She was out riding alone when Mickey came up beside her.

"Hello," he said.

Laurie had been lost in thought. If it hadn't been for long years of experience on a bike, he would have startled her and she would have done something stupid and fallen. It would have hurt, because she was moving at a relatively fast speed, needing the feel of the wind in her face to help her clear her mind.

Her hands squeezed on the handlebars, just a little, before she relaxed them, the movement of her feet not stuttering as she pedaled evenly. She shot a glance at him, before staring straight ahead.

"What are you doing here?" the words were out of her mouth before she could call them back, and she winced.

Way to ask the obvious.

She shot another glance at him out the corner of her eye. He was on a bike, of course, since it was the only way he could have been keeping up with her. He was even dressed up in gear, a tank top, bike shorts, sneakers, a helmet and knee and elbow pads. She could tell by that, and by the look of his bike, that he at least had some interest in bikes like she did.

Laurie pretty much rode her bike everywhere. She didn’t have a car, didn’t have the funds for it, and she loved it. Not to mention, she got exercise in without having to make an appearance at the gym to keep in shape. She'd gotten on her bike to get away from the house, get away from her brother and the rest of her problems so she could at least forget them for a short moment.

Now she was a little glad that she did because it meant she got to see Mickey before their coffee date the next day.

Hearing him chuckle beside her, she was brought out of her thoughts. Then she remembered the words that came out of her mouth.

"Forget it!" she blurted out before he could respond. "I can see what you're doing, just… I just didn’t really expect anyone."

Actually, there was still the question of why he was keeping up with her at all. He was dressed in full gear, which meant he must have anticipated a full workout. He didn’t look like he was breaking a sweat, and Laurie assumed if he got serious, there was no way she could keep up with him in terms of speed.

"I kinda guessed. I was a little worried, calling out to you, but I've been beside you for a bit and you didn’t seem to notice me riding up next to you at all. I didn’t want to startle you and make you crash."

She ignored the apologetic note in his voice, focusing on something else. "When did you ride up beside me?" she asked, surprise coloring her voice.

She hadn't noticed. Usually, she was hyper aware when she was on her bike. It was the safest way to ride; to be careless was to endanger her life, after all. How could she not have noticed someone coming up next to her? Or was she really that troubled by everything going on?

Who was she kidding? Of course, she was that troubled. What had she been thinking getting on a bike to forget her problems? She could end up doing something stupid like crashing into a car or something because she wasn’t paying attention. She could have gone to the park because there were paths for cycling and there would be fewer obstacles there, but then it would require more concentration than she was putting into the whole exercise just then, so it might just end up being more dangerous.

"It hasn’t been all that long," Mickey replied. "Not even a minute before I spoke up. I figured it would be weird, and probably startle you worse, if I just kept quiet and you suddenly noticed me riding silently beside you like some creep."

Laughter bubbled from her throat in light giggles. "I wouldn’t go so far as to think you're a creep, though yeah, that would have surprised me." She bit her lip. If she had noticed at all without him calling out to her. "I would have noticed you without panicking if you'd just gone a bit ahead of me. Though I probably wouldn’t have realized it was you. Where are you headed?"

She shot him a curious look, wondering if he had somewhere he needed to be.

"Nowhere, really. I like biking, and I wanted to check out the area, so I thought why not do both? Do you mind if I just stick with you for a while?"

"No, that's fine." There was a slight bump as her bike went off the sidewalk, crossed an empty road and went up the sidewalk on the other side, Mickey right beside her.

"Did you get to talk to your brother?"

She glanced over at him. "Not really. By the time I went inside, he…" her voice trailed off, her face flushing. She didn’t want to mention the porn thing. It would be too damn embarrassing, though mentioning the drugs would probably be a worse idea. "We talked a bit. I'm not sure how to help him, so I came out for a ride to clear my head and think. What were you doing?"

"Hmm," he hummed, glancing at her as she did the same to him. "Well, I was putting away most of my stuff, but at least the movers are gone…"

They talked some more as they rode. It didn’t take her long to notice, though, that he was asking a lot of questions about her brother: did he work, was he violent, did he have friends over, did he have any drug or gang connections? Laurie pretty much just went with the questions, barely realizing what she was answering until he got to the last one.

Her brother brought marijuana into her house, that he got from his 'Russian buddies' for something he'd done for them. She didn’t bother to ask what, but she didn’t think she could just blurt that sort of thing out to anyone, especially not her new neighbor no matter how hot he looked. They were strangers before that morning, and she wasn’t getting in as many questions, the few she did were answered vaguely, so that hadn't really changed on her end.

Mickey was fairly smooth about it, too, mixing the questions in with the others, but she was observant enough to notice them regardless. Still, if he hadn't asked about the drug and gang connections, she wouldn’t have stopped and thought so much about it.

"What's with all the interest in my brother?" she asked finally.

She was a little suspicious of him, but part of her was a little put out that he was keeping up with her just so they could talk about her brother.

Mickey realized he must have taken the questioning too far too soon. He didn’t want her getting suspicious this early, so he scrambled his mind and quickly made up a story.

"Uh, well, see... Don’t get mad, but my movers warned me that a big teenager in a baseball cap and sweatpants had been looking over the stuff coming out of the truck like he planned to take some of it. It's why I stuck around until the guys were done and gone before taking my bike out, then I ran into you by coincidence…"

Laurie winced. It would be just like her brother to do something like that, especially since she had locked her computer away when she was out of the house. And since the bike was all she had, he'd have to walk wherever he wanted to go, and it would be a bit of a walk to get anywhere. Her brother was lazy, he wouldn’t go far to look for entertainment.

The 'big' didn’t fit him, though. He was on the skinny side with a hollow chest, and all the drug use hadn't done any wonders for his physique. But for some reason, he thought he was hot because of his 'abs,' which he showed off as if he had the body of a god. Laurie could never bring herself to tell him that he just looked starved, with most of his ribs visible in his chest.

"Though my brother is an ass and has some questionable friends," she hastened to tell him, "I've never heard of him stealing anything. He was probably just messing with you guys so you don’t have to be so worried about that. I am so sorry about him, though. I swear he is harmless."

She chewed on her lip. Well, she hoped so, anyway. She couldn’t exactly say she was sure anymore.

Mickey quickly backed off, seeing the frown on Laurie's face. She was clearly protective of her brother and insisting on this would only alienate her.

"Maybe you're right. They could have just been wrong, anyway. I was just being cautious because I'm new to the area. Are you still up for coffee later?" he asked cautiously.

"Sure," she agreed, though the talk of Karl acting like even more of a delinquent than usual had her worried.