Jake’s bike leaned against a tree with half the bark missing, and he walked up and caressed the handlebars with loving pride.
“I’d let you ride on your own, but the throttle’s been touchy, plus it’s dark. But if you want to another time, I’d be happy to teach you.” The metal was all hollowed shadows and oily-dark gears, and the plastic body was shined and buffed over intense, hard-worn scratches.
“I think I’d like to. When you have time to show me.” I imagined, for a minute, the thrill of riding break-neck over some wide open space, the hum of the engine vibrating through the frame and up my hands and arms while the tires collided with the ground just long enough to propel the bike up and forward on another explosive burst of speed.
“Anytime. You’ll get your license soon. You can drive over and meet me at the track after work if you want.” The excitement in his voice made me bounce on the balls of my feet, and I wondered if running on my own two legs would manage to keep giving me the same thrill after all this unbridled speed. Jake handed me a helmet out of a backpack on the ground near the front tire. “I brought an extra one for you. I wouldn’t ride without one, you know. Even if I didn’t have you looking all sexy, glaring at me like that.”
“I think it’s a real problem that you find me sexy when I’m pissed at you,” I griped, sliding the helmet over my head.
Jake fished under my chin and adjusted the strap. “Why’s that?”
“I think you get off on getting a rise out of me.” I reached into the helmet and brushed my bangs back. The fashion-obsessed part of me was dying to see what I looked like with a helmet on. My bike helmet was an entirely different animal and, dorky as it might be, I had a desire to see myself in this cooler helmet.
“I also think you look hot right now. That helmet suits you.” Jake gave the helmet visor a playful slap and adjusted my goggles. He put his helmet on, and I felt that rush of edgy, crawly, fluttery, breathless goodness that sometimes made me see little pinpricks of black at the edges of my eyes when I looked at him. Jake Kelly made my senses reel big time. He swung one leg over the seat and kickstarted the bike, coaxing a roar from the engine. “Hop on and hold tight,” he ordered over the rumble of the engine.
I jumped on behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and clung tight to the bike with my thighs. For a few seconds, the engine roared, then sputtered a little, but Jake pressed on the throttle and it went back to a rhythm more like a deep purr.
“Ready?” he yelled.
I squeezed him tight to let him know I was.
“Keep your feet on the pegs!” he called, and we took off through the well-worn forest paths. At first it was all chokingly scary midnight black, the burning stench of gas fumes, the jarring lurch of the bike over ruts and bumps in the path, and I clung to Jake for dear life, positive I was going to fly off the back and wind up with something important broken.
But he cruised out of the woods and we raced into a wide open field. The trees had been hiding a perfectly round, bright full moon, but it shone down on us now and illuminated what looked like a rough track. Jake pulled onto it, and I felt his body relax under my fingers, like his muscles were happy and satisfied to be where he belonged.
I had watched, my heart lodged in a choking lump right at the base of my throat, while Jake flew around the track at races before, but I had never been on the bike because it had always been so completely Jake’s territory. But as we got closer to each other, the things that were important to each of us tangled and intercepted until we were wound tight and intertwined.
Jake coasted and looked at me over his shoulder. “Wanna jump?”
My heart picked up a startlingly quick rhythm, leaping and diving in my chest. Fear of jumping made my mouth dry and my palms sweat. My stomach knotted and my arms tightened around his waist until I was sure I was cutting off his air supply.
“Okay.” The word warbled out of my throat and he snapped the throttle. My eardrums expanded against the screaming whine of hot metal preparing to take off.
The bike tripped forward with unsteady, gasping skips, and Jake had to take us one circuit, then two, to smooth the belching pace. When we finally came to the base of the jump, he leaned forward slightly. Because I had my hands clamped around him for dear life, I leaned forward too, and I scanned the situation, my mind working quick, dismal calculations.
This would neverwork. The bike would seize. Or flip. Or die and leave us in midair, about to crash to the ground in a crunched, broken heap. I attempted to say something, anything to Jake, but my voice was caught in my throat, raspy and stuck. I kneaded and squeezed at this sides, but he only turned around and gave me a swift, confident smile before he looked forward, apparently oblivious to my sheer, terror-shrouded panic.
Maybe it was my good fortune that I knew next to nothing about operating a bike, because all of a sudden we screamed up the dirt ramp, and then it was pure weightless flight.
I clung to Jake so hard, I was fairly sure he’d have fingernails imbedded in his skin for weeks, but I peeked one eye open over his shoulder. My stomach rose just a tiny bit in my abdomen, just enough that I felt the sickening/thrilling pull of anti-gravity. Under my body, the heavy weight of metal and plastic that had anchored me to earth was pulling away, slowly, and there was this trick couple of seconds where Jake and I were two people clinging to each other in the cool night air, flying high up over the dirt without anything grounding us.
It was like floating. It was like sucking big lungfuls of breath in until you were so dizzy you could faint. It was like running to an edge and diving over just to enjoy those flighty few seconds where you were suspended in midair.
And then we crashed back to the ground with one huge thump, and every sensation that had been suspended whooshed back tenfold. The bike jarred me and shook my entire body, my helmet rocked back and forth, the scream of the engine battered my ears, the smell of the exhaust choked me, and a small meteor show of dirt and mud flecked up on me.
Jake cut the engine and got off the bike, holding it steady so he could look at me. “You like?”
“I love,” I croaked out, my voice spent before I’d even had a chance to shriek or laugh or cry. “I know everyone says it’s like flying, but it’s like daring, right? It’s like playing too close to the edge, then just hurtling over it.” I wrapped my arms tight around him and breathed the sweaty/clean mesh of his skin coated with mud and sweat. “Can we do it again?”
Jake hopped back on and we roared through jump after jump. After three I was able to extract my fingers from his skin. After five I gave out a terrified whoop of adrenaline-based joy. After seven I was planning on getting my own bike, and then Jake’s sputtered out. It wasn’t when we were super high, but we were high enough that I could hear his angry curse as the bike flew forward and bit the dirt with more malice than it had before.
He jumped off and pulled me with him, steadying the bike with one arm. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. What about your bike?” We both looked down at the unpredictably amazing machine, now spent and maybe done for.
“It’s fine. I know what to do to get it working again.” He pulled the helmet off my head, and strands of my hair, activated with static electricity, buzzed around my face. “Don’t worry about the race.”
“It stalled when we were low on the jump. What if you were higher?” I felt a chill of fear rattle up and down through me. “Jake, that could have been really shitty. Why don’t you just use the bike your family sent? Who cares?”
Jake put his hands on the handlebars and pushed with his full weight, moving the massive bike with slow, steady steps. “It’s not that simple.”
“So explain it to me.” I followed him while he leaned the bike against a tree and marched back to the clearing and the bag where my helmet had been.
It was hard to keep pace when Jake anger-walked. “Don’t ignore me. Explain.”