do, I swing around to follow it.
It does look like Joan’s car. What’s his numberplate again? I’m sure it’s him. I drop back a few cars, and wonder how long I can follow him before he notices.
He turns off the main street onto a smaller on, with less traffic, and I go in slowly, only when he turns into another, even smaller street do I speed up, and I reach the corner just in time to see him pull up on the side of the road. I go past the street, and stop on the side, then sprint back round to Joan’s street. He’s waiting outside a building and as I watch, the door opens, and he buzzes inside. He’s got a gym bag on his lap, which bulges awkwardly. I go up to the car, get in and wind the window down. They’re in the first room, by a window, and I can kind of hear what they’re saying. It’s muffled, and when they turn away from the window I can’t hear anything at all.
“Here’s the… ment of… fles. A hun… bag for… dollars.” That’s Joan’s voice. So he’s selling a bag full of rifles, a hundred of them. Is this the King Street Killer guy?
“You know, J… ways say ship… look… minted to me. You say… in America? … a long… and still… such good shape…”
“I’m not… of the ships. You… that. They… them really well.”
Ch-chk. I peer through the window. There’s a guy who looks kinda familiar, holding a rifle, which has just been cocked. He’s looking at it… contemplating.
“… looks new. It’s almost… warm.”
“Could you… that gun? ... uneasy since… your brother…” I stare. Joan’s motioning at himself. Your brother. This guy is José’s brother? I’ve missed some of the talking.
“… About it. Tonight?”
“… ‘K, I’ll… at the place the… Just under… ulu.”
There’s an exchange of money and bag. I get out of the car as stealthily as I can, remembering to lock it behind me, and get back to my bike before Joan’s out the door. “I’ll see you tonight.” That’s José’s brother talking.
“Late night. I’m taking my brother to a party at HQ first. Midnight, after I take him home.” I wheel the bike into an alley so I don’t get spotted, and wait for Joan’s car to drive off, and then race home. I’m there first, and I go up to my room as if I’ve been there the whole time. I just hope Joan doesn’t notice how hot the bike is…
So. Joan’s going to bring me home from the party, and then go speak to José’s brother at Bridge Kanulu, alone?
Not on your life. He’s my brother, and I’ll take care of my brother. And we’re fellow warriors of Bridge Kanulu
* * *
At five o’clock, Joan comes to my room. There’s one of those weird party hats on his head, and he’s grinning so hard I can see all his teeth. He snaps one of the hats onto my own head
“Ready to go, bro?”
“Yep. Hey, can I ride my bike down?” He thinks about it a moment, then shrugs. “Why not? You know the way?”
“Not real well. I’ll follow you.”
“OK. C’mon then. Gimme a hand on the stairs.” I help him down the stairs, we shout bye to Dad, then head for the garage. I put Joan’s chair in the back of the car, and he pulls out. I rev my bike and go after him.
When we get there, he makes sure I lock the bike properly, to a pole, then we go in. There’s a huge, long table, with food. At both ends are barrels, with taps in them. I spot Jonathan immediately. He’s lying underneath one of the barrels, tap pouring beer into his open mouth. Someone kicks him and he doesn’t notice, so they turn the tap off. He’s asleep. I follow Joan to the long table, where we load up on food, and Joan gets himself a beer, and a shandy for me, which is beer with lemonade in it. He says that if I drink shandies, the taste goes for longer, and I won’t get as drunk as fast. I find a chair at the edge of the room and sit on it to eat my food. Joan’s gone to talk business with Job, and I watch the crowd. Jeep’s made me wonder about people my age, and I scan the crowd, looking for someone who looks thirteen.
There’s one… A boy with a chicken drumstick in each hand, eating both. And another… a girl on the dance floor. I stare. She’s got pale blonde hair down to her shoulders and light pink lips. It’s almost as if she stepped right out of my dream.
Well, good, I saved her after all, I think, and then mentally bash myself for even thinking it. It was just a dream, and she’s real. It’s a coincidence, that’s all.
