Page 18 of Brash for It
Her breath hitches.She presses the call button.The line clicks, rings once, then silence.No voice.No answer.She tries again.Nothing.
Her hands shake when she drops it.She looks at me, eyes wide.“The code it worked this morning.It’s changed.I—” Her voice cracks and I watch her fight back tears.“I don’t know what to do.”
I watch her crumble, piece by piece.She’s trying to stand straight, trying not to let the panic own her, but it’s winning.
I push off the bike, cross the few feet to her.“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not?—”
“It is,” I cut in, firm.“You’re not sleeping on the damn sidewalk.”
Her lip trembles.“Where am I supposed to go?”
“With me,” I explain like this is an every day occurance.
She blinks.“What?”
“You can stay with me.”I nod back at the bike.“Ain’t fancy, but it’s a roof and a bed.”
She stares like I’ve just offered her a ticket to hell.“Stay with you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I state, dryly.“I ain’t making a move.You need a place, I got one.Hell, I don’t even stay there all the time.Just crash for tonight and tomorrow you can figure your shit out.”
Her gaze flicks to the gate again, to the house she can’t touch, then back to me.She looks like someone dangling between two cliffs with no rope.
Finally, she whispers, “Okay.”
I fought the urge to ask her what other option did she have because from where I was standing she was up shit’s creek.I take the helmet from her limp hands, strap it back on her head myself because she can’t seem to manage it.
“Hold on,” I tell her.“Tighter this time.”
When I swing us back onto the road, her arms wrap around me more firmly than before, pressed close like she’s bracing against a storm.She doesn’t know the storm’s already here.
The ride back is quieter than a church before the final prayer of service She clamps her arms around my ribs like a lifeline and rests her cheek against my back.I can feel her breath through leather—shaky at first, then evening out when the road starts doing its work.I keep it steady.No showing off.No hard pulls on the throttle.She’s had enough of the ground shifting under her feet for one day.
My place isn’t much to look at compared to where she was living.We pull up, I click the kickstand down.Cinderblock shoebox house with a patch of crabgrass that dies and resurrects on a schedule only it understands.Vinyl blinds.A porch light that hums because the bulb’s old.
She slides off the seat slow, helmet still on, dazed.I pop the strap free and lift it off.Her hair is smashed in a way that would make a different woman squeal.She doesn’t.She just blinks like she’s trying to file the details of this new world.
“It’s… cozy,” she shares, careful.
“That a polite word for small?”I unlock the door.She gasps and I shake my head.“It’s okay.Judge it, I don’t give a fuck.It’s small.It’s mine.”
“I didn’t mean to offend,” she stammers.
I let out a laugh, “if I was that easily offended then I shouldn’t be wearing this cut.”I lead her through the front door and allow her to process my space.
Inside’s clean because I don’t like living in a mess.Couch is thrift-store leather, gray with a tear in one corner I patched with duct tape before I learned I preferred the chair.There’s a table that’s seen better days and a galley kitchen that hums like a beehive because the fridge thinks it’s important.
One bedroom.One bath.
Nothing I don’t need.
She stands just inside the threshold like she’s afraid it’ll bite or swallow her up.Her eyes skate over the walls.No pictures, just a map tacked up with pushpins that mark runs we’ve done, places I’ve slept on the cheap, a route I keep meaning to try and never do.I hang my Hellions cut over the back of the chair in my kitchen after taking off my boots.My boots line up by the door like soldiers.My mom would absolutely lose her shit if she showed up to any of her boys’ homes and we didn’t take our shoes off at the front door.
“You can put your bag down,” I tell her.“No one’s gonna steal it.”
She nods and drops it like it’s heavier than it should be.Her hands are still trembling.She tries to still them.
