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Cody waves his hand around and reaches for his glass of wine. “Yeah, totally. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned them.”
Notice the way he’s fumbling with words and speaking in a quiet voice? He’s sympathetic but asking all the wrong questions. Awkward silence weighs on my shoulders, sagging my posture as I finish the rest of my coffee.
It’s then Cody asks, “Um. . . what’s your. . . .” He pauses, redirecting the question and squaring his shoulders in a stiff I-don’t-know-why-I’m-asking-this stance. “Is there something going on with you and Tiller? I don’t want to step on his turf.”
His turf?I almost laugh, almost being the key word because turf isexactlyhow Tiller sees it. I’m good enough to hang out with, party with, kiss, but never ever am I good enough to hold his heart. Or is it me who’s scared of it? I can never tell with us. Our relationship is like a Rubix cube and neither one of us can find the right twist at the same time.
Now. . . here’s where everything turns to crap—if it hadn’t been going there in the first place.
Do you ever have that feeling something bad is going to happen? Ava used to tell me it’s called a premonition.
It’s during dessert where I get that premonition feeling deep in my bones, like someone’s trying to warn me of my impending doom. Cody’s convincing me to try the North Italia’s famous hazelnut torta, which is basically a gigantic Nutella brownie, made with Nutella cream, hazelnut toffee, and salted caramel gelato.
And that’s when I hear the distant, yet distinct, scream of a 2-stroke, and a waft of racing fuel hit my senses. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, and I look around.
Cody does the same, and there’s a commotion near the entrance as a man enters the restaurant on a familiar red and white Honda CR250. I’m sure you wonder here, why they let him in the building, right?
It’s southern California. The doors to restaurants are usually open.
And I’m sure you can guess who’s on the bike, too, right?
Do you see him? The one by the door on the dirt bike, goggles blocking dark mysterious eyes, but I know they’re focused on me, waiting to see my reaction to his psychotic display of whatever he has planned.
Christ, why is he on his dirt bike?
Do you notice the way Tiller’s relaxed on the bike? I lift my eyes and wonder if under the mirror orange and purple goggles, if I’ll find his eyes to be whiskey-colored or cocaine-black.
He revs the bike twice, giving me a head nod when he spots me in the corner.
I slap my hand over my mouth. “Oh. My—”
I don’t get out what I was going to say next because Cody says, “What the fuck ishedoing here?” And he narrows his eyes at me. Like I invited him. Like I allowed this.
“I don’t know what he’s doing here.” I panic and push away from the table, ready to bolt out the back door like I’ve been caught sneaking out. I have been in many ways.
Cody’s disappointment shifts. “Did you tell him we were coming here?”
“Are you crazy?” If I had, I wouldn’t have made it here. Tiller would have interjected. Like the time I was supposed to go Mexico with friends from school, and he kidnapped me and made me go to Seattle with him for the weekend. “No. I didn’t.”
Tables are tipped over. Glasses are broken. Waiters shuffle. Cooks stare.
And me, I glare that he’s causing a scene because it’s just like him to do this. My senior prom I went with a boy I’d been dating. Tiller showed up, threw a table through a window, and broke my date’s jaw. When I said being friends with Tiller is like emotional terrorism, I wasn’t joking.
I watch Tiller rev his bike, do a back-tire wheelie and knock nearby empty stools over with the rear tire. He bounces off tables, chairs, walls, putting on a show for those bold enough to stay in their seats. Guys smile, girls blush, others gawk in horror their meals are being ruined, but curious as to why Tiller Sawyer, Red Bull X-Fighter champion is destroying a restaurant. There has to be a reason, right?
Sadly, no. And if you think there’s reason for anything he does, you don’t know him very well.
People see Tiller and they think a guy like him is invincible. He’s a champion and everything about his dark eyes to the way he’s silently confident draws you in. He gets girls wet and guys wishing they had the arrogance he holds.
Some leave, most don’t, and the room fills with 2-stroke smoke. His bike idles. The potent sting of the fuel burns my eyes. Before us now, he twists his head to Cody, then me and nods.
I can see his breathing is harsh, having muscled around a three-hundred-pound bike like it was a toy, but it’s me he’s treating like a toy no one else can touch.
He removes his goggles and hangs them on the handlebars, but leaves on the skull-painted helmet.
I stare in disbelief, my eyes blinking rapidly to make sense of what just happened, or is happening.Damn you, premonitions.“What are you doing here?”
An artful display of colors surrounds him from the red-and-white bike to the green, red, yellow, and black jersey and riding pants. His front tire hits my chair. Winking, he rocks his hips forward on the seat and leans his weight forward on the bike to push my chair against the brick wall behind me. Excitement courses through me and I hate the tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach when I watch his hips roll forward.