Turned out I didn’t have two quarters. I had ten credit cards, a twenty, and an emergency fifty-dollar bill jammed into the corner of my wallet. It was just as well. I had no idea where Harper had gone, and I needed a minute to think before I ran off half-cocked.

Walking on the shoulder in the direction Harper had driven, I tried to get my head around her offer.

I’d been pursued before. I wasn’t so much of a predator that I only fucked what I chased. But this girl was insane. She’d gutted my life so I’d teach her how to fuck? It would have been easier to fly out to San Jose and shake her little tits at me. Sell those earrings for a nice hotel room.

My mind slid into the possibilities inside a hotel room, and now that I had full visual on the tit situation, I could get really detailed about it.

In every fantasy, Deepak texted to say there was no problem. We were ready to roll with GreyHatC0n. Without his messages, I couldn’t touch her. Not even in a fantasy hotel room.

The route was a single lane in each direction, weaving through a lightly wooded forest. Not much traffic in the first hour. Three cars going in my direction and one coming the opposite way. I didn’t put my thumb out for the first hour of walking, and only one truck slowed down to ask where I was going. The guy looked like a traveling salesman in a cheap suit with a passenger seat loaded with fast food bags. I waved him on.

I missed my phone.

How was Deepak going to contact me to tell me how fucked up it was that I couldn’t sacrifice a little sex with a beautiful girl to save the company? How was I going to imagine the incredulity on his face when I told him how hot she was? That under normal circumstances, I would have taken her twelve ways from Tuesday? And she didn’t want a commitment. Just a crash course in how to please a guy, with the first lucky guy being me.

Despite the fact that Harper had the keys to a lock I needed opened, she freaked me out. I didn’t trust she’d do what she promised.

And it didn’t matter.

Man, her body.

And the way she let me kiss her. Like she was receiving the kiss. That was what it was. She was learning it as I did it.

The buzz and rumble of a car coming from behind me woke my mind up to the pain in my feet and the time of day. The sun was getting low in the sky, and I was just going to have to stick out my thumb.

The SUV passed with the driver staring at my thumb and me. Then two more. I must have gotten to a more used part of the road. All the cars had local plates. All the drivers were women. If I was a woman, I wouldn’t have stopped for me either.

The forest broke, and I was walking along open plain.

The rumble of a motorcycle cut the air as it passed. A motorcycle with a sidecar. I stuck my thumb out even though the back of a motorcycle or a deathtrap sidecar weren’t what I had in mind. The bike stopped. The driver wore a leather vest that should have scared me, but I was tired and hungry. The back graphic said Lord Of Rust in old English lettering and had roses twined around the chemical formula for oxidized iron.

Odd. Odd in every way.

The ninety-five pound uhff-ing dog was in the sidecar with its tongue lolling. Johnny swung his leg over the seat, and we met in the space between us. His corporate polo was gone in favor of a T-shirt that said, “Horologists Take Their Time.”

“Nice afternoon for a walk,” he said. “Unless you don’t wanna get robbed by a bunch of broke motherfuckers with tattoos.”

“You gonna rob me?”

“Shit. I ain’t no motherfucker.” He smiled to let me know he wasn’t offended. “Where you headed?”

“The Barrington place. I’m headed in the completely wrong direction, aren’t I?”

He shrugged. “Depends how much walking you’re fixing to do. Nobody picking up hitchers these days. Even nice white boys.”

“Why’s that?”

“Double murder a few months back. They found the guy, but everyone’s skittish.”

“Was he a nice white boy?”

“Yep. Nice haircut and an Oxycontin habit. Started like a regular robbery then went all wrong. Cops couldn’t figure out if the hitcher was a bigger moron than the driver, but there was plenty of stupid to go around that night. I don’t know what gets into people. They get a gun and have ideas. Gonna be a hero. Prove something. Shoot a guy who’s high on painkillers in the knee and think the pain’s gonna stop him from turning the gun back on you.”

“Great story. Really.”

“I have more.”

I looked up the road, then back down it, then at the dog in the sidecar.

“Come on.” He clapped me on the shoulder and stepped backward toward the bike. “I’ll take you back if you don’t mind sharing a sidecar with Redox.”

“Redox?”

“Yeah, the—”

“Oxidation reduction process. Dude.”

“Kids are gone, so a guy’s gotta have hobbies, right? Mine’s science.” He pointed at me then at the dog. “This here’s a nice city boy,” he told Redox. “That’s a fancy jacket, and it ain’t gonna hurt you. Be good.”

“Does he bite?” I asked.

“‘Course he bites. No point otherwise. Your other option is to ride bitch with your arms around me, but you’d have to kiss me first.”

I got into the sidecar. Redox was in the middle of the seat, and from the way he looked me straight in the eye, he had no intention of moving for a white boy in a nice jacket. I squeezed in where I could. Johnny handed me a black military helmet and took off back toward town.