Page 26 of Like You Know
“Let’s go be someone else,” he said, as if it were obvious and I was the slow one in this conversation.
“Jet, what the fuck are you talking about?” I groaned.
“Just for the afternoon.” He took my hands and leaned in, looking me right in the eye. “Let’s go somewhere that’s not here and pretend to be people we’re not. Say yes!”
It was sad how tempting that sounded. I looked down one side of the hallway, then the other. Was I actually considering this?
“Fuck it, OK, whatever.” I rolled my eyes, but something like excitement started to stir in my belly. “But if you turn out to be some psycho axe murderer, I’m going to kill you. Slowly.”
“You’re so violent.” He chuckled before ducking into the locker room to get his bag. He reappeared before I could change my mind, grabbed me by the wrist, and pulled me out the door. I let him. I was pretending to be someone else, after all.
“Your ride or mine?” he asked as the door swung closed behind us. “Or should we really lean into this ‘being other people’ thing and take public transport?”
“Ew!” I scrunched my face up. “Let’s not take this too far. Where are we even going?”
“Wherever the road takes us.”
“Fine, you can drive then, since this whole ridiculous idea was yours.”
Without answering me, he changed directions, and we stopped next to his bike near the entrance to the parking lot.
“Ugh! I forgot about the crotch rocket,” I said.
He threw his head back and laughed, pulling a helmet out of his bag and another one out of the compartment under the seat. He held one out to me, and I stared at it without taking it.
“Never mind. I’ll drive.” I started to turn, but Jet always knew what to say to make me pause.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared.” He laughed. “Have you never been on a motorbike before?”
“No, I haven’t, and no, I’m not scared.” I crossed my arms. I was kind of scared, to be honest.
Jet dropped the teasing smile and held the helmet out to me again. “I’ll keep you safe, Amaya, I promise.”
Despite my better judgment, I quickly braided my hair and took the helmet. I was someone else today—not some girl afraid of getting on a bike with a boy.
Jet stuffed our bags into the compartment, put his own helmet on, then helped me with mine. It was heavy and tight on my head, but he assured me it was meant to feel like that. Once he’d finished fiddling with the strap under my chin, he smacked the top of my helmet and swung his leg over the seat.
Without thinking about it too hard, I got on behind him.
“Hold on tight.” He pulled my arms around his waist, forcing my body flush with his. “If you need me to stop, tap my shoulder.”
I couldn’t force my throat to spit out a response. In the next second, he started the engine with a roar, and I couldn’t have been heard over it anyway.
We took off, Jet navigating the streets of downtown Devilbend, the traffic forcing us to go slow. After a few minutes, I started to feel more comfortable. This wasn’t so bad. There was no reason for me to be hugging him so tightly, really. I tried to put some distance between us, sitting up a bit straighter and peeling my legs away from his.
But then we finally got out of the city and onto a highway, and Jettook off.
The engine roared beneath us, and the wind whipped past as I released a high-pitched sound of surprise and fear. He probably hadn’t heard me over the noise, but I didn’t really care. I was too focused on holding on for dear life.
Any semblance of distance I’d tried to put between us vanished—left behind at the start of the highway, alongside my stomach. My front was flush with his back, my arms locked around his waist, my legs plastered to his. I could feel every shift of his thigh muscles, every flex and release of his back and abs. His body heat and the firmness of his frame against mine were comforting.
As my breathing started to settle and my stomach caught up with the rest of my body, I realized I had my eyes closed. I forced them open and gasped at how quickly the trees were flying past. We were going at an obscene speed! Or did it just feel faster without the illusion of safety provided by car doors and seats and a roof?
I didn’t dare turn enough to look behind, but we weren’t gaining on the car ahead of us, so I figured Jet was sticking to the speed limit.
Eventually, fear gave way to exhilaration, and I started to really enjoy the ride. The noise made conversation impossible, but there was something calming about that. We were moving in the same direction, together, just occupying the same space without filling it with awkward words. Between that and the wind tugging at our clothes, the trees occasionally giving way to a view of the valley below, I found myself feeling profoundly ... free.
I even loosened my death grip on Jet—not to force distance between us but simply because my body relaxed into the rhythm of the ride. I even let myself acknowledge and enjoy the way his body felt against mine.