He smiles at me and I smile back. I appreciate a man who can handle a little ribbing. I don’t always want to apologize for my bluntness.
“Get off the damn couch,” Isaac says. “I’ll take you for a ride. That’ll cheer you up.”
“Getting on the back of that thing willnotmake me feel alive.”
If anything, it’s just going to remind me of the night I watched Isaac kill a man right in front of me and I had to choose between getting on the back of his dangerousmachineor risk – what? I don’t even know why anyone attacked the nightclub.
“If you want to stay here, you can. But I’ll be locking the doors behind me when I leave.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that’s for my safety and not yours?”
“It is very much for your safety. We don’t know who attacked the bar or why.”
“It’s not your ex-wife?” I ask, suspicious that she might have been responsible. Then again, the times are strange.
“No. But she’s out there somewhere.”
“Great. Being around you seems to be the safest place for me.”
Isaac’s eyes flicker with his stubborn anger, but he bites his tongue when it comes to a sassy response at least.
“Fine. You can stay here if that’s what you want.”
He gets off the couch, reaching for his keys and his cut. I don’t actually like being cooped up here and while following Isaac has yielded nothing good for me thus far, I would rather get some fresh air than stay here on the couch watching Netflix. I follow him towards the door and Isaac ignores my presence until the last moment before he’s ready to leave.
“You changed your mind,” he says with a grin.
“Shut up.”
“I knew you couldn’t resist.”
“Again, shut up.”
“Want to see anything in particular?”
“No. I barely want to get on the back of that thing.”
“This time I can teach you how to feel more stable,” Isaac says. “Once you get used to it, I’m sure you’re gonna love it.”
“Your ex-wife might have loved it, but I’m not cut out to be anyone’s old lady or whatever you call it.”
“Where did you hear that phrase?”
“I readFear And Loathing In Las Vegasfor a college class.”
“Fancy.”
Isaac hands me a helmet as we stand at his bike and I eye both the bike and the helmet with all the appropriate skepticism.
“My hair can’t fit under that thing.”
“Yes, it can,” Isaac says. “It’s not safe without it, anyways.”
“What about this?” I ask, pointing to his cut. “I need a leather jacket or something.”
“I keep my old cut in storage back here,” he says, popping open some compartment on the motorcycle that I wouldn’t have immediately recognized as being there. Isaac pulls out a giant leather jacket with patches and his club name stitched on the back. The jacket looks ripped up as if it’s been shredded in its fair share of accidents but the leather is sturdy enough that the crashes only created mild scratches in comparison to their potential.
“This too big for you?”