by Lake, Keri
“How does what feel?” I hissed, and at a sharp throb along my shin, I winced.
“To conquer your fear.”
I paused, dumbfounded, and looked back to the building and the chimney I’d just climbed down. Ninety feet high inside a cramped space. Something I wouldn’t have willingly done, had someone paid me.
“Offer’s still there, if you want a ride home.” Twisting around to face me, he walked backwards, sliding a pair of gloves onto his hands. “Or you can wait for your Uber. Your choice.”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Ty.”
“I’m Sera. As in Serafina.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Rearing back, I frowned, folding my arms as I followed after him. “Um. How?”
“Bea! Simone! It’s Sera! Wait for me!” His hands waved dramatically in the air, mocking me.
Biting the inside of my cheek stifled the urge to laugh. “Right.”
“So, Serafina. Named after the angels.” He came to a stop in front of a sleek black motorcycle hidden in the brush, and handed me a helmet he pulled from somewhere on the other side of it.
“What are you, a religion major?”
He smirked and looked past me for a moment, as if checking to make sure no one had followed us.
Paranoid, I checked, too, before shifting my attention back to the impressive machinery standing before me. “I’ve never been on a bike before.”
Lips screwed to a wry smile, he mounted the bike and jerked his head for me to get on behind him. “Well, this night just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it, Sera?”
2
Sera
My mother used to say that to get the best fruit, you had to go out on a limb sometimes.
Clearly, she was the complete opposite of my father, which explained why their marriage didn’t last beyond the first year I was born. My father had tried to create order in my mother’s chaotic world, and she’d fought to add color to his bland existence. In the end, I guessed she’d decided the money wasn’t worth his monochromatic lifestyle, and took off with me before he could sap her vibrancy.
It wouldn’t have taken a gunman for my mother to hop on the back of a motorcycle with a complete stranger. She’d have called it an adventure, whereas I sat clutching the mid-section of the man I’d just met, wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into for the second time that night. About the only thing that brought me some comfort was recognizing the buildings we passed on the roads.
The bike roared and hummed along Jefferson, while the wind lashed across the helmet that’d begun to suffocate me. Part of me felt exhilarated, the other half terrified, holding on for dear life, as he wheeled through the streets, at well over the speed limit, judging by the way we zipped around the other cars. Beneath his black sweatshirt, I could feel the solid muscles of his body, could tell that he worked hard to maintain them, by the rock-hard thickness between my arms.
It confirmed what I’d already suspected—if the guy got a wild hair up his ass to take me somewhere and hurt me, he wouldn’t break a sweat doing so.
The angle of the bike that he referred to as a Ducati had me pressed against his back tighter than I’d have liked, though that could’ve been the death grip I kept on him, too.
Within minutes, the bike slowed to a rolling stop in front of my apartment building.
“This the one?” he asked over his shoulder, giving a nod toward the outdated building sat on the corner of Harmonie Park.
My muffled yes hardly carried through the thick helmet, as I pushed my breasts from his spine and righted myself on the seat, relieved he’d actually taken me home, instead of some remote abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere.
I unfastened and removed the helmet, stealing an easy breath for the first time in hours, and climbed off the bike. When my feet hit the pavement, I could’ve kissed it.
He sat up on the bike and ran his hands over his brown hair, which was just long enough to grab. Behind me, the moon shone bright, casting a dazzling brilliance to the blue in his eyes.
I handed him the helmet and shrank at his attractive face, tucking my chin into my shirt. “Thanks for … the save, the climb, the ride.” I lifted my hands, which still carried the soot from the chimney. “The need to take a shower.”
No sooner had the words come out than my cheeks flared with embarrassment.
His cheek dimpled with a cocky smile, giving a natural sort of deviance to his eyes. “I’m going to need a shower, too, after that.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so I stepped back onto the curb behind me. “I’m sorry I freaked out back there like a …”
“Like a what?”
“Like a frightened little girl.”
“We’ve all freaked out like a frightened little girl at one time, or another.”
“You? I doubt that. You’re like … I don’t know.” I rubbed the back of my neck, falling into something foreign, something my mother would’ve chuckled about and called cute. I’d always had a certain confidence about me, scar or no scar, but the guy stirred excitement in my stomach like a hurricane in a butterfly house. “Crazy.”
“I’ve heard that once, or twice.”
“Well, I’ve got a … roommate to bitch out, and a long day of class tomorrow. So I’ll …” See you? Likely not. “Thanks again.”
“Anytime, angel.”
With a nod and a truly awkward smile, I spun around and jogged up the stairs toward the front of the apartment. I turned to see that he’d waited until I reached the door before he fired up the bike and took off.
If I were my mother, I’d have gotten his phone number.
But I wasn’t, so I dragged my exhausted, adrenaline-sapped ass to bed.
* * *
Dude. You don’t just leave a fucking party without telling anyone.” If Bea hadn’t been holding an ice-filled sack to her already blackened eye, I’d have knocked her in the face.
Fortunately for her, she’d gotten home after I did the night before, so the hours of sleep I managed in between held my temper in check.
