Stoker's Serenity: The Virtues Book IV

by A. J. Downey

  She nodded and said, “I can only imagine.”

  I gave her a crooked smile and was about to say something else when I was interrupted by her friend, keeping to her ‘two-minute’ promise. Here she came, a dude striding alongside her. He was clearly irritated.

  “She wants to go home, Tyler, and I know it’s not fair, but making her stay isn’t fair either,” she was saying to him, and I knew Serenity had caught it, because she visibly wilted, her shoulders dropping, her chin dropping too, her entire body radiating defeat.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not ready to go,” Tyler practically snarled.

  Serenity piped up.

  “It’s okay, I can just wait out here. I would just feel better if I had my purse and keys. I’m really sor –“

  “Hey, no. Don’t apologize,” I said at the same time Linny cried, “Honey, no!”

  Tyler pulled his keys out of his pocket and the lights flashed on a nearby Prius, which figured. The guy looked like a poser and he’d already proven beyond a shadow of a doubt he was a fucking douchenozzle. Serenity made a break for it like she expected the dude to hit the locks and keep her from her things. I half expected him to.

  He and Linny were getting into it and I had to say – I liked Linny a lot for standing up to her boyfriend.

  The way she was looking at him with murder in her light brown eyes said he wasn’t going to be her boyfriend after tonight, though.

  Hell, I hoped not, but as pretty as Linny was, in that tall, blonde, willowy modelesque way, my gaze was drawn back to Serenity, who was pulling her small purse out from underneath the passenger seat of the Prius. Her heart-shaped ass was displayed nicely where she bent over through the open back door of the cage and I’d be lying if I said she hadn’t piqued my interest in the slightest.

  “Look,” I said, stopping Linny and Tyler’s low-key quarreling. “My set is long done, and I’m about ready to head outta here myself. I would be happy to take Serenity home if you guys are all cool with it. I mean, it’s really up to her.”

  All eyes turned to Serenity as she stood frozen in the open doorway of the car, just far enough inside the reach of the pool of floodlight we were standing in for us to make out the surprised expression on her face. She looked at me, and I stared kind of calmly back at her, silently willing her to take me up on my offer. I wanted to get a shot at getting her number.

  I figured that I could give her the ride home, score her digits, and be on my way home to Ft. Royal. Nice and tidy. Plus, I didn’t think she would want a front-row seat to the ugly fight brewing between her friend and her fuckboi. Clearly there wasn’t anything else there, the more I watched the two of them. I mean, I don’t know what the fuck else any female would see in this guy other than the looks, and possibly his taste in music.

  “Sounds good to me,” Tyler said and Linny backhanded him against his shoulder, the slap of her fingers against his studded leather jacket snappy. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing and waited for Serenity to make up her mind. She was looking at Tyler and Linny and her eyes abruptly flicked to mine, where she grabbed hold of the offer like I was throwing her a lifeline.

  “You’re sure you wouldn’t mind?” she asked.

  “Not at all. I wouldn’t have offered if I did,” I said, smiling.

  “You guys, I feel like I’ve already ruined your evening, you go on back inside. I’ll catch a ride from Stoker and I’ll text you as soon as I get home,” she told Linny. “I promise,” she added hastily when her friend looked like she was going to protest.

  The look on Linny’s face said that Tyler was a dead man. I didn’t even feel sorry for him.

  “Look, it’s like a half-hour from here to your place.” Linny held up her phone and the flash went off in my face. I blinked and she said to me, “I’m giving you forty-five minutes. If she doesn’t text me the minute she gets to her door, I’m taking this picture straight to the cops.”

  “Easy.” I waved her down. “Nothing’s going to happen to your friend. I mean, if it does, it will literally be over my dead body. Don’t forget who was there for her inside,” I said and tried to be nice about the stinging remark.

  “Fine,” Linny grated and Serenity came up and hugged her.

  “Got my keys, got my wallet, and got my phone. I promise, I’ll text you as soon as I get there.”

  “God, this feels so stupid,” Linny whispered, and I pretended like I didn’t hear it.

  “It’ll be fine,” Serenity whispered back. “I have a good feeling about it.”

  I tried not to smile and give myself away that I’d heard anything.

  “Cool, thanks, man, I’m going back inside,” Tyler said and Linny scowled but went with him. Dude was about to have a shitty rest of his concert experience.

  “So, uh, where’s your car?” Serenity asked me when they’d gone.

  I laughed and said, “Bike’s over here.”

  3

  Serenity…

  I eyed him with a bit of trepidation that was quickly giving way to excitement. I’d never been on a motorcycle but I’d always wanted to go for a ride. I never thought I’d ever get the chance.

  “You’re not joking, are you?” I asked.

  “No. My bass can go in the van with the rest of the equipment, I can get it from the captain’s place tomorrow. Just got to let him know about it.”

  “Alright.” I gave a nod and slung my purse across my chest where it was secure.

  “Come on, that’s him over there with his Ol’ Lady, Hope.” He jerked his head to a small knot of people in the same jackets and vests with the big octopus patches on the back. I followed along to the side and just behind him as he went up to the people and said, “Hey, Cap. You mind grabbing my bass from the van and keeping it at your place tonight? I’m going to break off from you here and run Serenity home, if that’s cool?”

