Page 70 of Brash for It
The back door opens without knocking this time because the person coming in doesn’t knock in his own house.Kellum fills the frame—cut off, old tee, grease on one forearm, smile slow.He clocks the women, clocks my face, and his mouth does that soft thing it only does for me.
“You two ganging up on my woman?”he asks, stepping in to kiss his mother’s cheek and let Dia ruffle his hair like he’s not a dangerous man.
“We’re encouraging her,” Sass explains.“So she doesn’t abandon you halfway through the eleventh switchback when you start dancing with the centerline because you want to tempt the devil.”
“I do not dance with centerline,” he scoffs mocking the whole thing.
His mom stands and cups his face like he’s still all knees and skinned palms.“Ride safe,” she tells him, simple as prayer.She turns to me and the same words gain a second heartbeat.“You ride safe, too.”
“We will,” I promise.
Sass hooks an arm around my shoulders and steers me toward the door.“Call me when you get there so I know you’re not decorating a guardrail.Send me a picture of your smug faces.Hate missing this one, but gonna watch these grandbabies and wait for my man and my boys with my daughters to come back.”
“We don’t do smug,” Kellum says, already picking up the helmets.“And you love having them babies by yourself because you don’t have to share baby cuddles.You’re not fooling me momma.”
I give Sass a look and then to Kellum, I admit.“We do a little smug sometimes.”
“That’s my girl,” she says, and kisses my temple.“Always keeping shit real.Now go make a memory.”
When I step onto the porch, the morning has made itself bright.The bike waits like a promise.Kellum hands me my helmet, his fingers lingering against my jaw when he slides it on.His eyes search my face through the visor until he finds whatever he always looks for—steadiness, yes; something mischievous, always.He taps the shell twice.My cue.
“Three points of contact,” he says, because of course he does.
“Centerline is a friend, not a fence,” I recite, because I have been trained by a menace and a resource that thought alone makes me smile.
He groans.“Someone’s been gossiping.”
“Someone has family now,” I shoot back, and his expression does that stunned-soft thing that makes my ribs get tight because my heart is overly full with his love.
He swings his leg over and settles; I do the same, the movement so practiced my body does it before my brain catches up.My palms find his waist.He reaches back and squeezes my knee.A loop closes on the map.
Kellum starts the bike.It’s loud and alive and everything that once scared me and now sets me free.We roll onto the street, and I look back just long enough to see them still standing there, guardian spirits in denim and mercy.The camera blinks, recording us into our own story.
“Ready?”he calls over his shoulder when we hit the main road.
“Ready,” I answer, and I mean it in every way a woman can mean it.
The hum of the bike settles into my bones the way a heartbeat does when you’re leaning against someone you love—you don’t notice it until it’s the only thing you can hear.
We’re an hour out from the mountains when the horizon starts to change.Trees stretch taller, greener.The air shifts cooler even though the sun is still working hard overhead.Kellum leans forward a little, the way he does when his body starts anticipating the road before the asphalt even bends.I hold tighter, not because I’m afraid, but because it feels good.
When we reach the first sign that warns we are approaching.
TAIL OF THE DRAGON – 318 CURVES IN 11 MILES.
I swear I feel my pulse sync with the engine.The letters are bold, daring, like a challenge only a certain kind of person would answer.Eight, nine months ago, I would’ve been trembling, second-guessing what the hell I was doing on the back of a bike.Now?I grin under my helmet.
Kellum slows to a roll, points with two fingers like a general calling his shot.I nod, squeeze his ribs with my knees, and he laughs—the sound vibrating through my palms pressed to his waist.
Then we’re in it as he takes his place in the middle of the group.
The road coils like a live thing, sharp turns that snap back the second you think you’ve got them figured out.Up, down, left, tighter left, sudden right.Guardrails flash, painted with the scuffs and scars of riders who weren’t ready.But we are.Kellum moves like the bike is part of him, his body tilting, guiding, trusting.
And me?I lean with him.
The first mile, I focus.Balance.Where my weight goes when he shifts.But the fear never comes.Instead, exhilaration floods me—this sharp, wild rush that makes me laugh out loud inside my helmet.Kellum hears it.He pats my leg once, like that’s it.
By the third mile, I stop thinking about mechanics.My body knows.I flow when he flows, press when he presses, grip when he accelerates.The air tears past, sharp with pine and damp rock.My braid whips my back, my lungs open wider than they have before taking in the mountain air.
