#swerve bicycle rack

[jlawchamberlain]

Roberto Canessa and his horse, Alfin.

I love the sheer amount of chaos that every anecdote of these two seem to carry, so I’ve put a couple under the cut.

Nando uses these antics to introduce Roberto’s personality to reader in his book, because it does seem to sum up what he was like at that time quite well.

From Nando’s book:

Roberto had always been hard to handle. The son of a renowned cardiologist in Montevideo, he was brilliant, self-confident, egotistical, and interested in following no one’s rules but his own. Because of his contrary nature, he was constantly in trouble at school, and it seemed his mother was always being called into the headmaster’s office to endure another conference about Roberto’s transgressions. He simply refused to be told what to do. For example, Roberto had a horse that he would ride to school each morning, even though the Christian Brothers repeatedly forbade him to bring the animal onto school grounds. Roberto simply ignored them. He would tie the horse to the bicycle rack, it would work its tether free, and an hour or so later the Brothers would find it wandering in the garden, munching their prized shrubs and flowers. He also spurred the big animal through the crowded streets of Carrasco, galloping along sidewalks and through busy intersections so fast that the horse’s shoes struck sparks on the pavement. Drivers swerved and pedestrians lurched out of his way. Our neighbors constantly complained, and once or twice the police spoke to Roberto’s father, but Roberto continued to ride.

Lauri (Roberto’s wife) has also told the story of how he would terrorize her and the other girls of neighborhood on Alfin:

Laura Surraco met Roberto Canessa as a child. They were childhood friends and lived nearby. While she was riding her bike with her friends, Roberto would chase her on horseback and pull the lasso to catch a pedal and make her fall.

-Here comes Canessa!

The cry was one of panic, of alert, to get out of Roberto's mischief in time. The girls would be 12, 13 years old. They were all neighbors and friends. Many went to Stella Maris School. It was a different era, the late 1960s. You could play, run, race in the streets.

And finally Roberto:

Eventually I started to feel a new emotion—shame. Shame at the way I let Alfin clip-clop over neighbors’ gardens or tear up people’s lawns. One day when I tied him to a sprinkler spigot and he got spooked at a loud noise, he tore off down the road dragging forty feet of plumbing behind him. I became ashamed at being such a rambunctious student. I wanted to be more—more disciplined and less rebellious—and I decided I wanted to go to medical school when I turned eighteen. I began by training my horse to be less feral—and Lauri started training me. Although neither my horse nor I would ever change who we were, we became on friendlier terms with the world around us.

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Nine

I shut my eyes and let the wind rush past us, my hands linked tightly around Jude’s waist as he shoots up and down the narrow streets of the town on his bike. I didn’t know that there was such a thing as truly perilous bicycle riding, but I feel like we’re going so fast that every time we swerve around a corner I am sure that I’ll be hurled off the pannier rack and splat onto the concrete. I tell myself that if I squeeze my eyes shut tightly enough then I’ll be able to pretend that I’m safe, because this way all I can feel is the jerks of my body every time he swerves around another building or telephone pole and hear the sounds of my heartbeat drumming in my ears. I squeeze my cheek into his back to try and feel more secure, and the vibrations of his voice rebound through me as he speaks from up at the handlebars. 

“You doing okay?”

“Yes, great.” He skids onto a long stretch of straight road, and I breathe a sigh of relief as the bike steadies, and I peer over his shoulder. Seeing a town in this light is eerie. The streetlights cast a strange, ghostly orange glow over everything making it look like a black and white film or like we’ve somehow cycled through a portal into some old photograph, a town deserted and we’re the only ones on it. During the day this place is always bustling with noises, car engines and voices, footsteps, but now there’s no other souls but ours. It’s so quiet. 

“Hold on tight for a second.” Jude says, his voice an isolated sound in the silent streets.

“What are you going to do?” I cling on and brace myself as he releases the handlebars from his grip and tries to cycle with no hands. The bike wobbles first, then lurches to one side, and to my horror, I am almost launched from the back of it until he steadies himself and holds on again. “Sorry, I wanted to see if it would work with two people.”

“Well it doesn’t” 

“Sorry.” He cycles a little slower for a while after that. 

I wait until my heart has stopped thumping until I talk again, and when we’ve left town and all that lies ahead of us is a straight road all the way home, I feel steady enough to speak. “You didn’t have to bring me home, really, it’s so nice but I could have found my own way. And the extra weight can’t be good for the tires on this thing.”

“What, like you think you’re heavy? This bike has been through worse.” 

I glance down at the rusty frame, the spray paint, and the pedals so worn down from being tossed onto hard ground that most of the plastic has snapped off. I suppose that it has been. “And your hoodie,” I say “You didn’t need to give me it either.”

“I did both those things because I wanted to though, really, you’re not a burden. I’d prefer to cycle home rather than wait for the guys to be finished in the nightclub. It’s fine.” 

“You often cycle alone at night?”

“I prefer to do most things on my own, honestly. I have my own pace.”

I assume that pace is absurdly, dizzyingly quickly. He moves around so energetically, every movement he makes is so abrupt that he would make your head spin around. I’ve never met somebody so charged before. I think that it’s a bit thrilling to be around him. 

“Do you want to see something?”

I don’t even ask what it is. “Yes.”

He turns down into a narrow driveway, and we quickly lose all light from the road behind us. I have no idea where we are, only that the surface beneath the wheels is rockier now. I can feel little leaves and branches from a hedgerow swiping against my arms and legs, and I ask him where we’re going. 

