Page 73 of Whiskey Shivers

Hell, I couldn’t remember a time I was as excited for a ride, myself. It felt as though I was fully bringing her into my world, that this was it. The final stepping off point, and I did everything to slam the door on my vague worry ofwhat if she hates it? What if the ride is too much for her?

I thumbed the switch on my bike to start it up. I guess we were fixin’ to find out.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE

Corliss…

I was nervous more than anything else, but I hoped that Hex didn’t notice and just took all of my fidgeting as pure excitement. I felt my heart very nearly seize up in my chest when the bike fired and roared to life. It was somehow louder than I expected. I hated how the mask of the helmet fogged when I let out my pent-up breath, but that quickly cleared and I figured out for myself that if I breathed a certain way, it didn’t fog nearly as badly or at all.

I got on behind Hex when he waved me toward the back of the bike and wrapped my arms around him, scooting forward so I was snug against his back. He shouted something, but I couldn’t make it out so I just nodded and gave a thumbs up, hoping that was the right answer – I mean, I had a fifty-fifty shot, right?

He gave a nod from beneath his shiny, beetle black half helmet, put on his sunglasses, and turned forward again. I held onto him tighter when he put both hands on the handle bars, and then we were moving.

I felt my heart leap in my breast and the bottom drop out from my stomach as we rolled down the driveway, swooped out onto the street and hereallymade the bike roar to life. The intimidating machine lurched forward beneath me, and where I was once annoyed at howloudthe motor was, now I was grateful as it muffled the terrified bleat that escaped me as I clutched onto Hex harder.

I couldn’t hear him laugh, but I felt it, and it made me laugh too as I realized we weren’t going allthatfast.

He wove through the city streets with practiced ease and took us on a circuitous route that eventually took us down along the river before he looped us back toward the club. We’d been out for what felt like forever but really couldn’t have been more than forty-five minutes to an hour.

A bunch of the guys whooped and cheered as we rolled into the fenced-in yard of the club and Alina, standing near the picnic table where La Croix smoked a cigarette that looked hand rolled and suspicious, smiled at me as I waved feebly from behind Hex.

I waited for him to double tap my leg like he said he would when he needed me to get off, and I minded the pipes like he’d told me to, because they were hot, before I stepped back giving him a wide berth for him to back into the place among the long row of bikes already parked against the inside of the fence.

“Well, how was it?” Alina asked when I got the near suffocating helmet off my head.

“Terrifying,” I answered, and she raised her eyebrows as if that was the wrong answer. I laughed some. “Exhilarating, too,” I confessed, and she broke out into a smile.

“Now that’s more like it,” she said. “I can’t remember if it was Thompson or Kerouac or who the hell said it, but they said something about the ride being like starring in a movie versus being in a cage is just like watching it on TV.”

“It’s the difference between living and watching others live, that’s for sure,” La Croix said. “And before you ask… I don’t know who the fuck said it either, but Hunter S. Thompson is a poser piece of shit.”

He rose like a leviathan from the sea off that bench and stalked toward the club’s front doors bellowing, “To order!” then he called back over his shoulder to us, “And for once, you ladies are invited.”

I looked to Alina puzzled and whispered, “Is he in a bad mood?”

She grinned at me and shook her head with an impish smile. “Not at all. That’s just how he is – and he wasreallyupset when he found the copy ofHells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Sagaby Hunter S. Thompson in his house. He threw the book overboard and told me if I had questions that I needed to ask him or Hex, but that was enough of that bullshit.”

I made a strangled pained noise and put my hand over my chest. “That poor book!” I cried and Alina threw her head back and laughed.

“I somehow knew that’d be the first thing you’d have to say about it,” she said and throwing her arm over my shoulders, she steered me in the direction of the club.

Hex fell into step on my other side and asked me, “What happened now?”

“La Croix is a monster!” I mocked.

He simply snorted and asked, “What else is new? What’d he do this time?”

“Murdered a book,” Alina chirped.

“Threw it overboard and watched it drown,” I said solemnly.

“Okay, now I’m curious. Why’d he do that?”

“It was by Hunter S. Thompson,” Alina said.

Hex snorted and called out, “Hey, La Croix!” La Croix looked up. “Beer’s on me, buddy.”

La Croix simply frowned. “The fuck you talking about?”

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