She looks around at me, as if my gaze has magnetically drawn hers. I look down at my food and blush. When I look back up, yes hidden by my hair, she’s still dancing, but she’s looking at me out of the corner of her eye, and her light pink lips are curved into a smile. I look down again. Next time I look up, she’s gone.
Where’s she gone? Where is she? I look around frantically. She’s nowhere on the dance floor. She’s not by the beer taps, and she hasn’t gone to that forest of wine bottles stacked on one of the tables. It’s not until I feel her gaze on me, as she must have felt mine, that I see her. She’s walking towards me, with a paper plate of food. I immediately look down at my food. My face feels like it’s on fire. She pulls a chair up and sits next to me.
“Hi, I’m Julia.”
“I’m, uh, James.”
“Hi, uh, James.” She grins, looking a little bit evil. Like something out of one of those games that come out on the internet every Christmas, where the elves are stealing Santa’s presents. I’ve never seen anything prettier.
“Hi, Julia.” I look down at my food, trying to shake my hair down in front of my face so she won’t see I’m blushing. I don’t have enough hair, and there’s the tiniest snort I’ve ever heard. I peek through the hair over my eyes, and she’s eating, so I do too.
“So, why were you staring at me?” she says, conversationally. I peek at her again. She’s sucking juice off her fingers.
How can she possibly look pretty sucking juice off her fingers?
“Um, you look like a girl I had a dream about once.”
“Ew! That’s disgusting!”
“No, no! Not that kind of dream! I was trying to rescue you from the sharks… HER! I was…” I trail off, suddenly aware of how pathetic I sound. She giggles.
“Why was I surrounded by sharks?”
“Um, Willy Wonka was using you as bait. As a ten-year-old. It’s weird, I know.”
“Dreams are always weird. And what did you do?”
“I dived into the water to try and save you… her… you… Damn, you’ve got me confused. I dived into the water to try and save you, but the sharks started biting me, and then I woke up and it was Joan pinching me to tell me it was dinner time.”
“Sounds like an exciting dream… hang on… Joan, he’s that one over there, isn’t he?” She points. “In the wheelchair with only one arm? You live with him? I’d be too scared…”
“Well, he’s my brother.”
“Wow, I’d have run away if he was my brother. Wait, hang on, you were the one he brought last time, right? The one who got in without having to do knives or the gauntlet?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re so lucky. I did the gauntlet, but I did it really late, when everyone was drunk, and I got to the seventh person, and then knocked two of them out, so they let me in without hurting me too much.” I stare at her again; amazed this girl could knock out two fully-grown men… gang members even.
“Wow.” She blushes.
“I hardly did anything, really, I knocked their heads together when they rushed me. They were so drunk they were almost unconscious already. But anyway, how did you get in on business? I mean, what’s you DO?”
“I, uh, helped Joan on a couple of trips to Canada.” She motions with her hands. Go on. “We were going to get weed to sell here. We made five million on the first trip, and another fifteen after that. The people over there got smarter, I guess.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I got it back here. All I really had to do was hang onto a bag of gingko and look sick, and they’d let us through. Gingko smells like puke.”
“Ew.” She wrinkles her nose up, and that’s pretty too.
“Yeah, it was pretty sick. It worked though. I get a five percent cut, so I got a million from the weed. The gang’s taking care of the money for me. I’m getting paid for the job I’m on now, too.”
“So what job are you on now?”
“Making guns. I get fifty thousand a month.”
“Wow. So you’re pretty rich, then.”
“Yeah, I suppose. What do you do?”
“I fight. I’m training with knives, now.”
“Don’t you do anything else?”
“Well, I’m helping out with the forgery… I’m not too good at it, though.”
“Forgery… Did you do a couple of licenses, just recently?”
“I helped a little, but Jedediah did most of it. I just copied the signature. That’s the only part of forgery I’m good at. I don’t even know what they were for. Why?” She sounds a little suspicious. I pull out my motorbike license.
“This look like your work?” I hand it to her, and she gapes.
“No way, I can’t believe it. You’ve got a motorbike? The gang ran off licenses for you? You’re thirteen!”
