Page 21 of Devil in Disguise
“Too much. I get it.”
Right. So that was no car. But what did that mean? That she’d be riding her bike everywhere instead. He was going to do something about that, at least.
“Iwear a helmet,” he told her now. She, her mom, and Annabelle had come to watch them play the Chargers in the first home game of the season, and then he’d taken Dyma out to dinner. One of the few times they’d managed to be alone, and now, he was driving her home, to the new house that Harlan had bought for Jennifer a couple months back.
See? He got to buy her a house. Owen couldn’t even buy Dyma acar.
“Because you get hit in the head everygame,”she said from way over in the other seat, across a too-wide expanse of Dodge Ram. “I’m riding in a bike lane. I’m ridingcarefully.And I like the wind in my hair.”
“You’re being stupid.”
“Excuse me? Do you get to say that?”
“Yes,” he said, the frustration mounting. “If it’s true, you bet I do. Your brain’s the one part of your body you can’t fix. You hit a bump and go flying? Maybe you’ll break a couple ribs. Maybe a leg. You’ll scrape a whole lot of skin off, for sure. You fall on your head, though? You’ll die. Nine hundred people die in the U.S. every year in bicycle injuries. Three quarters of them die from head injuries.”
“I’m not going togeta head injury,” she said, exactly the way he’d have predicted. “Or if I do, I’ll die anyway, helmet or no. I can’t believe I’m being lectured by a guy who plays profootball!Besides, there are studies from Australia that show no difference in bicycle fatalities since they put in helmet laws. I looked it up after the last time we had this talk. Most head injuries that kill cyclists are rotational injuries, and besides, most fatal accidents are from being hit by cars and involve multiple—”
He talked right over her, pulling up to the gate protecting Harlan’s driveway andnotpunching in the code. “Not wearing a helmet is stupid. I don’t care what wearing it does to your hair. I care what not wearing it does to yourhead.All right, if you die on a bike, maybe you’d have died anyway. There’s more than dying, though. How smart do you think you’ll be after a major concussion? How hard is that going to make it to solve equations and remember formulas?”
“I don’t know. How hard? And my hair? Seriously? You’re telling me I care about myhair,like I’m some silly girl?”
“Because that’s what you’re being right now! And really hard, that’s how. Ask me how I know. You won’t be able to concentrate. You won’t be able tothink.”
“Maybe if you’d do more than kiss me,” she said, “I wouldn’t need to get my thrills on abicycle.”
He’d had enough. He gripped the steering wheel, took a few breaths, and … only got madder. His heart was hammering. His blood was boiling. “You have two choices,” he told her. “Get out of this truck right now and walk up to the house. That’s the smart one. I recommend that.”
He knew he was mad because he ached like crazy. In a physical sense, because it had been a rough game, and because all games were rough anyway, and in a … physical sense. Because he was almost out of time. Next Friday, she’d be driving with her mom up to Seattle. With no car. With herbike,and an insatiable wanderlust.
He got it. He still hated it. Seattle was even bigger and more crowded than Portland. She wasn’t riding her bike on some ranch road. She was riding it on a street withbuses.
Also, this might be about more than the helmet.
She said, “What, I’m supposed to walk away? Like fighting with you is going to hurt my teeny brain, too? What’s the other choice?” Not sounding upset, even though this was roiling his stomach and his blood.
“We go to my house,” he said. “And I fight with you some more. I’m warning you, I …” He couldn’t even think what.
“Fine,” she said, crossing her arms. “Let’s go.”
12
Best-Laid Plans
She wastwo things at once as Owen turned the truck around, his enormous hands as sure as always on the wheel, a muscle bunching in his jaw that she could see even under the beard.
She was still mad. And something else, too. All the way keyed up. Like shewantedto fight. Or … maybe something else.
He pulled into his driveway and then into the garage before she figured it out. She’d never been here alone with him, and the awareness of that was coming up all the way through the arches of herfeet,because they were tingling. Maybe because she was wearing his cowboy boots again, along with the clothes she’d changed into to go out to dinner. A little white tank that was almost an undershirt, and a short blue skirt printed with smiling suns that she’d found at a thrift store last week. She had a cropped cardigan on over the tank, but she felt half-naked anyway, possibly because the skirt was pretty sheer and the night was pretty chilly. And possibly because Owen was dressed exactly like usual, in way too many clothes.
He alwayssaidhe wanted her to touch him. He didn’t exactly dress like he did, though. Whereas she’d put this on tonight thinking about his hands on her body. Didn’t hegetit? Didn’t he know how she felt about him? She was leaving for college in ten days, and she needed to know that he …
She wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to know. Not that he wanted her to wear herhelmet,anyway.
She didn’t wait. She jumped down from the high truck, slammed the door, and said, “All right. I’m here. And I have things to say.”
He came around the front of the truck. “So do I.”
“First,” she said, “what gives you the right to tell me what to do?”
