that goes alright, then we can drive down the driveway. If that goes fine, we can get down the street. No pressure. Just an experiment. Have you ever been on a bike-bike?"
"Who hasn't been on a bike?" I asked.
"Then you know the general feel of a motorcycle, minus the engine. I think you will be fine."
"Except for the possible crashing and becoming splattered all over the highway."
"We'll go slow. You allotted enough time for walking, so we can do a real slow cruise. You need me to do ten miles an hour, we can do that."
He made it sound really possible, really reasonable, like something I maybe should have thought of years ago while I struggled to live a normal life while avoiding anything resembling a vehicle.
"At any point between the clubhouse and the train station, you can tell me to stop, and we can walk. One of the other guys can pick up my bike. It's not a problem. We can just give it a try, right? No harm done."
"I guess,"I agreed, still not convinced it was a good idea to try it on the day we needed to be somewhere, and I had to have my guards up.
"All you gotta do is say stop, and it's over," he added, gaze holding mine in the mirror. Huck was not, from what I could gather, the kind of man who was prone to reassurances, so it was sweet that he was trying to give some to me.
"Okay," I agreed, letting out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "God, my family is going to love this. Me showing up on a motorcycle. What will the neighbors think?" I said, rolling my eyes.
"I'm gonna take it that you come from money, huh?" he asked.
"Yeah. Something like that. I mean, sort of. I can explain it more later, I guess."
"Does Jones catch shit?" he asked. "You'll have a problem with your makeup how you like it, and dressing how you want and showing up on a bike, but he can be there with his hair like that and the ink and the piercings, and that's okay?"
"You're going to notice a lot of double-standards today, Huck. And most of them actually don't have to do with me being a girl. It has to do with me not being one of them."
"It's your step-family."
"Yeah. No actual blood relation. And they don't exactly try to make me feel like I am part of the family, either."
"Then why the fuck bother to go?"
"I think you will understand more once we are there," I suggested, stomach getting tight and wobbly just thinking about it. I didn't want to dredge anything else up before the actual event.
"Alright. I'll let it drop for now. Why don't you get that hideous fucking dress on?" he suggested, sharing a smile with me in the mirror before his suddenly fell, and his gaze was deep, intense, as he leaned down a bit, lips close to my ear while his gaze held mine in the mirror. "Otherwise, I might pull off these panties and fuck you right here, and we'd miss the whole party completely," he said, smirking when he got the reaction he wanted out of me.
He stepped back, slapping my ass hard once, then walking out of the bathroom, leaving me alone to finish getting dressed, and try to convince myself that the flush I felt was because it was hot, and not because of the heated look—and the even more scorching words—he'd given me.
Fifteen minutes later, I was in my ugly, uncomfortable dress, feet in strappy heeled sandals, standing in the driveway with the sun beating down on me, making sweat bead up immediately, making me start to hope the bike thing worked because the idea of walking around in the heat sounded downright miserable.
"Ready?" Huck asked, standing beside his bike that, up close, looked a lot bigger than I'd expected.
"I guess we will see," I said, suddenly wishing I'd doubled up my dose of my CBD oil, knowing that it likely would have calmed me down more. But it was too late for that now.
"Alright, just get on behind me and scoot forward," he demanded, reaching to hand me a helmet that was likely going to undo the work I'd put in to perfectly styling my hair. If this worked, we would show up early enough for me to stop to tame it again before we showed up at my grandmother's place.