“So? Hang on, how’d you know I was thirteen?”
“It says on your hat,” she says, smirking. I’d forgotten I’m still wearing that stupid hat. I rip it off and look at it. I’M THIRTEEN! it shouts. I put it under the seat.
“Yeah, well, I’m only just thirteen. Joan gave me a motorbike for my birthday, just this morning. You wanna see it?”
“Yeah, cool!” I take her upstairs, and show her my bike. I can’t help myself - I unlock it from the pole and drive in circles around her. She claps.
“Can I have a go?”
It’s exactly like Jeep’s request at lunchtime. But Julia’s not Jeep… “Do you know how to drive a motorbike?”
“Well… no.” Her face drops, then brightens up again. “But could you give me a ride?” I grin.
“That might work. Here,” I chuck her my helmet, “you wear it.” She pulls the helmet down over her blonde hair, and climbs onto the bike behind me.
Her arms are around my waist, and I feel the need to tense my abs. Her touch feels good. “Ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s go!” Her voice sounds a little muffled, through the bike helmet. I rev the engine. It’s SO MUCH LOUDER without the helmet.
I roar out onto the street, keeping at a cool fifty. Julia’s arms go tighter around my waist, until I fully believe that she knocked out two gang members. I head out of the town, still doing fifty. When we’re out of the restrictions, though, I speed up until Julia’s arms go so tight it hurts. She squeaks a little when I rev it. The air in my face feels so good. It feels powerful.
I keep driving until the road’s small, and there’s trees. I stop under a big tree, and Julia climbs down from the back of the bike. I kick the stand, and follow her. We sit under the tree, smiling, breathing hard. She pulls the helmet off and her hair’s all messed up. I smile and make movements to fix it, and she doesn’t say anything, so I do. I stroke it down around her ears. They’re small.
Even her ears are pretty.
Suddenly, I realize I’ve kept my hand there too long, staring at her ear, I’m about to snatch it away, but then I feel her arm going around my waist. It tightens. I start pulling her face towards me, my heart suddenly beating really, really fast.
Do I really want to kiss her? I only just met her! Well, she is very pretty, and I like her, and she seems to like me, and anyway, our faces are really, really close together now…
Our lips touch, and my pocket beeps, at the same moment. She springs away, as if she was as nervous as me. I reach into my pocket, pull my phone out and toss it over by the bike. It beeps again. I pull Julia back towards me, and she seems happy enough to come. We kiss.
When the phone rings, we ignore it.
I've introduced James' love interest. She had to show up sometime, after all, and they ARE in a gang. Where you're supposed to start young. Don't worry, tough, she does want to. And they're soulmates, so it's alright.
And, hey, I had my first girlfriend at age twelve. Here we go. 30,164 words!
“James, this is stupid. You’ll crash.”
“I’ve been taking lessons. I won’t crash.”
“You’re only twelve.”
“You forgot. It’s my birthday. I’m thirteen today.” I flip my visor down and gun the engine, leaving her behind.
On the way to the warehouse I have to go down a long straight, and I decide to find out how fast my bike can go. I pull onto the center line, in between the two lines of traffic and shoot forwards, gaze flicking to the speedo every couple of seconds. 70… 80… 100… 115…
A blue and yellow blur goes past in the other direction, and suddenly there’s a siren. I keep speeding up. I don’t think they had time to see the license plates, and they’ll have a hard time turning around. I shoot through a red light and turn left, hard, onto another street. I do the same thing at the next intersection, and the next, until even I don’t know where I am. Then, quickly, I dart down an alley and turn off the engine. I listen as hard as I can with my helmet on.
Engines. The blast of a horn as someone else pulls an illegal maneuver. Squealing brakes.
No siren. I’ve lost them. I turn the bike back on and slowly back out of the alley, keeping to every road rule I can remember, just driving until I find familiar territory, then go to the warehouse as fast as I can without risking another chase.
I roar into the warehouse, and there’s Job. He looks up fast at the sound of my bike and almost pulls a gun out before I take my helmet off and he realizes it’s me. He still looks tired, but he seems to have forgotten. He jumps out of the chair and kind of jogs over.