“I left you?” My forehead twitched with a frown as I stared at her. “Are you high? Again? I watched you leave! You left me there!”
Aside from that shittiness, I’d spent half the morning searching for the bracelet I’d worn the night before—my mother’s bracelet. The one I hadn’t bothered to take off in, oh, about eight years. The other half of the morning, I’d spent sobbing over the loss, making a promise to myself to look for it more thoroughly once I got home from class. With a tricky clasp, it wasn’t the first time I’d lost it, but my fear was that it’d fallen off in that shithole, where I’d never find it again.
“Sweetheart, we looked all over for you. It’s you who left us first.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Dax, Simone, Theo, some friend of Dax’s. A whole damn search party went after your ass!”
“Which friend?”
“Hot guy with the hoodie.” Knees pulled into her chest, she bit down on a granola bar. “How’d you get home, anyway?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but the hoodie guy drove me home. Who is he?”
“Never met him before. Dax says he’s kind of crazy, with some of the stunts he pulls. But damn, he was right up my alley. So, he gave you a ride, huh?” The taunting tone of her voice made me want to smack the double entendre from her lips.
“What happened to your eye?” I asked, ignoring her question.
“Yeah, so, remember the guy I was with? Theo?”
“The guy you walked away and left me and Simone stranded for? Yes.”
“Okay, anyway.” She rolled her eyes, packing her cheek with another bite of granola. “He accidentally spills his beer on this asshole at the party.” A piece of food popped out of her mouth as she garbled the words. “So Theo apologizes up and down, but the guy is fucking psycho, or something. Says he was looking for someone and lost sight of whoever it was. So he starts wailing on Theo. Then I step in
to break it up, and one of them, I still don’t know who, knocks me in the face.” She lowered the makeshift icepack to reveal a purple mess beneath and the red bloodshot whites of her eye, the sight of which left me blinking to hold back a grimace. “So we left. I heard the place got shot up right after that. Somebody took a bullet to the chest, I guess. Good thing you skipped out early.”
I inwardly rolled my eyes, gathering up my books for class.
“You still don’t leave a party without saying something, though. Seriously, I thought I was going to wake up to hear about your dead body floating down the river, or something.”
“Well, lucky you. I’m still here.” Books in hand, I headed toward the door.
“I am glad about that,” she shouted after me. “Just so you know!”
* * *
The mind had a tricky way of dealing with trauma, so it really didn’t hit me, until I had just breached that thin membrane between consciousness and falling asleep. Every time I started to drift, I’d hear a gunshot that’d snap me awake. That’d happened about a dozen times in the night, so when I finally reached my first class of the day, I could hardly keep my bowling ball head propped up long enough to stay awake.
Warm plastic slid across my tongue, as I sucked the saliva from my pen and pushed it into the side of my cheek. My hygienist would’ve probably chided my ass if she saw me, but first classes made me nervous, sitting surrounded by a bunch of strangers, and I needed something to distract me from the heavy tug of sleep pleading for one quickie snooze and the absolute disgust at having lost my bracelet.
“I didn’t peg you as a Criminal Justice major.” The familiar voice behind me snapped me awake like a cold bucket of water. I swiveled just enough to see sprawled legs that led up to a slouching body, and those striking blue eyes, staring down at me from the seat directly behind me.
Ty. The guy from the party. Holy shit, talk about a small world.
“Are you in this class?” I asked over my shoulder, trying not to rouse the few students who, like me, preferred the seats at the back of the lecture hall.
“No.” The deep vibration of his voice tickled my ear and cast a shiver down my spine.
No? The shiver morphed into a shudder—not the good kind.
“In this class you will be introduced to statistical techniques and quantitative reasoning and methodology for examining crimes.” Below us, the prof prattled on about the many advantages of modern technology and the advancements of forensic investigation since he’d first started out. Blah blah blah. “The case studies we’ll be using throughout this course will be those that affect our city, which include racial profiling and human trafficking. According to the FBI, agents worked over two hundred cases of human trafficking in Michigan last year …” The prof’s voice trailed off to the thoughts spinning in my head, and a disturbing realization hit me in all of my half-sleep stupor.
“Did you follow me?” I asked over my shoulder, keeping my eyes forward.
“I wanted to see you again.” His breath scattered across my neck, giving some proximity to how close he’d leaned forward.
“Why?”
“It’s only natural. When two people experience a mutual trauma. Together. They form a sort of bond with one another.”
“Bond.” I’d be lying if I said his words had no effect on me. The sound of his voice over the professor’s sent my mind to the gutter and had me crossing my legs, imagining a different kind of bonding experience.
Something shiny dangled in my periphery, and I twisted to see my bracelet. “Thought you might want this back. Found it on the foot peg of my bike.”
I swiped it from him, and the relief of having it back had me locking my lips to keep from squealing like a pig in a shit bath, completely overshadowing the suspicion that he’d followed me. “How the hell …”
“Might want to have that clasp looked at. I was going to return it to you last night, but you’d already gone inside.”
“Thank you. Truly. I searched all morning for it. And I’m glad to know your being here was more than traumatic bonding.”
“So you didn’t think about me last night?”
