Page 56 of Over & Out

“I’m good to go.”

“Hold on tight again. Okay, sweetheart?”

I close my eyes, my heart opening like a flower. That word. A sense of déjà vu washes over me, making my whole body ache. I know it wasn’t Hopper who called methat when I was carried off the track that day, but in this moment, I wish it had been.

My already torn-open heart beats like a bird’s wings when Hopper angles around a corner. He’s more than a competent rider. He’s smooth. Easy. Drives like the bike is an extension of him.

It’s just like I used to feel.

I could have kept Betty. Or I could have gotten another bike and ridden for pleasure. But that day on the track, when I didn’t know how badly I was hurt, scared the shit out of me. I knew I’d never race again, even if I was physically capable. My dad died young. I have no siblings. I was the last of us. But this? This I can do.

Hopper takes us onto the highway as the sun lights the world golden. He asks if he can put music on. I say okay, sure. I won’t be able to even hear it, I’m riding so high.

But when it fills my speaker, my skin lights on fire. It’s “Work Song,” by Hozier. A song that sounds like it should be performed in a cathedral. A song that, when he takes us up to speed in the last of this beautiful day, makes me feels like I’ve ascended to a higher plane.

With him.

As we climb the hills. I let out my breath and close my eyes, my form pressed to the hardness of Hopper’s in a way that feels like I was made to be here too. He’s so warm. So good. So competent and capable, all that not-really-real dickish energy vanished, as if it were never there.

I swore I wasn’t going to let my guard down again, but how can I not? I can’t imagine a more perfect way tospend a night. With a man who does this; who looks like he does; who looks atmethe way he does. Who grins when I hurl insults at him. Who listens when I tell him I’m upset. Who pulls the truth out of me like he’s coaxing the real me out of the cold darkness that lingers under the bubbly sunshine.

It’s all so much. I’m overwhelmed by how good I feel. How free. How, for the first time in what feels like forever—like before I lost everything—I can fly.

Chapter 18

Chris

Idon’t notice we’re stopping until Hopper turns into a viewpoint tucked into the side of a hill. I’m still all up in my feels when he kills the engine. I can’t let him see me like this, so open and vulnerable. I know his damn rules. I feel like I’m a puddle and reality is a boot about to step in me.

After dismounting, I slip my helmet off, setting it shakily on the bike. Then I walk quickly to the barrier so he doesn’t see my face. It’s dusk now. Everything is shadows of black and navy blue, only a thin strip of color at the horizon.

“Chris!” Hopper calls behind me. “You okay?”

On the other side of the barrier, grass stretches for maybe a dozen feet before dropping away. Beyond that is the wild Pacific.

I hesitate, then swing a leg over the metal guardrail.

“Whoa, Chris, stop!” Hopper’s voice is alarmed.

I cross the patch of grass, stopping at thecliff’s edge. Down below, waves crash against rocks. Thunderous. Violent. Primal.

There was a time, when I was a kid, after Dad and the hospital, where I was supposed to just fall back into regular life as if the world was still turning. It was then I thought about stepping off the edges of places like this. It didn’t last. Not even when things got bad. Not even when no family wanted me until I found my own with Mac and Annie. And I don’t anymore.

But there’s a familiarity in it. A kind of foolhardy prickle of life as I lean over the edge.

Then Hopper’s next to me, pulling me back. “Chris, what the fuck?”

He holds me in his arms. His trembling arms. I scared him. I look up with a catch of breath in my throat. I have to tilt my face way, way up to look at him.

“I’m sorry.” I have to speak louder than my normal voice to be heard over the roar of the ocean and wind. “I’m okay.” I laugh, a little wetly, with tears in my eyes. “I’m just happy to be alive right now.”

And I am. I really am.

“Did I go too fast?” Hopper asks. I have to laugh, because he thinks I’m panicking about that bike ride.

I shake my head. “It’s not about that. You were perfect.”You are perfect.

It’s then I notice the sensation of his thick arms around me. The heat and scent of him. I can feel the beat of his heart against my palms where they spread over his chest, his jacket open, me inside.

---