“Wow, where’d you get that? It’s awesome.”
“Joan gave it to me for my birthday, this morning.”
“Oh, that’s why you’re late then? Been honing around on it?” He shakes his head, in imitation of my dad, but he’s smiling. “I’ll have to watch the reports and see if you got spotted.”
“Actually, I did, and that’s why I’m late. I lost them, and I don’t think they saw my license plate, but I lost myself too. Had no idea where I was.”
“Well, fair enough.” He points at the machine. “I’ve switched it to making double-barreled shotguns. There’s one every three minutes. The trigger action machine jammed up a little while ago, but I fixed it. You can take one home if you like. I’m going home to sleep. Bye, Joan.”
“James. I’m James.”
“Oh, sorry James. You just look so much like your brother, y’know? And I’m tired. Bye, James.”
“Bye Job.” He leaves, and I go sit in the control seat, and pull out my phone. There’s no emails. I laugh when I see someone’s commented on one of my LJ entries that said I went skydiving the other day, and my parachutes didn’t work, so it was lucky I landed in a pillow factory. Someone believes it. Their comment: “I think I saw you. Was this about twenty past three in the morning?” I follow the link back to their page, and it’s the guy who claimed he caught a shark, so maybe it’s not all that surprising he believed me.
Nothing really happens for two hours. I text Julius and chat for a bit. I tell him about my bike, and he says he can’t wait to see it. When he turns up I show off a bit, and then swipe out and head out the door. As I’m buzzing along, five K on the legal side of the limit, I see a car that looks like Joan’s go past in the other direction, so, since I’ve got nothing better to do, I swing around to follow it.
It does look like Joan’s car. What’s his numberplate again? I’m sure it’s him. I drop back a few cars, and wonder how long I can follow him before he notices.
He turns off the main street onto a smaller on, with less traffic, and I go in slowly, only when he turns into another, even smaller street do I speed up, and I reach the corner just in time to see him pull up on the side of the road. I go past the street, and stop on the side, then sprint back round to Joan’s street. He’s waiting outside a building and as I watch, the door opens, and he buzzes inside. He’s got a gym bag on his lap, which bulges awkwardly. I go up to the car, get in and wind the window down. They’re in the first room, by a window, and I can kind of hear what they’re saying. It’s muffled, and when they turn away from the window I can’t hear anything at all.
“Here’s the… ment of… fles. A hun… bag for… dollars.” That’s Joan’s voice. So he’s selling a bag full of rifles, a hundred of them. Is this the King Street Killer guy?
“You know, J… ways say ship… look… minted to me. You say… in America? … a long… and still… such good shape…”
“I’m not… of the ships. You… that. They… them really well.”
Ch-chk. I peer through the window. There’s a guy who looks kinda familiar, holding a rifle, which has just been cocked. He’s looking at it… contemplating.
“… looks new. It’s almost… warm.”
“Could you… that gun? ... uneasy since… your brother…” I stare. Joan’s motioning at himself. Your brother. This guy is José’s brother? I’ve missed some of the talking.
“… About it. Tonight?”
“… ‘K, I’ll… at the place the… Just under… ulu.”
There’s an exchange of money and bag. I get out of the car as stealthily as I can, remembering to lock it behind me, and get back to my bike before Joan’s out the door. “I’ll see you tonight.” That’s José’s brother talking.
“Late night. I’m taking my brother to a party at HQ first. Midnight, after I take him home.” I wheel the bike into an alley so I don’t get spotted, and wait for Joan’s car to drive off, and then race home. I’m there first, and I go up to my room as if I’ve been there the whole time. I just hope Joan doesn’t notice how hot the bike is…
So. Joan’s going to bring me home from the party, and then go speak to José’s brother at Bridge Kanulu, alone?
Not on your life. He’s my brother, and I’ll take care of my brother. And we’re fellow warriors of Bridge Kanulu
* * *
At five o’clock, Joan comes to my room. There’s one of those weird party hats on his head, and he’s grinning so hard I can see all his teeth. He snaps one of the hats onto my own head
“Ready to go, bro?”
