Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(115)

“What are you looking at?” Ethan’s voice.

I put the photographs back in the envelope. “I’ll tell you some other time.”

I stood to kiss him and he looked at me, shocked. Between Victor and Joseph, I wasn’t going to be turning heads for a while. Not in a good way, at least.

“What happened?” he asked hesitantly, as though even asking would somehow jar me and cause new pain. “Are you okay?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that.”

“I wonder why. You look like you picked a fight with Mike Tyson.”

“Mike Tyson’s retired.”

“Maybe he’s onto something.”

I shook my head. “I don’t play golf and I don’t fish.”

“You could take up knitting, maybe. Something safe.”

The talk went on like that for a bit. Keeping it light. As though we were getting to know each other again. We ordered, and the food came out quickly. With food things felt more comfortable. Soon we were slurping rice noodles from big bowls of beef pho. I used chopsticks to dip the beef into a side plate of hot sauce and spooned up more of the hot liquid. The food felt good. Sitting there with Ethan felt good.

He finally pushed his bowl away. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“It’s going to make me sound like an eighth-grade girl.”

I pushed my own bowl away. “Exactly what I’ve always wanted in a relationship.”

He smiled at me, a noodle trailing from the corner of his mouth, and I had to laugh. He blushed and wiped his mouth. “Seriously, Nikki. The last couple of weeks, being worried, telling myself that I was overreacting. Except seeing you now … I can’t help thinking that instead of worrying too much, maybe I wasn’t worrying enough.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

“I guess my question is—is this normal?”

I took a gulp of water, my mouth burning from the hot sauce. “This has been one of the least normal months of my life.”

“Oh.” He thought that over. “That’s good. Because if it was, like, an every-week thing…”

I laughed. “If this kind of thing happened every week, I really would retire.”

He insisted on paying. We walked outside and stood together, his arm in mine. The air was cool, the fall coming to an end. It had briefly rained that afternoon and a neighboring bar’s neon signs threw blue glimmers onto a sidewalk puddle. Cars drifted past, traffic sparse. “Do you have to be somewhere?” he asked.

“I don’t have anywhere to be.”

“Me neither.”

I hesitated, then spoke. “We can go for a ride. If you want.”

“A ride?”

I nodded toward the red motorcycle parked across the median on the other side of the street. “I have a second helmet. We wouldn’t be breaking any laws.”

“Where?”

“There’s a place I sometimes go. A little town up the coast. There’s a house I sometimes visit there.”

He understood immediately. “Bolinas? Where you grew up?”

“I never thought I’d bring anyone else there. But I’ve told you a little about it, and we can talk more when we’re there. Maybe sit by the ocean, watch the sun come up. If you want.”

His hand was in mine. “I’d like that.”

We crossed San Pablo and climbed onto the motorcycle. I felt his weight behind me. Felt his arms around me. I hadn’t had anyone ride with me for a long time. Two people felt different. It felt okay, though. The balance was still there, even with two. With motorcycles, balance was the important thing.

I started the engine. Nudged my left foot down, clicked the bike into gear.

We glided into the quiet street.

Soon we were on the freeway, heading north. Toward the bridge, toward the shadow of San Quentin, but beyond those forbidding walls the road continued, climbing and twisting up over Mount Tamalpais before finding, eventually, the open water. The moon above, the water of the Bay, the sprinkled lights of the homes built into the East Bay hills. I was aware of all those things. The darkness ahead of us retreated, pushed back by the headlight, as we continued on.