Page 27 of Rogue
“Not today.”
She nodded, eyes still on the bike, and picked up a screwdriver.She said, “Did it go the way you wanted?”
I thought about lying.I thought about telling her the truth.Instead, I shrugged.“Jury’s out.”
She pried the plate off the side of the carb, exposing the assembly.I watched her hands: every movement cautious, but not tentative.She’d paid attention that day on the road, the lesson I’d given her because I needed her to know how the machine worked in case she ever had to get away from something or someone.And it seemed she’d been watching my every move when I worked on my bike at the house.I had to admit I was surprised at how much she’d remembered.
She said, “I think I can fix this.”
“You think, or you know?”
She looked at me, one eyebrow cocked.“I know.”
I didn’t smile.I let her have it.
She went back to work.After a minute, she said, “You can watch, you know.I’m not going to break it.”
I picked up the cut from the bench and walked over to where she was working.I waited until she paused to reach for the rag again, and then I draped it over her shoulders -- careful, because the back of her neck was bare and cold.She looked up at me, her mouth curving at the corner, and for the first time that day the tension in my chest slackened.
“I thought you were supposed to be inside.Danica said --”
“She said to keep my head down.I am.I’m under a bike.”
I couldn’t argue with that.I crouched next to her, close enough that I could smell the faint metallic tang of the carb cleaner on her hands, and the sweat in the flannel that was mine before it was hers.
She was looking at the engine, but I was looking at her.
She said, “You ever think about what you’d be doing if you weren’t here?”
“Never,” I said.
She gave a small, genuine laugh.“Liar.”
“Wouldn’t suit me.”
She adjusted the choke lever, checked it twice, then tightened the nut with the same wrench.“I think it’s good now.”
“You want to try it?”
“Not yet,” she said.“Don’t want to draw a crowd.”
I nodded.She wiped her hands again, but there was no point -- the grease had gotten into the lines of her fingers.
“You don’t have to be in the middle of everything,” I said.“If you want, I can tell the Prospects to --”
“I want to,” she said.And for the first time she looked at me straight, no evasions, no polite hedges.“I want to know how things work.”
Behind us, the Prospect swept the shop floor, not making a show of it.Out in the yard, the sounds of compound life went on -- chainsaws, the whine of a two-stroke, the distant argument over whose job it was to patch the back fence.
But in the garage, the world had gone quiet.
I said, “Move over.”
She shifted, making space for me at the side of the bike.I set my hands on the frame, right next to hers, and she didn’t move away.
For a long minute we stayed like that, the bike between us, the cut warm on her back, the smell of oil and steel and the sun just starting to dip low outside the bay.The world kept moving, but the moment didn’t.
And for the first time in a long time, I let it be enough.
