CHAPTER 17
The diner was one of those circa 1950 deals, complete with shiny façade. Cole and I walk inside. Before we even have a chance to sit down, a guy walks in behind us with a girl on his arm. Her hair is teased out to Mars, and her implants bounce around under a tiny tank top. She’s snapping her gum and I instantly hate her.
A middle-aged waitress sees us and holds up her pointer finger—the universal signal that she’ll be right back. I glance through the place. There are about five tables filled, all in the same section. Great. That means she’s waiting tables alone, so gum-smacker would end up right next to us. I try not to roll my eyes.
I don’t really notice the guy she came in with until he speaks. He has that fake Brooklyn accent that Italian guys think is so macho. He’s wearing a bowling shirt with a once-white undershirt peeking out. His hair looks like a skunk crawled onto his cranium and died. There’s a peppering of dark hair all over his body. He looks like a Sasquatch with gold medals hanging around its neck. When he walked in, he had his hand in the girl’s back pocket. They were laughing like something was hysterical.
It doesn’t happen until the waitress walks away. The tension didn’t balloon into anything until the ape-man tapped Cole’s shoulder, “Hey buddy, you lose your balls or what? Who the fuck lets the dame drive?” He snort-laughs like he’s hysterical.
As he’s speaking, I turn and glance over my shoulder at him. My mouth starts to open with some snappy retort, but Cole’s already acting. His fist flies into the man’s face and connects with his nose in a loud crack. The hairy guy grips his face and blood streaks between his fingers. Before he can say a word, Cole is tugging my hand and pulling me out the door.
I’m stumbling through the parking lot toward the bike. Ape-man’s girlfriend follows us out, but she doesn’t approach. Instead she stays by the door screaming profanities at us, saying she’s calling the cops.
“Cole, what the hell was that?” I finally manage, looking back over my shoulder. He sucker punched a guy in the face. Every muscle in Cole’s body is tense. His fingers release my wrist when we get to the bike. He thrusts my helmet at me, an obvious sign that he wants to leave.
“Are you insane?” I scold. “You just made bail and now you punched some schmuck in the face?” I’m yelling and shaking as I start the bike.
Cole says nothing. We pull away and I don’t know where to go. If they called the police, Cole’s screwed. He doesn’t tell me where to go or where to drop him off. He just sits on the back of the bike with his hands around my waist, rigid and fuming.
Since we are already out on Long Island, I decide to head toward my parent’s house. They aren’t too far away, and with the way Cole’s fingers are digging into my sides, we can’t get there fast enough. His reaction seems unwarranted, but he had his masculinity questioned too many times today. Apparently he was at his limit.
Cole doesn’t complain, but I can tell the bike isn’t his thing. Instead of wrapping his arms around my waist, he’s been trying to keep a respectable distance between us, which makes it harder for me to keep a respectable distance from the asphalt. Cole didn’t do corners when we started, but after the diner, he holds me tighter and leans farther as the bike winds down the ramps and turns corners. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to drive. I can’t really blame him for not adapting to the motorcycle at first. Trust fund babies don’t ride Harleys, not unless they are taunting some distant relative into disowning them. Me on the other hand, I was on my own and could do whatever I damn-well pleased.
The bike slows to a crawl and I stop a few houses down from my parents. Cole’s grip on my waist loosens. Lifting my visor, I speak to Cole over my shoulder, “My parent’s house is right here.” He looks surprised, so I explain, “A guy and girl on a bike with a pink splotch is kind of easy to pick out. If that guy at the diner called the cops—”
He cut me off, “I know. I’m out on bail, even though I didn’t punch the cop earlier.”
I nod. “I know and it looks like you’re punching your way to the Jersey shore.” My lips pull into a smile. Cole’s grimace doesn’t crack. I get serious, “Hey, stay here for the night. It’ll give you a few hours until your lawyer is back, and then you won’t have to worry about being thrown in jail. From what I’ve heard, if you get tossed in after six, you stay there for the night.” I cringe, and look at my parent’s house muttering, “Although I’m not really sure if this’ll be much better.”
Cool blue eyes examine my face. They move from my left eye to my right, then down. It is such a sweet expression. I can tell that he doesn’t understand why I’m being so nice to him. Looking at his hands, he asks, “Why are you helping me? I mean, I know you’re altruistic, but I kind of deserve whatever I get after today.”
Glancing at the side of his face I notice a dusting of stubble lining his jaw, and the tension lines between his eyes. “Yeah, well…” I debate telling him how much he’s grown on me, how much I like him. “Let’s just say that I wanted to punch the girl in the face, but I didn’t have the guts to do it. We’re a little more alike than I would have thought.”
“Well spoken,” the corner of his lips twitches like he wants to smile.
I grin, “Well, one of us has to be. We can’t all turn into thugs and just smash people.”
“Assholes,” he corrects. His hands rest on my thighs just below my hips. The weight of his palm feels good. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes make me smile.
I laugh, “Fine, assholes. But I gotta tell you, my dad will probably mess with you, call you a girl, tell you that your way too old to be his daughter’s boyfriend—and if you punch him—he will shoot you in the face. He’s crazy like that.”
I pull my visor down and drive down the street with Cole sputtering, “Boyfriend?”