“Yep. Hey, can I ride my bike down?” He thinks about it a moment, then shrugs. “Why not? You know the way?”
“Not real well. I’ll follow you.”
“OK. C’mon then. Gimme a hand on the stairs.” I help him down the stairs, we shout bye to Dad, then head for the garage. I put Joan’s chair in the back of the car, and he pulls out. I rev my bike and go after him.
When we get there, he makes sure I lock the bike properly, to a pole, then we go in. There’s a huge, long table, with food. At both ends are barrels, with taps in them. I spot Jonathan immediately. He’s lying underneath one of the barrels, tap pouring beer into his open mouth. Someone kicks him and he doesn’t notice, so they turn the tap off. He’s asleep. I follow Joan to the long table, where we load up on food, and Joan gets himself a beer, and a shandy for me, which is beer with lemonade in it. He says that if I drink shandies, the taste goes for longer, and I won’t get as drunk as fast. I find a chair at the edge of the room and sit on it to eat my food. Joan’s gone to talk business with Job, and I watch the crowd. Jeep’s made me wonder about people my age, and I scan the crowd, looking for someone who looks thirteen.
There’s one… A boy with a chicken drumstick in each hand, eating both. And another… a girl on the dance floor. I stare. She’s got pale blonde hair down to her shoulders and light pink lips. It’s almost as if she stepped right out of my dream.
Well, good, I saved her after all, I think, and then mentally bash myself for even thinking it. It was just a dream, and she’s real. It’s a coincidence, that’s all.
She looks around at me, as if my gaze has magnetically drawn hers. I look down at my food and blush. When I look back up, yes hidden by my hair, she’s still dancing, but she’s looking at me out of the corner of her eye, and her light pink lips are curved into a smile. I look down again. Next time I look up, she’s gone.
Where’s she gone? Where is she? I look around frantically. She’s nowhere on the dance floor. She’s not by the beer taps, and she hasn’t gone to that forest of wine bottles stacked on one of the tables. It’s not until I feel her gaze on me, as she must have felt mine, that I see her. She’s walking towards me, with a paper plate of food. I immediately look down at my food. My face feels like it’s on fire. She pulls a chair up and sits next to me.
“Hi, I’m Julia.”
“I’m, uh, James.”
“Hi, uh, James.” She grins, looking a little bit evil. Like something out of one of those games that come out on the internet every Christmas, where the elves are stealing Santa’s presents. I’ve never seen anything prettier.
“Hi, Julia.” I look down at my food, trying to shake my hair down in front of my face so she won’t see I’m blushing. I don’t have enough hair, and there’s the tiniest snort I’ve ever heard. I peek through the hair over my eyes, and she’s eating, so I do too.
“So, why were you staring at me?” she says, conversationally. I peek at her again. She’s sucking juice off her fingers.
How can she possibly look pretty sucking juice off her fingers?
“Um, you look like a girl I had a dream about once.”
“Ew! That’s disgusting!”
“No, no! Not that kind of dream! I was trying to rescue you from the sharks… HER! I was…” I trail off, suddenly aware of how pathetic I sound. She giggles.
“Why was I surrounded by sharks?”
“Um, Willy Wonka was using you as bait. As a ten-year-old. It’s weird, I know.”
“Dreams are always weird. And what did you do?”
“I dived into the water to try and save you… her… you… Damn, you’ve got me confused. I dived into the water to try and save you, but the sharks started biting me, and then I woke up and it was Joan pinching me to tell me it was dinner time.”
“Sounds like an exciting dream… hang on… Joan, he’s that one over there, isn’t he?” She points. “In the wheelchair with only one arm? You live with him? I’d be too scared…”
“Well, he’s my brother.”
“Wow, I’d have run away if he was my brother. Wait, hang on, you were the one he brought last time, right? The one who got in without having to do knives or the gauntlet?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re so lucky. I did the gauntlet, but I did it really late, when everyone was drunk, and I got to the seventh person, and then knocked two of them out, so they let me in without hurting me too much.” I stare at her again; amazed this girl could knock out two fully-grown men… gang members even.
