Page 66 of Over & Out

That’s not the strangest part, though.

The strangest part is they’re not just kneeling beside any bike.

It’s Betty.

My heart thuds. The tourist I sold her to said he’d always wanted to ride. I sold her for less than I probably could have gotten. But having her around was like a knife in my chest. It’s not that guy who’s on their knees in the dirt thirty feet away from me fiddling with something I can’t see, though. It’s a girl. A young-looking girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen. For a moment I can’t breathe, thinking I’m looking at some bend in the space-time continuum.Because the girl looks an awful lot like I did at that age, with her mess of tangled hair and dirt-streaked cheeks. Her helmet sits upside down in the mud, and as I crane my neck out, I could swear she’s close to tears because this damn bike keeps acting up when all she wants to do is ride.

Sheneedsto ride.

I feel faint and realize I stopped breathing the minute I hid. I force myself to take a breath. I practically choke on the air and come perilously close to coughing. I must make some kind of sound, because the girl whips her face in my direction. My heart thunders. I should have just walked onto the track when I got here, but now I’ve made it weird. Creepy, even.

But I don’t want anyone seeing me here. Not even a stranger. Not even a kid.

Through the brush, the girl blinks, and it’s then I see she doesn’t look quite the same as I did. Thinner brows, a straight nose. She’s pretty, but in a timid sort of way. My heart tightens, because I’m certain, suddenly, that her life isn’t easy. In that way, we’re the same.

She turns back to the bike.

“It’s the clutch,” I whisper. “You have to jiggle it to get it to stop catching.”

She can’t hear me. I don’t want her to. But I hope, somehow, I’m reaching her telepathically.

I guess I am, because a few minutes later, when she gets up and tries the engine again, it revs to life.

The girl whoops, and I can’t help the grin that breaks out across my face.

She pulls her helmet onto her head and jumps on thebike. When she takes off, I can practically feel the wind on me. I can feel the glorious thrill in my chest as she brings the bike to speed around the corner.

I get up and slip back to the parking lot and once again disappear.

Chapter 21

Hopper

“Cut!”

I lower my aching arms, releasing the axe, which thuds onto the dirt.

“That was perfect,” the director calls. “Now let’s do it again with?—”

“No,” I bark out. “Break.” The whole set seems to let out a collective breath. We’ve been at it for hours. Nine hours, to be precise, with barely a break. I’m soaked through, not from a decent rain, but this persistent, undefined misty drizzle that seems to crawl up under my clothes.

“Hopper, we’re nearly there,” Toni says, clearly irritated that I’ve stepped in.

“And they’re all going to fucking snap if you don’t give them a break.”

“I think he’s right,” the new AD says.

“Half an hour,” I say, then walk off set. I don’t normally pull rank like this, but I’m tired, I’m pissed off, and for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I feel my age.Or older. I thud into my trailer and slam the door behind me.

Cindi’s been here—the place is clean and there’s some trail mix on the coffee table. I know in the fridge I’ll find some meal replacement drinks and Aziz-approved turkey jerky or some such shit. I should eat, but I don’t fucking want to. I’m in a foul as hell mood and it’s not about this shit day of filming.

It’s about Chris.

Like it has been this whole week.

I flop down in the easy chair in the corner of the room and tip my head back. I don’t bother checking my phone, because there’s never anything there from her. If there is, it’s the most perfunctory, businesslike shit.

And it’s one thousand percent my fault.

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