Ride All Night

by Michele De Winton

  “I’ll set you two up for the weekend.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, little bird. I’ll set you up.”

  She paused, her slice of margarita half eaten, her eyes suddenly sparkling. “What sort of pizza does he like?”

  “Anything with meat on it.”

  Her face fell.

  “Surely a woman can’t subsist on margarita pizzas alone?”

  “I’m vegetarian.”

  “Oh. Right. You don’t have to eat the same pie though, do you?”

  “True.”

  Rusty snorted.

  She looked down at the photographs again. “What about in this one? Where are you all?”

  Rusty looked at the photo of the four of them, sun-drenched, standing on a pier, and grinning at the camera and let himself fall back into the memory. “It was summer. We’d gone down to Mexico to visit my grandma, my dad’s mom.”

  Beth looked up at him. “And?”

  “And what?”

  She held up the photograph. “And what else?”

  “I caught a fish. Grim didn’t. I gave him mine.” Despite his lack of dialogue, Rusty remembered the moment precisely. His grandmother had taken him aside and given him an amulet of Saint Joseph. He was like his dad, she’d told him, and one day he’d be the man of the house. The man of the family. When she looked Rusty in the eye, he saw how she’d seen him: strong, tall, ready to take charge. And so when his dad had died and his mother had fallen apart, he stepped up and Grim had let him.

  “I always wanted an older brother,” Beth said wistfully and he looked at her sharply, checking she wasn’t making fun.

  “Why?”

  “It was just me and Mom and Dad. Having someone else there would have taken the pressure off.” She took a deep breath and he waited. Something was coming and he didn’t want to steal her moment. “I wasn’t very well when I was younger. So they poured all their energy into me.”

  “You’re okay now?”

  “Fine. I’m totally fine. And I’ll always be grateful for everything they did for me. They’ve supported me in everything I do. Always believed in me.”

  “They sound great.”

  “They were. They are. But a girl has to find her own feet at some point, right? So I came out here. I think if I’d had a sibling the pressure wouldn’t have been quite so intense. You know, to make things happen. And make a difference on top of it too.” She straightened. “But it’s okay. Because they are happening. I’m making sure of it.” The grin she directed at him warmed him to his very core but she seemed to catch herself and her face changed. “And you’re helping, so thanks. Maybe while we’re working on this show you could be my big-brother surrogate.” She took a huge bite of pizza. The warmth in his stomach dissipated.

  “Sure.”

  She nodded, as if they’d made a pact, and returned to eating her pizza in earnest.

  This was good. It made things clean and clear. So why did her thinking about him as a big brother make him want to head downstairs and take an engine apart? “I’m going to watch a movie.”

  “Great. What have you got?” She leaned back on the sofa. Big brother, big brother. Scanning through the list he found Grim’s latest: motorbikes and torque in every scene. “Something with motorbikes in it. Probably not really your cup of tea.” He sat, a little farther away from Beth, but because the sofa was old, the sag drew them together.

  “Perfect. This is the one Grim is in. Great. Two parts of research in one, right?” Her voice was the same as it had been before, but there was an edge to it and when he looked down, he noticed that her hands were tightly holding onto the edge of her cushion. Using it like a shield between the two of them? Or to stop herself from touching him in case she felt . . . something like you’re feeling? Stop it. You’re setting her up with your brother. But he didn’t clench his thighs quite as tightly, and when the sag of the couch led them inevitably closer and closer together, he didn’t feel as badly as he should have that her thigh pressed up against his.

  Watching his brother scream across the screen on a bike that really should have been better tuned, Rusty wondered, for the millionth time, what it was about his brother that sent women, nice women like Beth especially, into palpitations about him. Sure, all women liked a bad boy, but the character Grim played had a renegade attitude without a cause. And in real life he was less bad boy, more boy band. In fact, when Grim had first been cast as a biker Rusty had roared with laughter, and told the Hell’s boys about it. Something that hadn’t gone down well with his brother. To be fair there had been pranks, but Grim should have been able to take them. Like Beth said, it was research, right?

  But the biker roles were just a stepping stone, according to Grim. A way to show his versatility. Now that he’d been in LA a while though, Rusty wondered if any of the bad-boy habits Grim played on-screen had a closer connection to Grim’s life than his brother let on. And he wondered whether the gambling debt he’d worked off for his brother had had as much to do with bad luck as Grim said.

  The film was average. An all-action no-character thrill fest that should have appealed to Rusty simply because of the sheer number of bike scenes. But the bikes weren’t well tuned and all he could see were the faults in the action sequences, driving round and round the plot holes.

  Beth however, was captivated. When Grim tore through a warehouse at top speed and burst through the fake wall, she gave a little scream and leaned in to Rusty’s chest. He clenched his jaw, hell, he clenched pretty much everything but he didn’t pull away. Neither did she. Tucked in at his side he could smell the fresh, bright scent of her hair. A smell that was so out of place in his daily life that it stole his entire concentration. Compared to oil, grease, and man, Beth smelled like his memories of summer. Like cut hay and sunshine, and wildflowers in a vase. He could almost taste the lemonade his grandmother used to make them down in Mexico. And then Beth moved and he caught another scent. Her musk. The tension ricocheted through his body again, but this time headed straight down and his pants suddenly seemed too tight.

