from behind me.
“You’re not.”
“I am. My thighs are killing me. We’ll never get back at this rate.”
“I’m doing all the work here,” I shouted. “Do you even have your feet on the peddles?”
I glanced back, and of course, he didn’t. Cheeky bastard.
Renting a tandem bicycle had been all his idea. The last time I’d ridden a bike had been in a spin class years before. I thought I was acquitting myself admirably until I realized we’d been out only half of our rental time. By then, I was ready to abandon the thing on the side of the road.
“This was your idea,” I reminded him.
“You went along with it.”
“Because I like your smile,” I admitted. He didn’t say anything, and at that point I knew I was the only one peddling. Had he abandoned ship?
When I glanced back, it was to see him grinning softly. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead beneath the tragically uncool protuberance of his bike helmet.
“What do you say we walk this bad idea back to the rental place and never tell anyone we did it?” I asked.
“No.” He started pumping again. “At least let’s ride back.”
“Okay, but no more slacking.”
He still slacked, but it was okay. We dropped the bike off in plenty of time and continued along the beach for a while, letting the breeze dry our sweaty bodies. The air smelled of minerals, and iodine, and tar.
“That never happened.” I raked my fingers self-consciously through my curls.
“Who am I going to tell?” Despite having been squashed under a helmet, Epic’s hair seemed to sift into its normal style. Silky and dark, the late afternoon sun reflected off it like a halo. My calf muscles had tightened, changing my stride. My thighs burned with every step. Epic made me reapply sunscreen.
“Feel like a dip?” I asked.
“Just because I wanted to go bike riding?” Epic gaped at me. “No.”
“I meant do you want to go back to the hotel and have a swim before dinner.”
“Oh. Okay.” He smiled slyly. “Sure.”
As we drove back to the hotel, Epic turned on the radio. I had it tuned to a satellite radio station that played classical music. He pushed the Seek button.
As he listened to the snippets of each station, I wondered if this was going to be the thing that began the end between us. Epic’s playlist had been great, but what was his normal taste in music? I’d driven over twelve hundred miles to get to Santa Barbara, and I could not have done it listening to country western or trance music.
“You don’t like classical?” I finally asked.
“I like it. Just wanted to see what else there is. My beater hasn’t exactly got satellite radio.”
“Oh.”
“Are there presets?”
“Why?”
“I’m snooping. I want to know what you listen to.”
“What do you listen to?”
“Lots of stuff.” He relaxed back into his seat. “Dance, trance, hip-hop, heavy metal, techno, jazz, funk, new age, classical, you name it.”
“Gregorian chant?”
“Totally. You?”
“Oh sure,” I said wryly. “I get down with my bad self to Hildegarde von Bingen too.”
“That racist bitch? No way. She’s cancelled.”
I glanced over, surprised. “How do you know Hildegarde?”
“Well, unlike you, I didn’t go to school with her.” He shot the playful jab with a grin. “I know a very little bit about a lot of things. That’s part of my charm.”
“Indeed.” I liked his explanation. “Is there anything you know a whole lot about?”
“You mean like…tantric sexual practices?”
My mouth went dry. “Mmhmm.”
“Not really. Who was it that said, ‘deep down, he’s really very shallow’?”
“Oh, I know this one." I raised my hand. "Dorothy Parker for the win.”
“Seems like you know a little about a lot of things too.” He glanced my way with approval.
“It’s my stock in trade.”
He went back to the classical station—Joshua Bell playing Chopin’s E-flat Nocturne—and put his seat back a few inches.
His hand rested on the console beside mine, and I had the most absurd urge to take it in mine. There was something about Epic, the way he moved, and laughed, and sighed when he was utterly, completely content that touched me in ways I never could have foreseen. It was as if we’d walked together but separately all along and closing the distance between us would feel as natural as breathing.
“Ryan?” he asked.
I had to clear my throat. “Mmhmm?”
“Are you happy I came along on your trip?”
“Very.” I did take his hand then. A blanket of warmth swept over me when he laced our fingers together.
“Me too.”
At the hotel, we left the car