“You’ll see.” He brings the bike to a stop soon after, and as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can see that we’re next to a high brick wall. We climb off and he leans his bike against it. “In my hoodie pocket” he says. “There’s my phone, can you hand it to me?” I reach in and retrieve it, and as my hand curls around it I can feel that it’s old. It’s some early 2000s model sturdy block phones. Nobody has these anymore, nobody except old people, and Jude apparently.

“Nice phone.” I say as I toss it to him. “Is this the new Blackberry?”

“Ha ha. Can your Blackberry do this?” He presses a button and a torch light glares out of the top of it. I’ve become so used to the pitch blackness of the night that it hurts and I have to look away and shield my eyes. “Jesus. No, I’m glad my Blackberry can’t do that.”

“Hey, it’s handy.” He clutches on to the top of the stone wall and starts hoisting himself up onto it. I start to follow him and leap up to grab the jagged stones at the top. “That phone is mad. I haven’t seen one of those since I was a little child.”

“It’s the worst phone ever.” He agrees, throwing a long leg over the wall and straddling it. “But I always break them, this is the only one that’s ever lasted.” He shines the torch light over the wall at something that I can’t see yet while I try to use all my strength to haul myself up onto it, feet searching around for some leverage, but it doesn’t work. I’m just not strong enough for it. 

“Give me your hands.” He reaches out to me and takes them, and then drags me up onto the top of the wall with him just like that. He made it look so easy, even if he scraped me on the stones on the way up a little bit. It’s only when he shakes my hands off his that I realise I’ve been holding onto them for longer than I should have, and I’m glad that it’s too dark for him to see me blush. “Getting in is the hard part.” He tells me. “It’s way easier to get out again.”

He grabs his phone again and points the torch at a patch of long grass on the other side of the wall, and then in one fluid movement he’s leapt off onto it and is reaching up to help me down there with him. 

“It’s too high.” I say. 

“I’ve got you.”

I scoot myself to the edge of the wall and then slowly, carefully I turn around and start easing my feet down the side of it. I’m facing away from him when he takes hold of my waist and asks me to let go of the wall. “I’ve got you.” He says again. 

There’s a rousing feeling within me when he lands me on the grass. An excitement in the vulnerability of it, the nearness of him in the darkness sending electric currents over me so that goosebumps rise up on my arms. I’ve had kisses with boys that have left me feeling nothing, but he can make my whole body shiver while barely touching me.

“Are you alright?” He says softly, because to speak in a normal voice among the absolute silence of the countryside would feel like an exclamation.

“Yes.” I breathe.

“If you want to go home, I can take you home. All you have to do is climb up on a bench and you can get back over, easy peasy.”

“No, I want to stay.”

“Alright.”

“Where are we?” I ask him. He lifts the torch and shines the beam out in front of us to illuminate what at first, looks like oddly shaped rocks scattered around in an overgrown field. I squint. “What is this? It’s like a- oh!” I gasp when the realisation strikes me. “We’re in a graveyard.”

“Yeah.” He starts stepping through the overgrown grass, weaving in and out of the gravestones and I follow him, trying to stay close enough so that the tiny phone torch light will light up the ground beneath me. God forbid I catch my shoe on someone’s grave and fall face first into an open tomb or something equally horrifying. 

“This way.” He says to me, and I scramble after him, reaching him as he stands at a pair of large, wooden doors. I reach out and lay my hands flat on them, looking up at the dark blue sky where I can see for the first time the pitch black silhouette of a steeple. “A church.” I say in wonderment. “An abandoned church.”

“Can I show you what’s inside?”

“Is it safe?”

“Yeah.”

“Then yes.”

Prev // Next

[pickalilywrites]

hi everyone!!! here’s the eretra au that a few of you might remember from my wip posts a few months (?) ago! i’m really excited about it, so i hope you guys like it. it’s very loosely based off a kdrama called big, although there aren’t very many similarities. i hope you guys enjoy it :) 

-----------------------------

My First Love Come Back to Me

Eretra. Big AU. 

I’ll Love You in the Rain or Shine Series: Chapter 1

12788 words. 

Read on Ao3!

Eren stands in the deli section of the grocery store staring down at the premade sandwiches that have, judging by the wilting lettuce and stiff-looking squares of cheese stuffed between dry bread buns, been sitting there all day after being passed over by other customers for more enticing premade meals like the colorful, little sushis in their plastic containers or the burritos so stuffed with filling that beans are practically spilling out of the tortilla wraps meant to contain them. He looks at one particularly sad-looking sandwich. Turkey chunks and droopy lettuce leaves are shoved inside a stale bread loaf. Tomato juice from the poor fruit that was cut to make this depressing sub bleeds out from the bun, dripping onto the plastic wrap that can hardly hold the thing together. A strange assortment of veggies also poke out from the bread - bright yellow bell peppers, chunky strips of carrots, and slices of onions - but they look as though someone has carelessly dropped them into the sandwich because they’re not even evenly dispersed through the sub. It is, Eren thinks, the most wretched sandwich he’d ever laid eyes on. 

