Page 36 of Gatsby's Starlet
Didn’t laugh either. Didn’t smirk. Didn’t make it into something.
The bar kept moving around us, Chain running his mouth, glasses sliding down the counter, music bleeding in from the back, but it all dulled out a little, like it had taken a step back without asking.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“Yeah.”
That pulled a smile out of her, quick and small, like it slipped past before she could stop it. “Honesty. That’s rare in a man.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nowthat’sa lie.”
Chain showed up at my elbow like he always did when he’d been listening too long. “Just clock out, Gatsby. Jesus.”
Lark came in right behind him and elbowed him without even looking up. “Ignore him.”
“I’m just saying what everyone’s thinkin’,” Chain muttered.
“You’re really not,” Lark said, then glanced at Evie, her tone shifting easy. “I’m gonna go teach this one some manners.”
She hooked her arm through Chain’s and started steering him off. He went with it, which said more than anything he could’ve argued.
Evie watched them go. “Are they always like that?”
“Pretty much.”
She looked back at me, something a little warmer sitting behind it now. “I like them.”
I reached behind me for my jacket. “You eaten yet?”
“No.”
“Good.”
***
SHE CLIMBED ONbehind me without making a production of it, which I appreciated. Some women treated a motorcycle like a photo opportunity. She just got on, settled her hands at my waist, and that was that.
I took the long way. Didn't say so.
The streets thinned out past downtown, the engine dropping into a steadier note as the lights spread wider and traffic fell off. It was a good night for it, cool but not cold, the kind of air that cleared your head whether you wanted it cleared or not.
Her grip was easy at my waist. Not nervous, not performing relaxed either. Just easy.
I was paying attention to that when the light ahead went red.
I rolled to a stop and checked the mirror. Habit. Always habit. Two cars back, there was a bike sitting slightly wide in the lane, not unusual, except the car beside it had turned off at the last intersection and the bike hadn't. It had just moved up two lengths and stopped.
Watching. Maybe. Or maybe nothing, and my brain was running old programs on a night that didn't require them.
Evie's hands tightened at my waist. She hadn't seen anything. She'd just felt something shift in me, the way you feel a door close in another room.
“You okay?” Close to my ear.
“Yeah.”
Light changed. I pulled forward easy, turned a block earlier than I'd planned — no drama, just a slight adjustment, the kind that wouldn't register unless you were looking for it.