  Beth leaned forward to grab another piece of pizza and he couldn’t help it, he watched how the top of her dress stretched over her chest and gave him a quick glance at the slope of her breast.

  Not helping.

  He watched her take a bite and close her eyes a moment as she chewed. “Is it cold?” he asked?

  “Yep. Man, I love cold American pizza. Almost more than hot pizza. I know this isn’t like cold, out-of-the-fridge cold, but still.”

  Finally, the tension released a fraction and Rusty snorted. “You should write down some of the shit you say.”

  “No seriously,” she said, her focus still on the movie. “I always thought that pizza was pizza, but yours is so much better than ours back home. And all the New Yorkers I’ve met say that it’s even better in New York. I, seriously, cannot wait to try it.”

  Grabbing a slice of his own, Rusty leaned back and took a bite. His body taunted him as his leg brushed against hers but he just chewed, solidly, and ignored the clamor in his bloodstream. Hell, man, calm the fuck down. If someone had asked him to rate loving cold pizza as a contributing hotness factor, he would have laughed. What the hell was he doing letting her under his skin like this?

  Just then the hero on-screen pulled his bike to a screeching halt in front of the heroine and Rusty watched Beth watch the TV. Their dialogue was about as cheesy as the pizza in front of him, but he saw Beth follow their every word. Her face softened, her eyes widened, and when they moved in for the kiss, she squirmed so close to him that Rusty couldn’t help but throw an arm across the back of the couch to support himself against the sagging in the middle. She fit. Man, she fit, and his whole body was hell-bent on trying to talk his brain into letting her fit a whole lot closer.

  He stood up, needing to get away from her. “Beer?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Something else?”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got a gin and to
nic?” Her face was cute, her nose wrinkled, eyes wide, clearly not expecting him to have any and he found himself smiling.

  “You suppose right.” He headed for the kitchen and came back with two beers. “This is all I’ve got.”

  She sighed. “That’s the worst thing about working at Wilde’s. I thought it would be social, you know, work in a bar, meet people, get together after work. But when they clock out, everyone is drunk or on their way to getting drunk and I’m sitting in the corner making polite conversation like an idiot who no one remembers in the morning.”

  “Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. You don’t drink?” He’d flipped the top on his but stopped halfway through opening hers.

  “Not that much. And not beer. Or bourbon. Or pretty much anything else that they serve at Wilde’s.”

  “Right.” He grinned suddenly. “Did you ask for a G and T at Wilde’s?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not with that accent.” She imitated his terrible attempt at a British monarch crossed with an Australian cowboy. “What’s wrong with a G and T anyway? It’s refreshing.”

  He snorted and the tension lessoned further. “Maybe you just haven’t tried the right sort of beer.”

  “You mean one with water and hops and malt? Oh, yes, I have. They all taste like dog’s piss. That’s what my dad would say.”

  “Shit. Your dad doesn’t like beer? Please don’t tell me he drinks G and T too?”

  “He doesn’t drink at all. Neither of my parents do. I think it’s a hangover from when they were working full-time on project Get Elizabeth Better.”

  Get Elizabeth Better? But before he could ask her what she meant she was distracted by a huge crash in the film. She gasped as the hero’s bike slid under a moving car. The heroine ran to him and as she held the bloodied body, light rain began to fall. If Beth hadn’t been there, Rusty would have thrown a cushion at the TV, but when he heard a sob, he looked down to see that her face was crumpled, her eyes welling. Seriously?

  “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but it’s a movie, you know that, right? He’s going to be okay.”

  The joke brought a small lift to her lips, which widened when she thumped him with a pillow. But when the credits rolled she sobered again and reached for his beer, taking a long slug. “I guess it doesn’t taste completely of dog piss.”

  “Oh, gee, thanks.” He reached for the other one and left her to finish his. “Maybe your dad got it wrong. Dads do that, you know.”

  She looked at him sharply and he was struck again by how bright the green of her eyes was.

  “It was a struggle for my parents to have me. They tried for years and then, when I finally did come along, I got sick and it made my legs wonky. I had to have leg braces for years. And then a bunch of operations.”

  “Shit.” He went to stop the film, but then thought better of it, instead turning it down and letting the credit music run out so she didn’t feel like the spotlight had focused on her. “Sick?”

  “Polio.”

  “But isn’t there—”

  “A vaccine? Yes. Mine just didn’t work. And then I somehow contracted this disease that is almost eradicated in first-world countries. But look at me now.” She threw up her hands in a parody of a Broadway musical exaltation. “Jokes aside, I’m lucky. There are plenty who aren’t. So I have to make it. I owe it to all of them.”

  “Big goal. Don’t you think that’s quite a lot to put on yourself?”

  She shrugged.

  “And you’re fine now?”