It’s a little sad, the fact that Eren is spending so much time picking out something to bring to a family dinner that he would claim, if anyone bothered to ask, to not give a single shit about. And, really, he doesn’t, but it makes him feel slightly better about going to those miserable gatherings if he’s able to bring something he knows his stepmom will hate. Except she’s not really his stepmom. To be more precise, the woman is his father’s first and only wife - the bastard having never married Eren’s mother - and his half-brother’s mother. In all honesty, Eren can completely understand why the woman hates him. He is, after all, a constant reminder of his father’s infidelity. It’s not like Eren likes her either and, with all of the snide comments about his upbringing and disappointing career path (although Eren has no idea why that is any of her business), she hasn’t given Eren any reason to. 

Eren looks down at the sandwich again, leaning towards not getting it. As much as he would love to purchase it and slap it down on the dinner table with a cheerful smile, there are only so many times he can buy disgusting sandwiches for his family dinners. He really outdid himself last time with a self-made sandwich with all sorts of odd ingredients (blue cheese, coriander, tuna, onions, cherry tomatoes, the works) that had no business being slapped between the same two buns. He even remembered not to toast the bread buns. Apparently, the only thing his father’s wife hates more than sandwiches are untoasted sandwiches, but not everyone can afford a $300 panini press like she can. Apparently, any panini press with a smaller price tag can’t be called a real panini press. Eren only half-regretted his decision to bring the disgusting thing to his father’s house an hour later when he sprinted out of the house and biked half a block away to empty the contents of his stomach on the edge of a poor neighbor's sidewalk. No, a normal deli sandwich would be a step down from his previous contribution to family dinner, Eren decides. 

He walks up and down the aisle of the grocery store, taking his time even though he’s already a half-hour late for dinner. (He’s doing them a favor. Nobody in their right mind should be having dinner at five when the sun is still high in the sky.) His green eyes glaze over tubs of soup and plastic bins filled with salad. For a moment, he wonders if he should walk through the shelves of chips on the other side or maybe into the frozen food section so he can haul a tub of melting ice cream to his father’s house, but he wonders if that’s too petty. It’s probably best not to, Eren thinks with a grimace. He doesn’t want to ruin junk food for himself forever. 

In the end, Eren purchases a little tub of potato salad, hoping that it’ll be enough to piss off his Disney-esque sort-of stepmother. It’s not perfect, but he supposes it will do. It’s probably not as grotesque as the stuff he’s brought before, but he likes how simple it is. That woman’s definitely going to be miffed that Eren bought potato salad as if he cared so little that he couldn’t be bothered to spend a few minutes in the kitchen to make the same dish. He’s really going to enjoy seeing the vein on her forehead pulse when she sees him standing at the door with the potato salad. 

Eren thanks the cashier for ringing up his purchase, sliding two dollars into the charity box next to the register, and walks away with his tub of potato salad, whistling as he practically skips out of the grocery store. He hadn’t taken as long as he would have liked; there are still fifteen minutes before six and he had hoped he would burn enough time to arrive at six-thirty, but maybe he can take a roundabout way to his dad’s house, Eren thinks as he drops the tub carelessly into the front basket of his bicycle. He unlocks his bike with a click and pulls it off the bike rack before mounting it and pedaling away. 

Taking the direct route would be too quick. Eren quickly pedals across the road as soon as the road is clear and finds his way to the creek that cuts across the suburbs. It’s the same creek Eren used to play beside when he was a child. He fell in there once trying to catch a frog and his mom scolded him for being so reckless. It’s also the same creek that he frequented during the spring of his sophomore year of highschool when he was assigned to do a bug project, which Eren hated especially when the same project was no longer mandatory after his school cut the science department’s funding the year after. Eren doesn’t think he’s visited the creek ever since he graduated from high school. He blames it on college and summer internships taking up all his time and never really allowing him to return to his youth, but the truth is that Eren wouldn’t have sought out his childhood even if he had the time. 

It’s not that Eren had a terrible childhood. In fact, Eren would say that he had a fairly happy childhood. True, he grew up in a (mostly) single-parent household, but his mother was always patient and attentive to him even though he was a pain the ass about 75 percent of the time. Nothing incredibly significant happened. He didn’t win any awards and he never made the honor roll, but his mother was fine with it as long as he did his best. It was strange, but he got a lot more shit about his grades from his sort-of stepmom than he did from his own mother. He’s not particularly sure what his father thought about it. Eren’s father never said much of anything to defend him, but his father hardly said anything to him at all. It was kind of like not having a father at all, so it wasn’t really that surprising when Eren found a way to avoid his old neighborhood completely after his mother passed away after his senior year of high school. 

Eren hadn’t planned on returning so soon. Actually, he hadn’t planned on returning at all after he had left for college. He only came back the summer after freshman year, but he bummed it at his best friend Armin’s house and only ventured as far as Armin’s front lawn. The following summers he crashed at his ex-boyfriend’s house - an art student-turned-tattoo artist who somehow ended up setting up a shop in the city Eren and Armin grew up in - or Armin’s dorm when they were both working at their internships. Somehow, they ended up landing jobs back in their hometown because evidently the big city did not want them and they were too young and broke to go up against the universe. Maybe another day. 

It’s not that bad. Despite renting an apartment near his neighborhood, Eren hasn’t run into any childhood friends that might still remember all the embarrassing things he did as a teenager. He’s bumped into a few parents at the grocery store that would smile up at him and talk about how nicely he’s grown while reaching up to ruffle his hair. Other than a few childhood friends and the “family” he feels obligated to meet due to the biological bond he unwillingly shares with his father, Eren has successfully avoided most of his past. 