  The man he spoke to eyed me with a sparkle of mischief in his brown eyes and an easy grin on his face. A tall, lithe woman with hair as dark a brunette as my own and eyes an even darker shade of brown let her gaze rove over me tranquilly from where she leaned into his side.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  I shifted slightly on my feet and replied honestly, “Not really. I just really want to go home.”

  She gave a nod and said, “Stoker’s good to take you. We’ll take care of everything here.”

  I didn’t know precisely what that meant, but I did know she wasn’t just talking about making sure his guitar made it to the house of the man she was leaning against.

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  “No sweat,” the man replied and gave me a wink.

  I gave a bit of a weak smile back and followed Stoker to his bike. He sat down on it after plucking the full helmet with its deeply tinted facemask off the seat. He parked it in his lap and asked me plainly, “You ever ride before?”

  I shook my head and he raked his bottom lip between his teeth and gave a judicious nod before saying, “Okay. Safety rundown first.” Then he launched into some basic rules of being a good passenger. To lean with him and the bike, never against it. To try not to shift too much in my seat, to hold on, and even how to hop off the bike and be sure not to burn myself on the pipes, which would be hot when we stopped.

  He went to help me into the helmet and I asked, “What about you?” before he could put it on me.

  “I have the requisite health insurance, I don’t have to wear it. I just do because I like my face and if I ever bite it I kind of want to keep it.”

  I gave a bit of a laugh and he grinned. “I’ll be fine. I don’t always wear it, just on long rides on the highway. Besides, you’re more important.”

  I felt a certain little thrill at his words, a blush of a strange sort of unexpected pleasure that he would think so, let alone that he would say so… I mean, we’d only just met. Was he flirting with me? I was always so bad at picking up things like that.

  “So, where are we headed?” he asked. I filled him in, gave him directi
ons and he said, “You’ll have to show me. Just point and yell at stoplights.”

  “Okay.”

  He stood up and took off his jacket, peeling the leather vest off of it. He laid the thick leather coat across the seat while he shrugged back into the vest over the fine, sleeveless black mesh shirt he wore beneath it. The mesh was crisscrossed by shiny pleather straps and equally shiny silver buckles. I was a little taken aback by the physique peeking through the mesh of that shirt. The arms were something admirable, too.

  It seemed like a body lean and muscled from hard work and possibly more than a few skipped meals more than one honed in a gym somewhere. He held out his jacket once his vest was back on him and I obediently and silently slipped my arms into the sleeves which were way too long. He rucked them back to free my hands and I took over, pushing the sleeves up to my elbows.

  He got on the beastly motorcycle and turned to eye me. I swallowed hard and got on behind him. He let me get settled before he turned it on, but I still couldn’t help but jump. I had never been a fan of loud and sudden noises. It was silly, but it was the music and the buildup and the loud sound whenever something jumped out that did me in completely for horror movies. I couldn’t stand the sharp sounds and the fright, so I didn’t tend to watch them.

  It was somehow always worse when I knew it was coming, and this was no different. I mean, it was a motorcycle, I knew it was going to be loud. I knew it, I dreaded it just a little, and so, of course, I jumped, and jumped hard when it finally roared to life.

  Stoker gave a bit of a laugh in front of me, something I barely heard over the chug of the motor, but I did hear it when he called over the even thrum of the engine, “Hold on to me!”

  I put my arms around him and held on, and I wasn’t the least bit surprised to feel he was just as hard, just as solid, as he looked.

  Riding was just as fun and exciting as I always imagined it would be and I loved the sensation of butterflies in my stomach, the light sensation of fear sweeping over me. The kind of fear when you knew you were safe but were irrationally scared anyway, like when you faced going on a ride at an amusement park. You knew it was safe, that the rides are regularly inspected, maintained, and had been researched and had safety features installed to the point there wasn’t any reason to be afraid at all… but it was still there. That little thrill of excitement, anxiety, and all-around feel-good energy.

  It was the same on the back of that motorcycle, except with it was a heavier sensation of being afraid which was inextricably linked with the absolute mortal danger of the pavement whipping by below us at sixty-miles-per-hour when we hit the highway.

  I’d told him what exit was mine and tapped him twice on the shoulder when it was the next one up. He gave a clear nod and steered us onto the off-ramp, and when we reached the stoplight at the bottom, I called out to him, “Right!”

  It went like that, calling out ‘right’, ‘left’, or ‘forward’ until we got further away from the highway and surrounding strip malls and businesses and further into neighborhoods, first past apartments, and then into little subdivisions of houses on their little plots of land.

  He slowed and came to a stop at a stop sign and I called out, “Left, and like six houses down on the left, that’s me.”

  He turned us left, and my tummy did that funny bottoming-out feeling every time we leaned on the bike, the irrational fear of falling off bubbling through my system. I tapped him twice on the shoulder and pointed, and he glided the bike smoothly up to the curb in front of the small house owned by my little old landlady and stopped.

