Page 67 of Gonzo's Grudge
Her knees hugged tighter. She leaned. Not too much. Just enough.
We took the first curve lazily. She breathed out this little sound that wasn’t a laugh and wasn’t a gasp, something in between that said okay to the part of her that used to flinch at new things. I felt the sound through my spine; the bike felt it too and settled deeper in the groove.
“What do you feel?” I asked again.
“The vibration,” she said, surer now. “It’s inside my bones. Like a drum I didn’t know I had.”
I took her left hand in mine, brought it up from my waist and pressed it flat over the center of my chest, under the leather, under the shirt, skin to skin. Then I pulled her right hand up to meet it and held both beneath my palm.
“What do you feel now?”
She went silent. Then she said, small and right next to my ear, “Your heartbeat.”
“No,” I said, because I’m a bastard for the truth. “You feel me alive. You give me life, IvaLeigh.”
She made a soft sound like something in her had just clicked into a slot it’d been hunting for. I didn’t look back; I didn’t need to. I could feel her nod against my jacket.
We climbed out of the tree line into open country where the sky gets bigger by accident. Stars laid out like somebody spilled a jar of nails on velvet. She tucked closer, the curve of her fitting between my shoulders, all was right with my very soul.
I kept us headed to the ridge road. Switchbacks like nowhere else, no guardrails where there should be, the kind of place that teaches you whether you know your machine or you only think you do. I eased us into it like a dance. First turn right, weight outside, eyes up, throttle steady. Second turn left, same song different verse. She followed me—didn’t get in my way, didn’t go stiff. Trust is always tested before it’s a promise.
“What do you feel?” I asked, and the question wasn’t about weather anymore.
She didn’t answer right away. Her hands under my shirt were warm now. The cold at our edges had given in to engine heat and skin. Finally, she spoke. “The quiet,” she managed. “Like my head wouldn’t stop. Except now. This makes it stop.”
“Good.” I dropped a gear and let the engine ease us into a tighter bend, rolled back on as the line opened. “Hold on to that.”
Past the old mine, the road straightens for a breath before the long curve that holds you like you’re in its palm. I took it sweet and smooth. She laughed quietly and tipped her helmet against my shoulder like agreement.
We crossed the river on the one-lane wooden bridge, boards thumping under us, water smell spiking—iron and fish and cold rock. I tapped the horn twice for the ghosts who built it. Habit. She squeezed me gently.
“Hands higher,” I told her, and slid them from my chest to around my collarbones, forearms crossing over my heart like a harness. I wanted her closer. I wanted her everywhere.
“Feel that?”
She swallowed. I felt the movement. “Yeah.”
“What is it?”
She searched. “You.” She caught on finally, helpless and certain.
“Me what?”
“You, me, and road, and…” She paused. “Home.”
I swallowed that and let it settle in because it scared me. I kissed her fingers where they crossed and heard her breath skip like a stone on a lake.
We hit the overlook turnout before the ridge drops back into trees. I eased us in, killed the motor, and for a half-second the night yawned wide at the sudden silence before crickets rushed in to fill it. The cooling engine ticked. Heat rose off the motor in invisible waves.
I didn’t turn. I just sat with her hanging on the back of my life like an amen, her hands still pinned under mine at my chest.
“Close your eyes,” I instructed.
“They are.”
“What do you feel?”
She answered without thinking now. “My pulse in my wrists.” A pause. “Yours in your chest.” Another. “The ghost of the road still moving under us.”
