The Quickie - James Patterson [5]
I put a hand to my open mouth.
My birthday.
I’d been looking for one with my birthday only forever. Scott knew, and he had found it.
I looked at the puppy. Then I remembered how Paul had forgotten the charm for my bracelet. That’s when I felt something break like thin ice inside me, and I was crying.
“Lauren, no,” Scott said, panicked. He raised his arms to embrace me, then stopped as if he’d run into some invisible wall.
“Listen,” he said. “The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you. This is all too much. I can see that now. I . . . I’ll just go, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow as usual. I’ll bring the Box O’ Joe, you bring the cinnamon Munchkins, and this never happened. Okay?”
Then my back door opened again, and Scott was gone into the night.
Chapter 6
I LISTENED TO THE MEAT SIZZLE rather melodramatically as I wiped my eyes with a dish towel. What was I doing? Was I crazy? Scott was right. What the hell had I been thinking? I stood there dumbly staring at the puddles he’d made on the floor seconds ago.
Then, the next thing I knew, I turned off the stove, grabbed my handbag, threw the door open, and ran outside in the dark.
He was getting on his motorcycle half a block away when I caught up to him, completely drenched now myself.
A light went on in a neighbor’s house. Mrs. Waters was just about the biggest gossip on our block. What would she say if she saw me? Scott noticed me looking up at the window nervously.
“Here,” he said, handing me his helmet. “Don’t overthink this, Lauren. Just do it. Get on.”
I put the helmet on and took another, even stronger hit of Scott’s scent as he started up his red Ducati racing bike. It sounded like something detonating.
“Come on,” he yelled, offering his hand. “Quick!”
“Isn’t it dangerous to ride in the rain?” I asked.
“Outrageously,” he said, grinning irresistibly as he gunned the throttle.
I put out my hand, and the next second, I was climbing on behind Scott and wrapping my arms around his sides.
I had just enough time to tuck my head between his shoulder blades before we screamed up the hill of my cul-de-sac like a bottle rocket.
Chapter 7
IT’S POSSIBLE I LEFT CLAW MARKS on Scott’s leather jacket while I hung on for dear life. My stomach bottomed out whenever we hit a dip and then seemed to bang off the roof of my skull when we topped rises. The rain-slicked world appeared to melt away as we hurtled past.
I cursed myself for not drawing up a living will when the bike’s back tire fishtailed onto the entrance to the Saw Mill River Parkway. Then Scott let the bike run loose!
The next time I breathed and looked up, we were pulling off the Henry Hudson Parkway into Riverdale, an upscale neighborhood in the Bronx.
We came roaring down a hill and only slowed as we turned onto a street lined with dark, gated mansions. In a flash of lightning I saw the wide silver chasm of the Hudson close below us, the stark, shattered face of the New Jersey Palisades directly across the water.
“C’mon, Lauren,” Scott said, suddenly stopping the bike and hopping off. He waved for me to follow him as he started walking up the cobblestone driveway of a colonial about the size of a Home Depot.
“You live here?” I called to him after I removed his helmet.
“Kinda,” Scott called back, waving some more.
“Kinda?”
I followed him into a free-standing, three-car garage that was almost as big as my house. Inside, there was a Porsche, a Bentley, and a Ferrari the same color as Scott’s bike.
“Those aren’t yours!” I said in shock.
“I wish,” Scott said, climbing a set of stairs. “They’re more like my roommates. I’m just house-sitting for this friend of mine. C’mon, I’ll get us towels.”
I walked behind him into a small, loft-style apartment above the garage. He popped open a couple of Budweisers and put on a Motown CD before he went into the bathroom. In the massive bay window, the storm-racked Hudson was framed like a billboard.
After Scott