Of course I had. In fact, because I hadn’t slept much, at all, I really couldn’t stop thinking about him. Every time the gunshot went off, I’d hear his voice telling me it’d be okay. “Did you?”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
“You don’t even know me,” I volleyed back.
“I want to.”
Not to sound self-deprecating, but his interest in me made no sense. And it wasn’t as if he knew who my father was, or how much money I had, for that to be the basis of his curiosity. Hell, one look at my apartment had probably put the brakes on any plans to mug me the night before. Call me cynical, but I just couldn’t bring myself to accept that our little survival stunt together had had that profound of an effect on him. “I can’t. Trust me when I say, I’m not your type.”
“What’s my type, Sera?” A tickle at my shoulder alerted me to his brushing my hair to the side, exposing my neck.
I shifted in my seat, growing uncomfortable with his persistence, and shoved the capped end of the pen into my mouth. “I don’t know. Not me,” I said around the half-chewed plastic.
“Why not?” he whispered in my ear, and it wasn’t so much his words as their pulsating effect that traveled all the way down to my bones.
A splintered crack sounded at the split of the pen where I’d bitten down too hard, and I set the instrument off to the side.
I wanted to tell him that I’d had some shitty experiences with assholes, and more baggage than a jumbo jet during the holidays. Bad at love didn’t begin to describe my affinity for train wreck relationships. Completely clueless and prone to disaster seemed to fit better, and I sure as hell didn’t trust myself jumping into another at that point in my life.
“The answer’s no. I’m sorry. Look, I—” I turned around to find the seat empty behind me.
The girl to my left slid a confused glance my way. For a moment, I swore I’d lost my mind and imagined him, but his cologne lingered on the air, telling me he’d actually been there.
And I had to believe he’d followed me from my apartment that morning.
3
Sera
Shit. I was so going to be late. My Thursday classes typically ended at eleven, which ordinarily gave me a half hour to get home, change, and walk to Mama D’s, the popular coffee shop where I’d scored a job through Simone. She didn’t work there herself, but she’d apparently been drinking Mama D’s famous coffee since she was old enough to fill her sippy cup, or so she claimed. Simone also knew the owner, Deirdre, the real Mama D, whose house brew and egg sandwiches were as much a staple in the city as Telway sliders and Lafayette’s Coney dogs.
Rain drizzled just enough to coat my hair and skin, adding a cold bite with the September winds beating against my face. The acrid scent of sulfur hit me like a rotten egg buffet, as I passed the steaming manholes lined along the street.
I hustled down the block, tugging my Chucks at the heels to keep them from sliding off, since I hadn’t had enough time to actually tie them, and ducked beneath the scaffolding. If my asshole prof hadn’t taken her sweet ass time explaining the assignment to us, I might’ve skated out of class on time. As it was, I’d be lucky to get to work twenty minutes late.
By the time I reached Mama D’s, I was a sopping mess pushing through the front door, to where the lunch crowd packed the few tables inside. Didn’t matter that most of what the small café sold was breakfast food, the place never stood empty for very long, which was great for tips, bad for Neveah, Deirdre’s granddaughter and the only other server, who glared at me as I made my way around the counter.
“Girl, where’ve you been? I’ve not had a break since seven this morning!” Neveah studied business management and hoped to, one day, carry on her grandmother’s legacy by taking over the little shop. Unlike her sweet, carefree grandmother, though, she ran the
place like she planned to design war missiles, keeping a close eye on what everyone else was doing, and criticizing things done wrong.
“Sorry, my prof let us out late. It won’t happen again.” I slid the loop of the apron over my head, knuckles brushing the soggy mop of hair I imagined looked like a big blue bird’s nest set atop my head.
“I hope not. Simone spoke highly of you. I’d hate to have to let you go.”
Granted, I’d never owned a business myself, but it seemed Neveah had much to learn in the way of employee morale and creating a sense of loyalty.
“Oh, don’t fuss like that, Neveah. We got along just fine for a few minutes.” Mama D peeked over the counter, separating the kitchen from the main coffee house. “D’you even ask her how her day went? She looks soaked to the bone! Whyn’t you get some towels and dry yourself up, baby.”
That was Mama D. Truly one of the reason’s I’d come to love my job.
“Sorry, Sera.” Neveah’s lips thinned with remorse. “It’s been a stressful first week of class for me. I’ll grab you some towels.”
“S’okay. How ‘bout if you take your break? You need it. It’s just rain, it’ll dry.”
Neveah disappeared into the back of the restaurant, and with all the customers having been served, I crouched to tie my shoes, but at the jingle of the front door, I scrambled to finish my laces.
“Well, look what the wind blew in!” Mama D’s jubilant voice always brought a smile to my face, the way she greeted every customer who walked through her door. No wonder the city loved her so much. “Where you been, Ty? Ain’t seen you ‘round in the last week.”
I froze, my forehead tightening with a frown. No way she was talking about the same person.
Gripping the edge of the counter, I lifted just enough to catch his tousled hair and sharp blue eyes. Rising up from my hiding spot, I watched his face flicker with intrigue as he approached.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
