Page 31 of The Backtrack
“Grandma Pearl is worried about you,” Damon said as he walked through the front door. Lemony, late-afternoon light poured in behind him as he carried in two motorcycle helmets and placed both on the entryway table.
“Is that so?” Sam called out, loud enough for her grandma to hear. “Pearl is worried about me?”
“Yes, I am!” Pearl called back.
Had her grandma overheard the conversation with Rachel the night before? Damon told Sam he was coming over in the form of a brief text—On my way over—but she didn’t realize he’d been sent on a mission from Pearl.
“She spends too much time gossiping at your bar. And she worries about everything,” Sam quipped back as she shut the door. “Yesterday she told me she thought the delivery guy might be having marriage problems because his hair looked rumpled, like he had to sleep on the sofa.”
“Point taken, but it’s my day off and she made me promise to get you out of the house to have a little fun.” He picked up a deep purple helmet with a palm tree sticker on the side, and she wondered if he’d put that there, or Marissa. He held it out for her. “I’m not in the habit of disappointing Pearl. So what do you say, should we go for a ride?”
The helmet in his hand might as well have been an engagement ring, for all of the weight Sam was putting on it. Logically, she knew this was just a ride on a motorcycle. But was this an opportunity to finally say yes to Damon?
Some part of her was still afraid, though, because what if the universe was right, and she’d been wrong?
So in order to balance the scales, Sam blurted out a reason they couldn’t be together. “Does Marissa know how often you’re seeing me?”
Even she realized that wasn’t quite the right thing to say, but then again,didshe know?
Damon squinted. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re here every day,” Sam said. “I just don’t want her to think—”
“Marissa knows we’re old friends,” Damon cut her off. “If that’s what you need to hear.”
An embarrassed flush crossed Sam’s face. Old friends, of course that was what they were. Sam was just confusing her visions of them together with the present. But in the present, they were nothing but platonic to each other. “It’s not what I need to hear. It’s a small town. People talk. I don’t want to be the source of any rumors is all.”
“Come on, no more excuses, Sam-Sam.” Damon reextended the helmet to her.
Sam blinked as she took the helmet. Damon put his black helmet on and signaled for her to follow him. And, despite her reservations, she did.
This wasn’t Sam’s first time on a motorcycle; she’d been on several Vespa bikes throughout her travels, sometimes as the driver and sometimes as the passenger. But watching Damon sling a leg over the seat, rev the engine and then nod for her to hop on was different. Could he feel her thumping heartbeat as he took her hand and wrapped it around his waist? It was humid, and through his thin cotton shirt a few beads of sweat trickled down. What would it be like to trail her hands across the length of him?
He revved the engine again and turned to her. “Hold on tight,” he said.
Then he flipped his visor down, kicked the pedal up and the motorcycle shot forward. Sam tightened her grip around Damon. While the adrenaline had her body tense, she couldn’t stop the grin that broke across her lips. She’d missed the unexpected fun Damon tended to bring to their friendship. When she hesitated, he pushed. If she saw red lights, all he seemed to see were green.
The bike hummed beneath her and their bodies grew flush as he took them through the main street, down past the lighthouse and along the sandy roads. When she’d lived here, they would cruise along the waterfront listening to music. But that had been in his ancient car, and they’d been kids. Now they were both grown, and she could feel the strength of him under her fingertips as the salty sea air mixed with his sweat. He was familiar, and yet she was getting to know him all over again. She was comfortable enough to trust him on this ride, but not to lay her cheek against his back.
When Damon pulled the bike into the parking lot of a beachside strip mall, Sam’s mouth fell open. “Are we...?” Her smile overtook her words.
“This always used to cheer you up.” He parked the bike, killed the engine and peeled off his helmet.
Sam gazed at the awning for Sandy’s Kites and Pizza, a hole-in-the-wall they used to frequent on weekends. The sign had been repainted a blinding white, and a rainbow flag blew in the breeze. Maybe it had new owners? She wondered what else would be different.
“I get to choose first,” she said.
“Fat chance,” he replied. “Whoever’s inside first gets to—”
But before he could finish the sentence, Sam took off at a sprint toward the entrance. Damon trailed at her heels, but she reached the door first. And while he could’ve accused her of cheating, he didn’t, so she let out a courageouswhoop.
The inside was so dim compared to the sunshine outside that Sam had to stand in the doorway and allow her eyes to adjust. There was the rental area at the front, with a large wall of hanging kites and a book with photos of more that they kept in the back. Then there was the pizza parlor toward the patio, where guests could order a pie and eat at a metal table in the sand. She hadn’t remembered the arcade games against one wall, or the glittery disco ball above their heads.
“It feels...nicer or something?” she ventured.
“Less grungy, more modern.” Damon pointed at a small table in the corner where a little girl in pigtails was ordering pizza off a touchscreen menu. “But they still serve beer. I’ll get us drinks.”
“And I will get our kites.”
