Make Me Sin

18

Apparently deciding not to wait for the check, A.J. reaches into his pocket, produces his wallet, and throws a wad of cash on the table, all without releasing my arm. I’m impressed. I remind myself he must have perfected the art of handling women in various stages of inebriation. Picturing a chorus line of half-drunk prostitutes kicking their legs in the air as A.J. rushes to keep them all from falling, I giggle.

“How much did you have to drink before you got here?”

His voice is stern. He gazes down at me as if he’s very disappointed in my behavior. I sheepishly admit I had two or three glasses of red wine with dinner.

“So. Two or three glasses of wine, two glasses of champagne, and two glasses of whiskey. You’ve had at least six, possibly seven drinks in the past few hours. Four of them in the last thirty minutes. Two of those double whiskeys. That about right?”

I close one eye because the room has, just slightly, begun to spin. “I have many talents, Mr. Edwards, but I’m not all that great with math.” Another hiccup. “I’ll have to take your word on this one.”

“Let’s go, Princess.” Without waiting for a reply, A.J. half drags, half carries me to the door.

“Where are we going?” I cry, alarmed. I’m even more alarmed by what he says next.

“Home. You need to go to bed.”

A.J.’s car is nothing like what I expected. Because it’s not a car. It’s a motorcycle. He informs me he doesn’t own a car.

Item number four thousand seven hundred eighty-two on the list of things normal people own that A.J. Edwards doesn’t.

“I can’t ride on that!” I stare at the ginormous black Harley parked in the back lot. It glitters with chrome and menace. Under the flickering fluorescent lamplight of the parking lot, it seems to leer at me.

One saving grace, at least: it’s stopped raining.

“Of course you can.” A.J. opens one of the leather side bags strapped to the back of the bike, produces a helmet that looks as if half of it is missing, and hands it to me. “Put this on.”

He mounts the bike and starts it with a brisk kick of his leg. It roars to life, exhaling fumes. I cough and fan a hand back and forth in front of my face. “I’ll die on that thing!” I shout over the racket. “Forget it! I’ll call a cab!”

He shoves the hoodie off his head, pulls his hair out of the elastic that’s been holding it in the messy man bun at the nape of his neck, and straps on a helmet, all while gazing calmly at me. “Chloe, get your ass on the back of my bike.”

The way my body responds to this command is ridiculous. Hormones I never knew I had start screaming gleefully through my veins, tossing confetti and blowing party horns. I bite my lip, hard, and stare at him.

This is dangerous territory. A.J. is dangerous territory. I should know better. I have common sense. I have a boyfriend. I have a deeply ingrained sense of loyalty to said boyfriend, even if we are in a fight.

A.J. has a deeply ingrained fondness for ladies of the evening.

He says my name again, softer this time. His eyes caress mine. Under their warm golden glow, I melt. “Fine. But if you kill me on this thing, it’s up to you to explain to my parents what happened. Good luck with that. My father will most likely disembowel you.”

“She’s not a thing.” Defending the honor of his motorbike, A.J. ignores the threat to his bodily unity. Perhaps he isn’t as fond of his bowels as most people are.

With zero elegance, I clamber onto the back of the motorcycle, clutching his shoulders for balance. They feel like boulders beneath my hands.

“She’s a custom V-Rod with a titanium chassis and a top speed of two hundred and fifty miles per hour.”

It seems the alcohol has engaged my selective hearing because I glide right over that last piece of data as if it had never been spoken. No wonder they say ignorance is bliss. “How is a motorcycle a she?” I demand. “Wouldn’t they all be hes, if they’re supposed to be so macho and dangerous?”

“Helmet.”

I don my helmet, fumbling with the chin strap. When I’m finished and he appears satisfied with my efforts, A.J. asks, “You ever watch Jacques Cousteau?”

Hello, left field, I see the fly ball approaching. “That might be the strangest segue I’ve ever heard.”

“Answer the question.”

I do this thing that’s part belly-deep burp, part hiccup. I’m convinced it’s the single most unattractive noise to ever exit my body. Horrified, I clap my hands over my mouth. A.J. looks amused. It’s a relief, but it shouldn’t be, considering I don’t care about his opinion. I recover my composure quickly, and answer. “Yes. My mother loved him. She used to watch reruns of his show all the time when I was growing up.”

He nods. “Mine, too.”

Whoa. He has a mother. The thought has never occurred to me. My fuzzy brain launches into a stumbling frenzy of related questions about siblings, family life, his youth and hobbies and education, until it exhausts itself and falls flat on its face, and I just stare at him, waiting. The process takes all of five seconds.

“There’s this thing that Jacques Cousteau used to say that always stuck with me. Put your arms around me.”

“Jacques Cousteau used to say ‘put your arms around me’?”

“No, Chloe. Put your arms around me. You have to hold on for the ride.” He waits for me to follow this simple direction.