Page 99 of Over & Out

“So yeah. That’s the long answer. The short is Mac took pity on me. He gave me a job as a busser until I was nineteen, when I could start serving. And I just…stayed.” I look over at Hopper, suddenly embarrassed. “I know, I should have been doing more with my life. Like going to college. Or getting a better job. But…I was happy, I really was. At the Dinghy, I met my family. Mac, Shelby, Lana. And it gave me time to do what I really loved.”

“What was that?” Hopper asks.

It’s the strangest thing. It’s like he already knows the answer.

“It sounds like a good life, Chris.”

I nod. “It was. But I told you before, I had an accident. It kind of changed everything.”

He’s quiet, so I tell him about it. How dirt biking was something my dad and I used to do together. How I saved up to buy Betty, and how it was the one thing that I lived for.

Then I crashed.

“I can’t ride anymore, Hopper.”

Hopper’s jaw goes tight. “I know.” He looks out at the water. “Chris?—”

“It’s okay, you know,” I say. “Working with you—it’s kept me busy. I haven’t missed it too much.”

The first part is true. The second, not so much.

Hopper’s jaw works. Then he looks away again. “Do you want to try? I could get Betty back. I could go with you. We could practice together, put a bike on one of those stands…”

But I shake my head. “No. I mean, maybe, yes. But I don’t think the driving and racing is what I want anymore, at least not for me.”

He cocks his head.

I bite my lip. “Today, at the track, I offered to help teach Shay how to ride. And even just the possibility of getting a girl like her up and running—taking risks, kicking ass—I haven’t felt that kind of excitement in a long time.”

“That’s amazing,” he says, and sounds like he really means it.

Maybe there’s something there. I don’t know what yet, but something.

I play with Hopper’s hand curled over my shoulder, stroking its broad length. I feel better for having told him my story.

It’s only when we’re lying in my bed later, Hopper at my back, his arms wrapped around me, hand on my belly like it’s his new favorite place to be, that I realize there’s more to it.

With Hopper, I feel safe. For the first time in a long time, I feel like the ceiling isn’t going to come crashing down on me in the middle of the night. That I can take risks and tell my story and be as vulnerable as I want without everything going sideways.

I feel like I might finally be able to look at my life as something to go after instead of something to navigate.

None of this makes any sense, of course. Because the person who’s helped me feel this way isn’t mine to keep. Even if we figure it out, how would it work? He’s Hopper Donnach. I’m just me.

But I like being me. I like being here in Redbeard. In town, on the beach, at the dirt track. All those places give me that same feeling.

So does Hopper.

They all feel like home.

I wait until I hear his breathing stretch out long again.

And then, only then, I whisper, “I love you too, Hopper. But I still think you’re going to break my heart.”

But maybe, this time, I’ll survive.

Chapter 33

Hopper

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