Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters #1)(28)
“All right,” she said briskly, bending to pick up her laptop. She hadn’t even got it out of the bag. “I quite understand. I’ll just—”
He ignored her. “Usually, when I get like this, I go for a ride.”
She looked at him, her eyes even wider than usual behind her glasses.
“Fancy it?”
There was that smile of hers. Like the rising sun.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The neat little car park was at the rear of the building. Its flat tarmac and faded white lines were brightened up by intermittently placed leafy things, as if the designers had some sort of greenery quota and had shoved in a few plants to meet requirements at the last minute. Red’s monster of a bike stood next to one of those plants, the shiny, electric-blue chrome a harsh contrast to the pale branches of the spindly birch sapling.
Chloe imagined that if the things in this car park were characters in an American high school movie, the motorbike would be a big old bully, and the poor little tree would be one of its victims. In its final year of compulsory education, that bike would be voted “Most Likely to End Up in Jail.” She didn’t think she should ride a school bully that was likely to end up in jail. She’d put this on her list because it seemed the epitome of reckless insouciance, but now that it might actually happen, she was feeling neither reckless nor insouciant.
But she took a deep breath and told herself sternly to buck up and get on with it. She would stick to her list, fear be damned, because people didn’t change their lives by meekly giving up at the first heart-pounding hurdle. She was ready for this. Actually, she wasn’t, but she’d do it anyway. She’d already agreed. She’d even made Red wait while she went home to put her laptop away. She couldn’t back down now, just because one little crash might result in her brain being decimated.
Although, she did rather need her brain. For things. And stuff.
“Chloe.” Red’s voice was loud in the deserted car park, so deep it almost made her jump out of her clothes. Wait, no: skin. She meant skin.
“Yes?” she squeaked, dragging her gaze from the enormous bike to the enormous man standing beside it.
His eyebrows were raised, his lips slightly tilted. That was his resting expression, the opposite of her chronic bitch face: happy, curious, open, friendly. Why did she even like him?
Wait a moment—did she like him?
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said brightly. “Just thinking about the potential likelihood of brain decimation.”
His smile widened at that, slow and steady and achingly handsome. Ridiculous man. Brain decimation was a serious business.
“You got any hard numbers on that?” he asked. “Odds, percentages?”
She scowled. “No, but if you’d give me a minute I could probably calculate some.” That would wipe the amusement off his face, guaranteed. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, because of course her vintage-replica swing skirt had pockets. There was a reason sartorial upheaval hadn’t been mentioned on her Get a Life list; Chloe was already the coolest dresser on the planet. “Where do you think I’ll find the most reliable crash statistics? Gov.uk?”
“Maybe,” he mused. “Or maybe, I don’t know … ScaredyCats.com?”
She looked up with a scowl, outraged. “What on earth is that supposed to—?”
He held out a big, clunky-looking helmet and interrupted her quite happily. “Give me your glasses.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” she snapped, yanking the helmet out of his hands. She eyed it suspiciously, then studied the motorbike compartment he’d pulled it out of. The compartment that also doubled as a seat. Hmm. That didn’t suggest the sort of structural integrity she typically desired in a vehicle.
“Glasses might not fit under the helmet,” he said mildly. “It’s full-face. You know, to reduce the chances of brain decimation.”
She snorted, was silent for a moment as she studied the helmet. Then, in a fit of irritation, she muttered, “Don’t act as though it hasn’t crossed your mind.”
Something hot and wild sparked in his gaze, a sort of sharp-edged teasing that reminded her of a wolf on the hunt. He leaned toward her over the bike and asked, “As though what hasn’t crossed my mind?”
She shivered slightly, despite the thermal vest under her clothes and the jacket she’d picked up from her flat. And she remembered what had happened in his bedroom, when she’d fallen on top of him like a ninny, and sparks of sheer sensation had taken over her entire body. After a shamefully long silence, she blurted, “Brain decimation. The risk of brain decimation has definitely crossed your mind.”
He gave her a crooked smile that seemed, for a moment, oddly triumphant. Then he straightened, shrugged, running a hand through all that glorious, sunset hair. “I don’t let myself worry about that. If I die, I die. Could happen on this bike if I’m not careful or my luck blows. Could happen tomorrow morning if I trip and fall in the shower.” He grabbed his own helmet. “You still in? It’s okay if you’re not.”
She swallowed down her instinctive response, the worries she never voiced. Things like I could get hit by a drunk driver in broad daylight while walking down the street. I could fall in the shower, not by chance, but because that’s what I do. I fall sometimes. I could fall right now, and hit my head, and die.