Page 5 of Stoker's Serenity

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 directions 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.

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