Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз (бесплатные серии книг .txt) 📗
“I also think you look hot right now. That helmet suits you.” Jake gave the helmet visor a playful slap and adjusted my goggles. He put his helmet on, and I felt that rush of edgy, crawly, fluttery, breathless goodness that sometimes made me see little pinpricks of black at the edges of my eyes when I looked at him. Jake Kelly made my senses reel big time. He swung one leg over the seat and kickstarted the bike, coaxing a roar from the engine. “Hop on and hold tight,” he ordered over the rumble of the engine.
I jumped on behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and clung tight to the bike with my thighs. For a few seconds, the engine roared, then sputtered a little, but Jake pressed on the throttle and it went back to a rhythm more like a deep purr.
“Ready?” he yelled.
I squeezed him tight to let him know I was.
“Keep your feet on the pegs!” he called, and we took off through the well-worn forest paths. At first it was all chokingly scary midnight black, the burning stench of gas fumes, the jarring lurch of the bike over ruts and bumps in the path, and I clung to Jake for dear life, positive I was going to fly off the back and wind up with something important broken.
But he cruised out of the woods and we raced into a wide open field. The trees had been hiding a perfectly round, bright full moon, but it shone down on us now and illuminated what looked like a rough track. Jake pulled onto it, and I felt his body relax under my fingers, like his muscles were happy and satisfied to be where he belonged.
I had watched, my heart lodged in a choking lump right at the base of my throat, while Jake flew around the track at races before, but I had never been on the bike because it had always been so completely Jake’s territory. But as we got closer to each other, the things that were important to each of us tangled and intercepted until we were wound tight and intertwined.
Jake coasted and looked at me over his shoulder. “Wanna jump?”
My heart picked up a startlingly quick rhythm, leaping and diving in my chest. Fear of jumping made my mouth dry and my palms sweat. My stomach knotted and my arms tightened around his waist until I was sure I was cutting off his air supply.
“Okay.” The word warbled out of my throat and he snapped the throttle. My eardrums expanded against the screaming whine of hot metal preparing to take off.
The bike tripped forward with unsteady, gasping skips, and Jake had to take us one circuit, then two, to smooth the belching pace. When we finally came to the base of the jump, he leaned forward slightly. Because I had my hands clamped around him for dear life, I leaned forward too, and I scanned the situation, my mind working quick, dismal calculations.
This would neverwork. The bike would seize. Or flip. Or die and leave us in midair, about to crash to the ground in a crunched, broken heap. I attempted to say something, anything to Jake, but my voice was caught in my throat, raspy and stuck. I kneaded and squeezed at this sides, but he only turned around and gave me a swift, confident smile before he looked forward, apparently oblivious to my sheer, terror-shrouded panic.
Maybe it was my good fortune that I knew next to nothing about operating a bike, because all of a sudden we screamed up the dirt ramp, and then it was pure weightless flight.
I clung to Jake so hard, I was fairly sure he’d have fingernails imbedded in his skin for weeks, but I peeked one eye open over his shoulder. My stomach rose just a tiny bit in my abdomen, just enough that I felt the sickening/thrilling pull of anti-gravity. Under my body, the heavy weight of metal and plastic that had anchored me to earth was pulling away, slowly, and there was this trick couple of seconds where Jake and I were two people clinging to each other in the cool night air, flying high up over the dirt without anything grounding us.
It was like floating. It was like sucking big lungfuls of breath in until you were so dizzy you could faint. It was like running to an edge and diving over just to enjoy those flighty few seconds where you were suspended in midair.
And then we crashed back to the ground with one huge thump, and every sensation that had been suspended whooshed back tenfold. The bike jarred me and shook my entire body, my helmet rocked back and forth, the scream of the engine battered my ears, the smell of the exhaust choked me, and a small meteor show of dirt and mud flecked up on me.
Jake cut the engine and got off the bike, holding it steady so he could look at me. “You like?”
“I love,” I croaked out, my voice spent before I’d even had a chance to shriek or laugh or cry. “I know everyone says it’s like flying, but it’s like daring, right? It’s like playing too close to the edge, then just hurtling over it.” I wrapped my arms tight around him and breathed the sweaty/clean mesh of his skin coated with mud and sweat. “Can we do it again?”
Jake hopped back on and we roared through jump after jump. After three I was able to extract my fingers from his skin. After five I gave out a terrified whoop of adrenaline-based joy. After seven I was planning on getting my own bike, and then Jake’s sputtered out. It wasn’t when we were super high, but we were high enough that I could hear his angry curse as the bike flew forward and bit the dirt with more malice than it had before.
He jumped off and pulled me with him, steadying the bike with one arm. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. What about your bike?” We both looked down at the unpredictably amazing machine, now spent and maybe done for.
“It’s fine. I know what to do to get it working again.” He pulled the helmet off my head, and strands of my hair, activated with static electricity, buzzed around my face. “Don’t worry about the race.”
“It stalled when we were low on the jump. What if you were higher?” I felt a chill of fear rattle up and down through me. “Jake, that could have been really shitty. Why don’t you just use the bike your family sent? Who cares?”
Jake put his hands on the handlebars and pushed with his full weight, moving the massive bike with slow, steady steps. “It’s not that simple.”
“So explain it to me.” I followed him while he leaned the bike against a tree and marched back to the clearing and the bag where my helmet had been.
It was hard to keep pace when Jake anger-walked. “Don’t ignore me. Explain.”
“You’re going to poke holes in my explanation,” he grumbled, kneeling next the bag. He took a flashlight out of his pocket and shined it in, rooting around for the tools he needed.
“So let me poke holes. That’s what I do, right? I argue the sensible side, you hopefully listen. Yes? No?” I knelt next to him, and he looked at me and attempted to smile.
“You’re going to poke really smart holes in this because my reasons for doing it are stupid, okay? It’s a stupid idea. I should ride the new bike and win the race on it, all that shit.” He gripped the tools in his fist so tightly, the metal handles clanked against each other.
“If you know that, why all this stupid drama?” I put a hand on his shoulder, and he tilted his head up to look me in the eyes before he let out a completely exhausted sigh.
“Because they have a strong pull over me already. Even though I hate their fucking guts. And accepting a gift from them…especially a gift like the bike, that they know is all tied to something I give a shit about, it’s just opening a whole goddamn Pandora’s box.” He slapped the tools against his palm with a rhythmic series of thuds.
I opened my mouth to keep debating, because it was scary when the bike gave out in midair and we were falling. It would have been scarier if Jake had been in a race, going faster, jumping higher, being just reckless enough to win. But I got that this wasn’t the argument Jake was arguing, and I wasn’t going to change his mind. So I figured I would just be on his side.
