Page 34 of The Biker and the Professor
“Sorry.” I place the plate, fork, and glass before her. “I’m not much of a beer drinker.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s your house,” Nero tells me, shooting Kendra a scolding look. “Kenny’s just got shit house manners.”
We eat and talk.A lot.
I ask subtle prying questions, only so I can understand them both. Their thought processes, their views, their ideals.
Nero is different with Kendra. Still bossy, but in a big-brother-like manner. And she’s…she’s, well, rough. Young—nineteen—and angry. So much internal anger, pessimism, and distrust.
But she is also Nero’s family. He cares deeply for her, and as a favor to him, I will need to care for her, too.
Chapter 12
Toni
We went groceryshopping the following evening. Nero stocks up on beers and real food, and I stock up on wine and string cheese.
As much as I hate to, I still end up having to cook dinner in the evenings, because Nero’s culinary skills don’t extend beyond tea, coffee, mac and cheese, and ramen.
Nevertheless, our temporary live-in situation progresses much smoother than I anticipated, mostly because he’s so busy he’s hardly ever at the house. Despite his cuts and bruises, and my protests, he still goes in to work at The Metal House—it wasn’t affected by the raid. He gets home as late as ten some nights, leaves as early as six in the mornings, and still manages to be punctual for all his classes.
Nero lives intentionally, takes his life and self-growth seriously, and I admire him so much for that. It’s glaringly obvious that he’s hungry for success and a positive change to his narrative. On the nights that he does get home early, he spends at least an hour listening to motivational podcasts while I work on syllabuses or grade papers.
Sometimes he asks me to help him with his oral skills, as it’s one of his biggest weaknesses. He writes well but is seriously lacking in communication skills, which is imperative in the engineering field. So, whenever time permits, we have mini speech lessons, where I urge him to practice using his pronouns and suffixes so he won’t slip-up when speaking in a professional capacity.
I swear on my life, he’s the best housemate ever. He likes his own space as much as I like mine. He likes silent reflections on the back patio while smoking a cigarette, as much as I like to curl up on the couch and binge-watch Netflix while nibbling Cookie’s baked treats. We’re not in each other’s face all the time, and he’s not a slob, nor does he leave the toilet seat up.
However, when it’s “us” time…oooh boy.
“Us”time is my favorite.
“Us”time can go on for hours.
He lavishes me with his attention, his touches, and his compliments—on the “lite” nights. On the hard-core nights, I’m bossed and owned and taken raw and wild.
We’ve gotten so good together, have become so attached, and so content, that I almost—almost—forget that I’m playing house with my twenty-year-old student. And that, most importantly, it is all temporary.
~
“Can’t we just take my car?”
“Babe, get on. Stop tripping.”
I stare at his Harley and sigh. I don’t like bikes. It’s the truth. I’m just not a fan. But I’m dating a biker, who prefers to rideeverywhere. Even to the freaking grocery store. I’ve managed to wriggle myself out of getting on the back of his bike the majority of the time, but tonight he’s not having it.
“If you’re my Steady, you’re on the back of my bike,” he says, losing his patience. “That’s how it is.”
Steady.Ugh. I hate that word. But now is not the time to point out that I’ve never once agreed to any of that biker-life nonsense.
Losing the battle, I shift my cross-body purse to my back and climb astride the Harley, locking my arms around his middle.
“Will you at least tell me where we’re going?” I ask as he rolls out of the driveway.
In answer, he accelerates, forcing me to cling tighter to him.
Around half-an-hour later, he swerves into the lot of an establishment called “Sip and Stroke.”
Dismounting, I take off my helmet and hand it to him, frowning at the marquee and wondering what we’re doing here. This evening when I got home from work, I’d been surprised to find him there so early on a Friday. He’d ordered me to shower and get dressed, said that we were going out for a bit, but didn’t tell me where.
