Then one lunchtime I went to get a burrito from a joint whose burritos were great enough that it was worth standing in a half-hour line for them, and there he was four ahead of me, turning from the counter, neatly-wrapped to-go package clutched in one of his delectable hands…
His face lit up when he saw me. “Jeremy!”
I nodded at him. “Hey, man.” Hoping I sounded casual enough. I could feel my heart thudding in my throat, my ears, my elbows – everywhere. Oh, my god. Quinn. He looked soooo good. Bright eyes, gorgeous smile – the shirt was a dark wine red this time but once again it fit like…like sin. My mind was doing wheelspins. Honestly, he was too beautiful to even make sense…
He joined me in the queue, standing alongside. “How’ve you been?”
“Great,” I told him, which was a total lie. “Haven’t seen you around – did you move?”
“Nah,” he said. “I got my full license. For my bike, that is. Sat the test the Saturday after I saw you. Fuck, that was a hellish experience. But I passed, which is good because I was so fucking done with having to train in here and then catch a bus out to Newtown every day – if it ever showed up. Now I never have to sit in traffic, I can park at work no problem, plus I can do spontaneous shit like come into the city centre just to get a burrito for lunch, ‘cos I know I can make it back in time.”
I asked him about his bike, even though I was never gonna understand his answers, because I figured he’d want to talk about it, and he did – animatedly, in between bites of his burrito and shuffling slowly forward in the line with me.
“You should come for a ride with me on Saturday,” he urged after a couple of minutes, “if you’re free, that is. I’m allowed to carry passengers, now I’ve got my full.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “I’ve been carrying passengers for years, obviously, even though you’re not actually meant to on your restricted. Nobody bothers with that stuff out in the country ‘cos there’s no-one checking, but I thought I’d better do it properly now I’m using the same roads as other people…”
Motorbikes. Another thing I hadn’t done, hadn’t tried…
“I, um, could,” I stammered. “I’m not doing anything specific on Saturday…”
“I have a spare helmet,” he told me, “so if you’ve got some-”
“Um, hello? Whaddya want?”
I blinked. We were at the front of the line, I needed to order, and my mind was…not on lunch. What I wanted was to sit up behind Quinn on his bike and hold onto his waist and – I couldn’t even remember what I normally ordered…
Desperate to come up with something, I turned to Quinn. “What’ve you got?”
“I’ll have what he’s having…” the guy behind me lisped campily, before he and his mate dissolved into sniggers.
I turned around and gave them my dirtiest look. Then I said to the cashier;
“You know what? I will. I’ll have what he’s having. Exactly the same.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. I remembered him doing that…before, and something in my chest leaped at the sight of it.
“Exactly?” he queried.
“Down to the last molecule,” I confirmed.
“You might regret this,” he murmured, before he began rapidly reeling off ingredients to the cashier.
No I won’t, I thought delightedly, as the list grew and grew. I won’t, Quinn-baby…because apparently we both like it hot…
* * *
I rode the gut-tingling high of having found him, of knowing I’d get to see him at least one more time, for two whole days. Then it was Saturday and I just had to wait it out until after lunch…
Goddamn. He looked as combustible in leathers as he did in…apparently everything else. So am I gonna develop a bikie kink now? I wondered.
He threw up the visor on his helmet as I approached. “Jeremy!”
It was the same as last time – the mad grin, the exclaiming my name like he was thrilled to his core. But what were the chances? He could be into me – but he could just be a super cheerful, genuine, nice, unfiltered person who didn’t feel an obligation to act like some kind of stone-cold bro all the time.
I didn’t know. I couldn’t read him. He was so different to me on every axis – every axis I knew about. It wasn’t exactly likely we were aligned on that one. I took the spare helmet he had slung on his arm and fixed it under my chin, listened to him carefully explain some safety basics, and swung a leg over to settle in place behind him.
He turned to speak to me before putting his visor down. “I’m just gonna amble about the village for a bit to get you used to the feel of things, before we head out on the highway, okay?”
I nodded, feeling like a bobblehead with the extra bulk and weight of the helmet. Yes. Treat me gently, please. I am waaay out of my comfort zone here.
Quinn pulled over before we left the village, twisting around, shunting his visor up. “You okay? Enjoying yourself?”
I was enjoying being close to him – as for the rest? I was…getting the hang of it.
“Yeah – it’s good.” Wow, so eloquent, Jeremy…
He nodded. “Right. Let’s do this.”
‘This’ turned out to be the Transmission Gully motorway – the first half of it, anyway. The climb up to the saddle was a revelation. Taking on that steep grade in a car, you’re really aware of gravity just absolutely clawing at you like some monster from the deep, trying to drag you backwards, down, down into its grasp. On the bike, that feeling plain wasn’t there. Only the unperturbed whirr of the engine and a sense of lightness, progress, potential…
Holy shit, I thought. This is fucking amazing. I really, actually like this.
I liked the kicked-back ease of the descent, the gentle lean on the long sweeping bends, the sense of cutting a wake through space – I liked the speed, the exposure, the hint of risk, everything.
Hands on Quinn’s waist, I decided I hadn’t taken enough risks with my life. I told myself I’d make a move, I’d find an opening – or create one. The worst that could happen would be no more chances to do this…
He pulled up on the shoulder after taking the exit that led over to the Hutt Valley to check in with me once again.
“Doing okay?”
“Loving it!” Again, not exactly eloquent, but hey…
He gave me a thumbs-up and we were off. Less speed this time, noticeably more curves and corners and humps and bumps and hasty fixes here and there. My god, are they ever gonna finish working on this road? I inched forward and held on a little tighter.
Once the climb was done, we descended the steep incline of the Western Hutt escarpment with its final hair-pin bend and ran south along their flank a little way. Then instead of slipping off across the river and toward civilisation, cafes, etc. – he turned right, wending a leisurely path back up the same hills.
Where are we going? I wondered. Okay, so I never asked, but I had kind of assumed we were headed somewhere. But here there were only suburbs, houses and streets. Plenty of bends though, the bike in a constant fluid gyration, one side then the other. Don’t you get it, Jeremy? It’s the journey, not the destination…
It was both. We wound up at a lookout – actually it was a platform for a water reservoir – an elevated knoll with a vista to literally every point of the compass. Quinn made one slow circuit while I took in the same harbour I’d known all my life from a whole other perspective, before killing the engine and dismounting, fiddling under his chin with the helmet straps.