He pedals past his old middle school, zooming past the gates and grimacing as he remembers the less pleasant parts of his past - struggling with algebra, running a mile at seven AM, and the terrible school uniforms they forced on everyone in a strange attempt to boost standardized test scores. He’s happier when he crosses the street and is greeted with the lit-up shops - the convenience store where he’d happily slurp down slushies with Armin after school, the Chinese restaurant that his class would frequent every year for Lunar New Year’s, and the bakery store that always smelled of freshly baked tarts and pies. Eren’s pedaling slows as he approaches the bakery and he inhales deeply, his lungs filling with the scent of buttery baguettes and chocolate tarts. The aroma is so distractingly sweet. His mouth begins to water at just the thought of them, and Eren wonders why he hadn’t bothered stepping foot in the bakery since coming back. He’s about to stop his bike and pop in for a brownie or a lemon bar only to realize that he’s biking far too fast and about to crash into someone. 

“Shit!” Eren’s bike screeches as he swerves out of the way and he crashes into a pole so hard that he can feel his teeth rattle. He topples to the ground with a hard thud, groaning as he rolls over onto his side that didn’t get smashed violently against a pole. When he opens his eyes, he sees stars as well as the face of an old man that he had last seen a decade ago. Eren tries to sit up, but his side is throbbing and he can only clutch at his side, trying his best to suppress a groan so as to not startle the man he had nearly collided with. He gives the man a weak smile. “Hey, Mr. Ral. I haven’t seen you in a while.” 

The old man’s mouth, which was already open to begin with after seeing Eren’s embarrassing bicycle collision, falls open a bit wider. “A-are you … okay?” he asks after a while, squinting a bit as he looks at Eren’s face and tries to place a name to it. Eren doesn’t really blame him for not remembering who he is. It’s been quite a while since they’ve seen each other and Eren has grown up a lot since then.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little bump,” Eren says, laughing it off. He manages to sit up and pushes himself off the ground, standing up and brushing off the little pebbles that have managed to stick to his face and clothing. He picks up his bike, leaning it against the pole before turning to the man again. “It’s Eren, by the way.” He pauses, observing Mr. Ral’s expression. When he sees that the man doesn’t recognize him, Eren politely adds, “Eren Kruger. I’m Zeke Jaeger’s younger brother.” 

A spark of recognition finally lights up in the old man’s eyes at the mention of Zeke’s name. Eren’s not going to lie, but it kind of hurts. “Ah, Zeke,” Mr. Ral says fondly. Eren shifts from feeling hurt to feeling slightly jealous. “How could I ever forget him? And you, of course. You two used to play with my dear Petra back in the day.” 

Petra, a name that Eren hasn’t heard in years, and yet hearing it still makes him blush like a young schoolboy. He ducks his head, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck, and he prays that Mr. Ral doesn’t notice the sudden flush of his cheeks. “Yeah, it’s been a while. How is, ah, Petra doing?” he asks. He had meant to ask the question casually, but he stumbles over the words a little too quickly. 

“Petra? She’s well,” Mr. Ral answers with a smile. The corners of his eyes crinkle and his laughter lines deepen. He doesn’t seem to notice how flustered Eren is. “She just started teaching at the same university that Zeke is teaching at.” 

That’s certainly news to Eren. Zeke hadn’t mentioned that at any of the family dinners Eren had attended recently. It could just be because Zeke hadn’t run into her yet or it had simply slipped his mind, but Eren kind of doubts it. If Petra’s father knew, then it’s highly unlikely that Zeke didn’t know. As much as Eren wants to frown, he fights the urge to turn the edges of his mouth downward and gives Mr. Ral a thin but polite smile. “That’s great to hear. What does she teach?” 

“English,” Mr. Ral replies, his chest puffed out proudly. It’s endearing how much he adores his daughter. “She teaches some upper-division classes on creative writing and a few classes for freshmen on critical reading and writing.” 

Eren’s smile is more genuine now, more fond as he listens to Mr. Ral speak about his daughter. “Yeah, that sounds like her. She was always really good with words.” He remembers lazy summer afternoons lying underneath the shade of a tree and pretending he was sleeping so that he could listen to Petra talk to Zeke on the front porch. It wasn’t even that he wanted to eavesdrop. He just liked the sound of her voice. Eren wonders if it’s still as wonderfully soothing and soft as he remembers. 

“And what about you?” Mr. Ral asks, snapping Eren out of his reverie. The old man seems to ask out of polite obligation. It figures that he isn’t really interested in Eren’s life. After all, he hadn’t remembered that Eren existed until five minutes ago. 

“I just graduated a few months ago. I majored in child education,” Eren replies. He looks down feeling slightly embarrassed although he’s not sure why. It feels like a step down from Petra’s accomplishments. His sort-of stepmom would certainly agree. She enjoys rubbing Zeke’s doctorate in Eren’s face whenever she gets the chance. Eren clears his throat and adds, “I’ve been working at Liberio Daycare. It’s near Shiganshina Elementary.” 

It’s unclear whether or not Mr. Ral recognizes the name but he nods and reaches over to give Eren a pat on the arm, a grin on his face as if the old man is actually proud of him. “That’s good! Your parents must be proud.” He doesn’t notice the way Eren flinches and carries on. “It’s good to hear that you’ve been well.” 

“Likewise,” Eren says. His eyes wander towards the bakery. It hadn’t occurred to him to look for Petra before, but now that he knows she’s back in town he can’t imagine doing anything else. He half hopes that she’ll be inside, maybe clearing the display for the night or wiping down the countertops, but all he sees is a girl his age at the register munching on some lavender bars that hadn’t sold. Before he can stop himself, Eren finds himself asking, “Is Petra in?” 