“Wow.” She blushes.
“I hardly did anything, really, I knocked their heads together when they rushed me. They were so drunk they were almost unconscious already. But anyway, how did you get in on business? I mean, what’s you DO?”
“I, uh, helped Joan on a couple of trips to Canada.” She motions with her hands. Go on. “We were going to get weed to sell here. We made five million on the first trip, and another fifteen after that. The people over there got smarter, I guess.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I got it back here. All I really had to do was hang onto a bag of gingko and look sick, and they’d let us through. Gingko smells like puke.”
“Ew.” She wrinkles her nose up, and that’s pretty too.
“Yeah, it was pretty sick. It worked though. I get a five percent cut, so I got a million from the weed. The gang’s taking care of the money for me. I’m getting paid for the job I’m on now, too.”
“So what job are you on now?”
“Making guns. I get fifty thousand a month.”
“Wow. So you’re pretty rich, then.”
“Yeah, I suppose. What do you do?”
“I fight. I’m training with knives, now.”
“Don’t you do anything else?”
“Well, I’m helping out with the forgery… I’m not too good at it, though.”
“Forgery… Did you do a couple of licenses, just recently?”
“I helped a little, but Jedediah did most of it. I just copied the signature. That’s the only part of forgery I’m good at. I don’t even know what they were for. Why?” She sounds a little suspicious. I pull out my motorbike license.
“This look like your work?” I hand it to her, and she gapes.
“No way, I can’t believe it. You’ve got a motorbike? The gang ran off licenses for you? You’re thirteen!”
“So? Hang on, how’d you know I was thirteen?”
“It says on your hat,” she says, smirking. I’d forgotten I’m still wearing that stupid hat. I rip it off and look at it. I’M THIRTEEN! it shouts. I put it under the seat.
“Yeah, well, I’m only just thirteen. Joan gave me a motorbike for my birthday, just this morning. You wanna see it?”
“Yeah, cool!” I take her upstairs, and show her my bike. I can’t help myself - I unlock it from the pole and drive in circles around her. She claps.
“Can I have a go?”
It’s exactly like Jeep’s request at lunchtime. But Julia’s not Jeep… “Do you know how to drive a motorbike?”
“Well… no.” Her face drops, then brightens up again. “But could you give me a ride?” I grin.
“That might work. Here,” I chuck her my helmet, “you wear it.” She pulls the helmet down over her blonde hair, and climbs onto the bike behind me.
Her arms are around my waist, and I feel the need to tense my abs. Her touch feels good. “Ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s go!” Her voice sounds a little muffled, through the bike helmet. I rev the engine. It’s SO MUCH LOUDER without the helmet.
I roar out onto the street, keeping at a cool fifty. Julia’s arms go tighter around my waist, until I fully believe that she knocked out two gang members. I head out of the town, still doing fifty. When we’re out of the restrictions, though, I speed up until Julia’s arms go so tight it hurts. She squeaks a little when I rev it. The air in my face feels so good. It feels powerful.
I keep driving until the road’s small, and there’s trees. I stop under a big tree, and Julia climbs down from the back of the bike. I kick the stand, and follow her. We sit under the tree, smiling, breathing hard. She pulls the helmet off and her hair’s all messed up. I smile and make movements to fix it, and she doesn’t say anything, so I do. I stroke it down around her ears. They’re small.
Even her ears are pretty.
Suddenly, I realize I’ve kept my hand there too long, staring at her ear, I’m about to snatch it away, but then I feel her arm going around my waist. It tightens. I start pulling her face towards me, my heart suddenly beating really, really fast.
Do I really want to kiss her? I only just met her! Well, she is very pretty, and I like her, and she seems to like me, and anyway, our faces are really, really close together now…
Our lips touch, and my pocket beeps, at the same moment. She springs away, as if she was as nervous as me. I reach into my pocket, pull my phone out and toss it over by the bike. It beeps again. I pull Julia back towards me, and she seems happy enough to come. We kiss.
When the phone rings, we ignore it.