  “Nice place,” he said, then the silence was interrupted only by the soft ticking of his cooling engine, almost louder than the ride had been. I got off of the motorcycle and turned, and he twisted on his seat to face me, his long fingers going to the sides of the helmet, gently lifting it off my head. He planted it in his lap, between his legs, and I tried not to let my gaze follow and linger.

  “Thanks, um, I’ll tell my landlady so. I live in the little mother-in-law apartment above the garage.”

  “Oh.” He smiled, his eyes glittering in the dim porch light from the detached garage as something like relief swept over his face. I smiled back, and he reached out and plucked at his jacket sleeve.

  “Oh, right!” I blushed furiously with embarrassment and slipped out of it, handing it over, where he flopped it over his helmet and cocked his head, raising his eyebrows.

  “Waiting right here until you’re safe inside,” he said, and I felt myself develop a soft spot for him right then and there.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked gently.

  He searched my face and sighed. “Starting to get the feeling you don’t get many people who are nice to you.”

  “Not really, no.” I swallowed convulsively at having given myself away on that front.

  He smiled and bowed his head, nodding.

  “I’d like to change that, I think,” he murmured. “Give me your number?”

  He was asking. There was definitely a question mark at the end of ‘number’ and I wanted to so badly, but it was almost too good to be true. I bit my bottom lip and made the decision.

  “Seven-five-four…”

  He pulled out his phone swiftly and entered it in, and I jumped when my phone buzzed in my purse, which rested against my hip.

  “There. Now you have mine,” he said calmly. “I hope to hear from you, and don’t forget to text your friend.”

  He reached out and moved some of my mussed hair behind my ear, his fingertip lightly tracing the edge of my ear and I tried not to shiver. It had nothing to do with the ambient temperature out here and everything to do with a very different kind of heat.

  “Thank you for the reminder,” I murmured, digging both my phone and my keys from my little bag. I entered his name into my phone alongside his number and then fired off a text to Linny telling her I was home.

  “Okay, you good?” he asked, when my friend texted back almost immediately.

  “I’m good, but, out of curiosity – where do you live?”

  That dashing crooked smile of his came out and he said, “Ft. Royal.”

  I blinked and blurted out, astonished, “That’s almost two hours away!”

  “And?”

  “And I live clear in the opposite direction you were going!”

  “And?”

  I blinked at him stupefied. “And why would you do that for someone you don’t even know?”

  “Maybe I just figured it would give me a better shot at getting your number.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Like I was going to deny a man this kind and this gorgeous anything. Especially after he was nice to me.

  “Are you going to be okay? I mean, it’s late, and that’s going to be one very long ride…”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll stop for an energy drink or a cup of coffee at a gas station and it’ll be all good.”

  “I mean, it’s not the finest gas station coffee or anything, but I have some upstairs, can I make you a cup?” I offered, desperately wanting to show him even a tenth of the kindness he’d shown me tonight.

  He smiled big, his teeth very white in the dark and asked, so flirtatiously it was obvious even to me, “Are you inviting me up to your place?”

  “For coffee,” I established clearly, laughing nervously, “and to talk some more… sure.”

  He got off his bike and took his keys, helmet, and jacket. I led him past the detached garage, the place between my shoulders tingling slightly as he followed me. I went up the switchback back stair with its climbing clematis vines. They turned the railings into a living thing, cascading with deep green foliage and white blossoms with frilled purple centers.

  I unlocked the door and opened it right into the little studio I called home. The kitchen to the far right, the little dining table between the door and it. Straight ahead, my queen bed facing the wall-mounted television. Beside the black dresser below the television was the door to
the bathroom, which also contained a small stacking washer and dryer.

  I loved my little home. It was so me, cozy and a curious mix of light and dark. I hung my keys on the little wrought iron key hook plaque by the door and my purse on the heavy, free-standing, matching coat rack set on the hardwood floor beside it.

  I hadn’t wanted the feet to gouge the floor, and I’d needed the thing to slide easily, so I’d found this round black placemat that’d fit perfectly beneath it with enough cushion to preserve the wood floor.

  I was forever cleverly repurposing things like that, and the style was reflected here and there among the skulls and gothic artwork on my shelves and walls.

  “Metal,” he said with a smile, approval coloring his voice.

  I blushed slightly and said, “Funny enough, it’s really more like gothic; metal is Linny’s scene. The music actually kind of gives me anxiety. I can’t listen to it when I’m driving or anything.”

  “Oh, really? So what were you doing at the show then?” he asked, hanging his coat and helmet on free arms of the coat rack.

  “Concerts are different,” I said shrugging. “Like, um, the difference between watching a live sporting event and the same event on TV. One is an experience the other is just… meh.”

  He smiled and nodded. “I completely get that, actually.”

  I pulled out a chair at the table for him and went into my little kitchen, crossing the open floor plan threshold marked out by a transition from hardwood floor to ceramic-like tile in a soft, neutral, light tan.

  “How do you take your coffee?” I asked, switching on the pot, which was set up for tomorrow morning, to brew.

  “Ah, I can do black, it’s no trouble,” he said.

  I laughed slightly and said, “I use creamer because I like myself.”

  He smiled, “Okay, what ‘cha got?”