“Petra?” Mr. Ral asks with his eyebrows raised. Maybe it does seem out of the blue that Eren’s asking. Petra was always more Zeke’s friend than Eren’s. Mr. Ral gives Eren an apologetic smile and a shake of his head. “I’m afraid not. She told me she was eating dinner at a friend’s house. I’ll let her know you stopped by. Maybe you two can catch up sometime.” 

Eren shouldn’t feel so disappointed, but he can feel himself deflating at Mr. Ral’s words. He really doubts Petra would want to meet up with him. It’s not as if they were incredibly close before. Still, he gives Mr. Ral a gracious smile and says, “That would be great! I should probably get going. I have to, ah, eat dinner…” His voice trails off and he looks to bike only to find the front basket empty. Eyes straying further, he finds that his tub of potato salad had rolled out of his bike basket and onto the ground where it lay pitifully. Thankfully, the tub hasn’t broken and the potato salad hasn’t spilled out, but somehow the salad looks even more pathetic than it did when Eren purchased it. It’s something Eren would have been happy about fifteen minutes ago, but it’s embarrassing now. Quickly, he goes to pick it up and drop it into his bike basket with the slim hope that Mr. Ral wouldn’t think much about it, but Eren has never been that lucky. 

Mr. Ral must find him pitiful because he asks, “Why don’t you take some dessert home?” He’s already heading back into the bakery, gesturing for Eren to follow him despite Eren’s protests. “If you don’t, they’ll just go to waste. Or into my employee’s stomach, and goodness knows that she’s already eaten enough desserts today already.” 

“Thank you so much, sir,” Eren says, humbly bowing his head. 

“Sasha,” Mr. Ral calls the girl at the register. “Could you ring up a few things for Eren?” 

The girl’s head snaps up at the call of her name, her cheeks filled with pastry and crumbs all over her mouth. “Sure thing,” Sasha says, gulping down the last of her lavender bar and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She walks over to the side, Eren following her on the other side of the counter, and washes her hands hastily. As she wipes her hands dry with the hand towel, she looks at Eren brightly and asks in a chipper voice, “Do you have anything you want in particular?” 

Eren’s eyes scan over the display, but he doesn’t really look at anything in particular. He just wants to get out of this situation as quickly as possible. He’s embarrassed himself quite enough for today. “Just … whatever you’d recommend,” 

“Alright-y,” the girl hums, taking a bag and stuffing it full with little tarts and tea cakes and croissants. Eren looks at her briefly, realizing that he doesn’t recognize her. She must have moved here sometime during the past six years when he wasn’t around. 

As Sasha finishes preparing the bag, Eren walks over to the register and gets ready to pull his wallet out but Mr. Ral walks over, shaking his head. “No need to pay for it,” Mr. Ral says. He reaches over the counter and takes the bag from Sasha, presenting it to Eren with a smile. “Consider it a treat. Really, you’d be doing me a favor just taking it. They would have gone to waste otherwise.” 

“Ah, thank you,” Eren says, his face flushing once more. He takes the bag from Mr. Ral with a small bow of his head. “It was great seeing you again, Mr. Ral.” 

“Likewise,” Mr. Ral says with that same crinkly smile. He walks Eren to the door, watching as Eren packs the desserts alongside his potato salad. “Take good care of yourself, Eren, and tell your brother I said hi.” He waves as Eren assures him he’ll do just that, returning to the shop only once Eren has biked away. 

This is not how the night was supposed to go. Eren was supposed to be wandering around the neighborhood with his potato salad before waltzing into his father’s house an hour late, his sort-of stepmother silently fuming at the dinner table while the family sat and waited for him. He hadn’t planned on bumping into his childhood crush’s father, and he certainly hadn’t planned on looking so incredibly pathetic in front of Mr. Ral. He can only imagine what Mr. Ral will tell Petra when she sees her dad tonight. Maybe something about how he grew up to be such a loser even though his half-brother managed to graduate with a Ph.D. and is now a successful anthropology professor at the local university. It’s not something that usually gets Eren down, but thinking about it now is making him feel especially miserable. 

Eren’s not sure why the thought of Petra knowing how his life is so embarrassing. He hasn’t spoken to her in years, so her opinion of him shouldn’t matter. And even if she did have an opinion of him, he’s sure it wouldn’t be unkind. Petra had always been nice to him even when he was a kid and just being an annoying third wheel to her and Zeke. When his childish admiration of her turned into puppy love and eventually evolved into a full-fledged crush, she never brushed him off or thought him annoying, although there was a chance that she just never noticed. He couldn’t blame her for that when Zeke, honor roll student and valedictorian Zeke, was always standing right in front of her. He wasn’t even surprised when they started dating. It was inevitable. And when they eventually broke up for some reason that Eren still isn’t quite sure about, Eren knew he’d never be able to compare so he never tried to pursue her. It’s not surprising that he and Petra ended up losing touch. 

