Page 23 of Unconditionally Yours

I open the card. Inside I scrawl a quick message with a glitter pen: “Don’t hit anyone. Have a great weekend. You’re my favorite problem.”

I hover over the card, lipstick tube in one hand, raw thirst in the other.

“Too much?” I whisper.

“No,” I answer.

I kiss the bottom corner. It’s not a signature. It’s a claim. A tiny, perfect mouth print that says you’re fucked, baby boy and not just emotionally.

Jett’s motorcycle is parked behind the gym, trying to intimidate the pavement. It doesn’t need a license plate or a nametag or a little sign that says BROOD MACHINE 9000. The thing just radiates him. All matte black and angry angles. A threat with handlebars. The gas tank’s been custom painted, of course. Some grim reaper bullshit, but not cheesy, more like a rotted angel with a blade in its mouth and a spine made of thorns. Very my love is a battlefield and I will run you over energy. I swoon a little.

Of course it’s Jett’s.

I park beside it and stare lovingly, which I think is normal. Then I get out, walk over, unbuckle one of his saddlebags, and slip the gift bag inside. I do root around a little, because if you’re going to leave your things unattended around someone with unresolved childhood attachment issues, that’s really on you. I don’t find much, just a pair of gym gloves, a bottle of water, and his hat, all folded up unaware it’s been the star of several of my more intense fantasies.

I hold the hat for a second. Sniff it. Gently. Respectfully. Like a weirdo with boundaries. Then I tuck it back in the bag like a good girl. Pause, snatch it out again, and replace my sunhat with it.

Getting on Jett’s bike is not easy when you’re five foot nothing and shaped like a cursed American Girl doll, but I manage. I scramble up like a drunk gremlin trying to mount a dragon, nearly twist my ankle, and definitely flash my underwear to the entire gym dumpster. Worth it.

Because now I’m sitting on his bike. On Jett’s bike. Straddling his leather seat, thighs pressed where his would be, fingers gripping the handles like I know what I’m doing. I don’t. I absolutely don’t. But that doesn’t stop me from making soft vroom-vroom noises and imagining what it would feel like to wrap my arms around him while he rides, dangerous and fast and furious, saying “I don’t do relationships” right before rearranging my guts.

I glance around. No one’s here.

I stare at the grim reaper’s snarling face, and whisper: “He’s going to love me or die mad about it.”

Then I press my mouth to the tank, slow and worshipful.

When I pull back, my lip print gleams on the matte black metal, glossy and brazen.

He’ll see it and either jerk off or file a police report. Maybe both, he’s complicated.

Chapter Eight

Jett

The gym’s dead quiet. Friday nights swing both ways, either packed with sadists or emptied out like a crime scene. Tonight, even the die-hards have limped home to ice their knees and cry into overpriced protein sludge.

I try not to think of her as I cross the lot. Try not to remember the glitter-gloss curve of her mouth when she said “training,” like she meant sex, violence, or both and wanted then confused.

But then I see my bike.

And the goddamn saddlebag is open.

I slow down. Heart already punching behind my ribs. Either someone made a mistake, or I’m about to.

Someone touched my shit.

I crouch beside it. And there it is.

A little black gift bag with a pink skull on the front, trying to be cute and threatening at the same time. Inside: Cookies. Gummy candy. A tiny can of salted cashews. A fucking card with cartoon monsters on it that says: It’s scary how much I think of you. And inside, in loopy, slightly manic handwriting:

Have a great weekend. Don’t hit anyone. D

There’s a kiss print on it.

I stare at it. For a long time.

The candy is her. The handwriting is her. The aggressively sincere psychotic whimsy is so her, it’s like she carved it from her own soul and drop-kicked it into my life without permission.