  “Except for the fact that I’m flat broke, I’m fine, yes. I was in braces for eleven years. Most of my childhood. I was in and out of the hospital before that too. Until you’ve been stuck in a hospital ward for months by yourself you can’t even begin to know what boredom is. Luckily I loved reading fairy tales when I was a little kid but I’ve found out life doesn’t always have such happy endings.” She took a breath and took another sip of beer, then made the cutest face when she remembered she didn’t like it. “I dunno, I guess after the whole struggle of having me, and then the never-ending circuit of doctors’ appointments to get me walking, even when so many of them said I’d never walk again . . . maybe my folks forgot about drinking.”

  “Or they were too scared to.”

  She looked at him as if he’d stumbled into the darkest recesses of her closet.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

  “No. You’re right. They were scared. Scared of everything. You wouldn’t have known it the way they fought for me. I got to do everything any other kid in my class did. Swim class, school trips, pony riding.” She looked up at the TV but he could see she was looking through it. “There was always an edge. They wouldn’t let people define me by my disability. But they defined themselves by it.”

  Rusty let her go on, watching as her face flicked between triumph, frustration, and sorrow. Then, when the pause lengthened, he felt obligated to fill it. “So you came out here to get away from too much attention?”

  “No. Yes. Sort of. My parents have been amazing. Are amazing. They’ll probably still be amazing when they’re ninety years old. And they supported me when I went into acting, even though so many people fail. I didn’t leave to get away from them, I left so that they could have a break from me.”

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t want that.”

  “Exactly. They wouldn’t want that. But they totally needed it. Can you imagine spending your whole adult life being defined by looking out for someone else? I mean, I know all parents do that, but giving up literally everything else that defines you to care for another person. That’s my folks. And they deserve better than that. They deserve to have more than that. Especially when I’m fine now.” The way she said the last sentence was so fierce, so strong that Rusty reached out and put his hand over hers, needing to touch her. For a moment she looked up at him and he saw all the hurt in her face. The strength it had taken to prove the doctors wrong, the triumph that she had. And he thought he saw a glimmer of how hard she was working, right now, to be the perfect daughter so that when her folks called she could be fine and not cause them any more worry.

  He looked around for something to make her feel better, to let her rest from working herself so hard for a moment, and his eyes settled on the photographs she’d brought over from the bookcase. “Grim was a klutz as a kid. He used to try and follow me up trees but he always got stuck, or fell down, or got a stick through his shin.”

  There, he’d picked the right topic. Beth turned to look at him and the torment in her eyes was already lighter. He couldn’t help himself, he wanted to stoke that glimmer of light even while he knew it was because he’d mentioned his brother.

  “I remember once we were on vacation, at the beach, down with my grandmother, the one I told you about. She lived not too far from a beach. It wasn’t a beautiful white sandy beach or anything, probably polluted if I think hard about it, but we were kids. It was hot, we didn’t care. We’d run down there one day after lunch, and the world was baking. So hot you couldn’t walk over the sand to get to the water. I climbed a tree and it was cool there. Grim stood at the bottom for ages, trying to work out the best branch to use to climb up. In the end I started throwing pinecones to get him to come up. He started climbing, but before he could get halfway up, a squirrel freaked out and ran down the tree trunk, over his hand, and down his back. Now he’s freaking out and wiggling all over the place, so the squirrel bites him on the ass before it runs all the way down the tree and up another one.”

  “Oh my god. Was he okay? Did he fall?”

  Rusty chuckled at the memory. “Nah. He just hollered for help ’til I climbed down and showed him where to put his feet.”

  Finally, he was rewarded with a big grin from Beth. “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “For sharing that with me. For pulling me out of my own arse. Grim is lucky to have you for a brother.” She grinned again. “Even if you did let a squirrel bite him on the butt.”

 
Rusty snorted. “Wasn’t my fault. He just invites that sort of thing.”

  Beth’s smile grew gentler. Just then the lights flickered and a howl of wind blew at the window.

  “Man, it’s getting wild out,” Rusty said, standing to look out the window.

  “Yes.” She stood, smoothing down her dress. “I’d better get going.” She pulled out her phone and booked an Uber. “Are you still okay about me staying here while we work on your project?”

  “Sure.” Really? Rusty though about what just sitting next to her on the sofa had done to him. No, not really. But he’d done it now.

  “Great.” She started toward the door and he followed, watching the exaggerated way her hips swayed after sitting on the saggy couch for too long. Thank goodness she wasn’t staying tonight.

  There was an awkward silence between them, then Rusty walked toward her again. “Let me help you down the stairs.”

  “Oh, no, I’ll be okay. You’ve done heaps already.” But he pushed open the door and walked with her down the stairs toward the main entrance, the bench lights below the only illumination.

  “Thank you for tonight. For telling me all that stuff about your brother.”

  “What about the cold pizza and the beer?”

  “That too.”

  He didn’t want her to go. At the workshop door, she turned to him, but just as she did the lights flickered again and then plunged them into darkness.

  “Might be a broken fuse.” Rusty fumbled his way along the wall until he found the fuses and flicked a couple of switches but nothing happened. “Shit.”

  “Power’s out?”

  “Looks like it.” Leaving his hand on the wall he headed back toward the sound of Beth’s voice and where he knew the main door was.

  “I can’t see anything,” she said.