As much as he would love to blame Zeke for it (and it would be incredibly easy for him to blame Zeke), he can’t. Maybe it’s strange that he doesn’t harbor a deep hatred for his half-brother. Their relationship has all the makings of a classic sibling rivalry - a complicated family history, stark differences in accomplishments, and affections for the same girl - but Eren could never bring himself to hate Zeke. Even if Zeke’s mother liked to hold all of her son’s accomplishments over Eren’s head, Zeke himself never bragged about them. In fact, he was quite humble and would even offer to help his younger half-brother if he was struggling with something in school. Oftentimes he would invite Eren to hang out with his friends even though their age gap made it a little awkward. He even remembered Eren’s favorite snacks and would make sure they were in supply whenever Eren came over to visit. If Zeke’s mother was an evil Disney stepmother come to life, Zeke was that one fairytale sibling that was kind to the tragic main character, so Eren had no choice but to like Zeke. Even when Zeke broke up with Petra and Eren couldn’t understand why, when Zeke told Eren that it “just happened,” Eren kind of left it at that and accepted that because he couldn’t imagine Zeke doing anything wrong. 

Could Eren be classified with an inferiority complex with regards to his brother? Probably, but most siblings can. Eren would have to challenge whether or not someone with inferiority complexes would admire their brother as much as he does, but they might in a weird way. Eren’s sure that he and Zeke’s relationship would still be complicated even if they didn’t have all the weird history with Eren and Zeke’s parents. 

Eren sighs as he flies down a dip in the road, letting gravity carry him down instead of pedaling. He really doesn’t feel like he’s in the right headspace for this family dinner. Usually, he lets all of that woman’s snide comments ricochet, but his armor has grown weak and he can just imagine her landing the right thinly-veiled insult, her words burying into his skin and hitting right where it hurts. For a moment, Eren considers calling the dinner off with an excuse that will be sure to piss his stepmother off — probably something about how he has to restructure his lesson plan for the upcoming week — but he glances down at the potato salad and bag of baked goods in his bike basket and realizes that he really doesn’t want to eat them all by himself. If he’s going to suffer, he might as well make the rest of his family suffer alongside him. And besides, he’s pretty much already at their house anyway. 

His bike slows as he approaches the white-picket fenced house. He takes the potato salad tub and the bag of baked goods before leaving his bike on the driveway, not bothering to chain it to the fence because nobody would want to steal the old thing he bought from a garage sale anyway. The sight of it lying in front of the house instead of properly locked up will be sure to piss off that woman too, which is just an added bonus. With a sigh, Eren marches up the front steps, shifting the food all on one arm so he can ring the doorbell. The familiar chime rings out, muted from behind the wooden door. A muffled voice mumbles something Eren can’t hear, but he already knows that the speaker has nothing good to say about him. 

The door is thrown open and Eren looks down to see his stepmother glowering up at him, blue eyes a raging storm. “You’re late,” she hisses. She doesn’t even give him a greeting; she just stands there in front of him silently fuming. Behind her stands Eren’s father. As expected, he says nothing to defend his son’s tardiness. The man just stands there, uncomfortable as he quietly observes. 

“Sorry, Dina,” Eren says, squeezing past his stepmother who makes an indignant noise. He dangles the food he brought in front of her face, rolling his eyes when she snatches the bag from him only to wrinkle her nose in disgust when she sees the potato salad. “I brought dessert, too. Do you want me to put it somewhere …?” 

Dina snatches the bag of desserts from him too, still huffing. “We have a guest tonight too. Do you know how rude you’re being?” she says, continuing to nag at him even though Eren has stopped listening to her years ago. 

Eren’s father gently grabs Eren by the elbow, subtly ushering him inside to avoid any more conflict but Eren yanks his arm away. 

“Well, maybe if you told me we were having a guest beforehand I would have showed up on time,” Eren snaps. He sounds angry as he says it, but he really does mean it. It’s one thing to be rude to his stepmother, but it’s another thing entirely to be rude to a guest he doesn’t know. He’d at least wait for introductions before deciding whether or not to show any manners. 

Before his stepmother can say anything more, Eren stomps off into the dining room where Zeke and the guest are waiting. He keeps his head down, cheeks burning, as he pulls out his chair - the one furthest from everyone - and slumps down into it. “Sorry, I’m late,” Eren mumbles, still looking down. 

“Eren,” says a deep voice that Eren recognizes as Zeke’s. Hearing the voice of someone other than his stepmother’s makes Eren relax a bit and he rests with his back against his chair, a little more at ease now. He can hear Zeke’s small smile as his half-brother asks, “Aren’t you going to say hi to our guest?” 

“Uh, yeah. Hi,” Eren says. His eyes flicker upward, first at Zeke who sits across from him, and then at the guest. He looks so quickly at first that he doesn’t register exactly who he’s seeing until he does a double-take, his green eyes widening as they take in the woman sitting there. It’s someone he hadn’t expected to see ever again, much less sitting at his family’s dining table, and he’s so surprised that he almost chokes. For a moment, he thinks it might just be a doppelganger, but there’s no mistaking the soft dimples that appear in her cheeks as her lips curl in a smile. “...Petra?” 

“Hi, Eren.” Petra’s voice is still as gentle and soothing as Eren remembers, the sound of it so honey-sweet that he feels his cheeks bloom a soft pink. There’s so much about her that’s different, but there’s so much more that’s the same. Her hair is shorter now, no longer falling right at her shoulder, but curling right under her chin in a short bob. It’s the same shade of ginger it was when he was a kid. If it’s under the right light, it would probably burn a fiery gold. Her doe eyes are the same pretty amber, sweet and dangerously entrancing at the same time. She’s even dressed differently, her button-up blouse and slick gray trousers such a departure from the casual jeans and t-shirts she wore ten years ago when Eren was still in high school. Eren feels horribly underdressed - his ratty university sweatshirt over a thin cotton tee and his ripped jeans are so shabby in comparison - but a glimmer of silver on Petra’s wrist attracts Eren’s attention to the charm bracelet she wears, jangling with charms that Eren remembers her collecting in her high school days, and he feels a little less like he’s meeting a stranger and more like he’s reuniting with an old friend. 

“How are you?” Eren asks shyly, his smile bashful. 

“I’m well,” she answers, and Eren feels himself melting into her voice the same way he did when he was thirteen. When she smiles, her head tilts ever so slightly to the right just the way it did when he first met her and her dimples deepen into her cheeks. “How are you?” 

“Good,” Eren answers because he doesn’t trust himself to string together more than a word or two at a time. He wonders if she realizes how he’s unraveling at the sound of her voice or if she’s as oblivious as she was the last time. 

“I’m glad,” Petra says, and the warm look Petra gives Eren reignites a flame in the pit of his belly that he had thought he extinguished long ago. Her head tilts a little bit more to the side, her eyes twinkling. “I missed you,” Petra tells him, and Eren finds himself in love once more. 

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

There are rules to dealing with your ex-boyfriend after you’ve broken up, Petra knows, but it’s been ten years and she figures that these rules can be bent. So what if the last time she saw Zeke she was broken-hearted, crying in the rain as he turned his back on her? She was younger then, her feelings out of control for someone who didn’t care for her nearly as much as she cared for him. And, sure, maybe it’s terrible that she never received the closure that she deserves, but she can’t hold a grudge against him forever. They work in the same university and cowering behind the nearest trashcan every time they meet doesn’t seem to be a viable option. Petra’s older now and so is Zeke. They’re mature. They can be friends like adults are after they’ve broken up, so the universe should be able to understand her accepting Zeke’s dinner request that evening even if her friends couldn’t. 

She only started to regret her decision when Zeke offered to drive her there after his classes ended - saving gas and the planet, he explained - and she agreed. Although Petra repeatedly told herself that it was a simple family dinner and that such an invitation was extended to Zeke’s other friends on occasion, she found herself sitting impatiently in her office, biting her nails down so close to the quick that her fingers started to bleed. Having to bandage her fingers as she waited did absolutely nothing to soothe her nerves. 

“I don’t see why you’re so nervous,” Levi tells her over the phone. He taught in the mathematics department, but they had met after Petra had nervously stumbled into the wrong building and into his office on her first day at the university. The man has a perpetual scowl on his face, and that very same expression had nearly sent Petra running until she weakly explained that she must have gotten lost and he kindly redirected her to the building her office was located in. She thought that was going to be the end of their interaction until he emailed her shortly after asking if she had gotten to her office alright. Finding him a kindred spirit, he had become her first (and sadly only) companion at the university aside from Zeke. “If you’re friends with him, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.” 

“Well, it’s just that I haven’t really seen him since we, you know, broke up,” Petra explains, but she doubts that Levi understands. She had told him her history with Zeke a few weeks ago after he asked her why she was so jittery at the faculty luncheon, but he didn’t have much of a reaction. It was sort of nice having someone to talk to that wasn’t as hyperbolically reactive as the rest of her friends, but it was also painfully difficult when Levi didn’t show her any sympathy. 

“You saw him last week when you were at the library to look for reference books,” he reminds her as if it were the same thing. “I don’t know why this dinner has you in a panic. You left me nearly a hundred messages while I was teaching class.” He hadn’t even replied to her texts, the bastard. He had simply left her on read until midnight before sending her a thumbs-up emoji to let her know that he had read her messages, which was not exactly the response Petra was waiting for. 

“This is different!” Petra insists, but she knows Levi will never see it that way. 

“You’re making this a much bigger deal than it needs to be,” Levi says. She can hear him scribbling something on the other end, probably correcting exams for his differential equations classes and marking a poor student’s paper in an abundance of red. “Either cancel or just go to dinner with him. You’ve had family dinners with him even before you guys got together right?” 

“Yeah, but that was back when we were kids,” Petra mumbles, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. 

“Then you’ll be fine,” he tells her. 

“You’re horribly unsympathetic sometimes,” she sighs. 

“If you wanted sympathy, you shouldn’t have called me,” Levi says with a cluck of his tongue, but he chuckles when he hears her groan on the other end. “Really, it’ll be fine. You’re just overthinking it. I’m sure it’ll be fine. And you said the kid will be there, right? His brother, so it’s not as if you’ll be alone with Zeke and his parents.” 

Petra lays with her head on her desk, her phone pressed against her cheek. “Yeah, you’re right,” she mumbles, but her lower lip still sticks out in a pout. The thought of Eren being there, sweet little Eren with his eager puppy eyes and wide smile, does make her feel better if only a little. She probably hasn’t seen him since she broke up with Zeke. She wonders if he’s changed very much. He’d be in college now? Or maybe he graduated. “I haven’t seen him in awhile though. What if he hates me now?” 

“You’re overthinking again,” Levi says. He sighs on the other end. If Petra didn’t know him very well, she would think she was bothering him, but he’s always like this. “Are you going to be okay?” 

“Yes. No. Maybe,” Petra sniffs. She looks sadly at her bandaged fingers and picks at the ends of one of them. “Should I just cancel? Maybe I can tell him I fell down the stairs and had to go to the hospital or something -” Someone knocks at the door and Petra lets out a startled yelp, nearly falling out of her chair because she’s so surprised. When she looks at the door, she sees Zeke’s silhouette against the frosted glass pane. The sight of it makes her want to hide behind her desk. “God, he’s here already!” 

“Too late for you to run then,” Levi says, not even bothering to hide his snickering. He’s such a sadist that Petra doesn’t even know why she’s friends with him sometimes. “Have fun at your absolutely normal dinner with your friend and his family.” Click!

“Asshole,” Petra mutters under her breath before shoving her phone in her bag. There’s another knock at the door — the same long, slow knocks that are a signature of Zeke’s —  and she hastily shouts, “I’ll be right there!” before shoving her papers in her bag and stumbling out of the door, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process. She must look like a mess because Zeke raises an eyebrow at her when she emerges from her office. Petra catches a glimpse of her reflection in the window and winces at her frumpled shirt and the hair falling out of her bun. She mumbles an apology as she pulls the hair ties out of her bun, her hair falling in loose curls around her face. 

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Zeke asks. 

“No! God, no,” Petra says, inwardly cringing at every word that comes out of her mouth. Even she can tell how awkward her responses sound, a little too quick and desperate. What is she being so anxious for? It’s just dinner with a friend —  an ex-boyfriend, but a friend nonetheless. Petra clears her throat and asks as casually as she can manage, “How are your parents?” 

“Hmm? They’re well, I suppose,” he answers. Everything about him is familiar. He’s grown just a bit taller since Petra last saw him, his shoulders a bit broader and his jawline a bit sharper, but he still wears the same double-bridge glasses and the right corner of his mouth still quirks upward just the slightest bit when he speaks. He even walks the same way, his strides a little too long and quick, and Petra finds that she still has to struggle a bit to keep up. If Zeke notices the same thing about her - how she still wears the same shade of lipstick, how she still has that habit of wrapping her hair around her finger when she’s nervous like she’s doing now, how she bites her lip when she’s not sure what to say next - he doesn’t mention it. “My father’s still working at the hospital with my grandfather. He’s been promoted to director of the orthopedics department.” 

“Oh, congrats!” 

“And you know my mother has been at the hospital now that she doesn’t have to worry about me anymore,” Zeke says. It’s strange how casually he says this, as if he doesn’t remember that the last time he spoke about his mother to Petra was when they were still together. “She really missed being in the OR. Says she’d rather be doing surgeries all day than taking care of me.” 

“It’s nice that she can go back to it.” She nearly stumbles over a step but catches the railing before she can. When she looks up again, Zeke is already on the sidewalk and she hurries after him, a little breathless. “And Eren?” 

“Eren?” Zeke seems a little surprised by the question although Petra doesn’t know why. He leads her to a car - a slick Mercedes with a shining blue exterior and tinted windows that don’t quite match Zeke’s academic profession —  and opens the car doors with a click. 

“Your brother,” she clarifies as Zeke walks over to the driver’s side and slips into the car. She opens the passenger car and slides into the seat beside Zeke, setting her bag down next to her feet. The door swings shut behind her. “He’s coming to the dinner too, right?” 

Zeke turns on the engine and the car comes to life with a pleasant hum. “Most likely,” Zeke says as he checks the side and rearview mirrors before pulling out of the parking space. He even drives the same way, his arm resting on the side with his hand tapping against the door while one hand is on the wheel. Just watching him makes Petra’s chest feel tight. 

“Ah, that’s good. I haven’t seen him in so long,” Petra says. For some reason, knowing that Eren will also be there makes her feel a little more relaxed about the dinner. “Is he still in college? I think he should have graduated by now.” 

“He graduated a little while ago. He’s teaching now. Still on probation, but he says his colleagues like him so he’s not too worried about getting tenure after the probationary period is over.” He slows the car to a stop at an intersection and leans over, fiddling with the radio dial. He sets it to the jazz station and the sound of smooth brass and relaxed percussion fills the car. 

Somehow, driving down the streets with Zeke is far more nostalgic than it ever was when Petra drove on her own. Some nights Petra drove home by herself, and all it ever felt was lonely. Maybe it’s the familiarity of having Zeke beside her like when they were teenagers, driving back home after watching a movie downtown or returning from a basketball game at their high school. 

Petra doesn’t ask any more questions about Zeke’s family. She figures she can catch up with the rest of the Jaegers when she sees them at dinner. Instead, she asks Zeke about his classes and finds that conversation with him comes more easily after she stops stumbling over her words. He tells her a little bit about teaching anthropology (“Far less painful than you think it would be, at least when the kids aren’t just taking it to fulfill their core classes,” he says), his plans for the upcoming week (“It’s midterms, but the students should be fine if they actually look at the study guide.”), and the butterfly exhibit opening up at the museum downtown (“I’m thinking of putting it up as extra credit. Who knows, they might actually look at the other exhibits while they’re wandering around.”). Petra also fills him in on her own life, mumbling about how she still has to make the answer key to her own midterm and expressing interest in the butterfly exhibit Zeke mentions. 

They pull up next to Zeke’s house, the very same one he grew up with. Not much has changed from the outside. The white picket fence is a little worn and the rose bushes have been replaced with peonies. The house is still the same shade of cream, but Petra is sure that the Jaegers had it repainted over the summer like they usually do. She looks up at the second-story window where Zeke’s room should be and vaguely wonders if it’s still his room or if he’s moved out and hasn’t mentioned it yet. 

Walking up the brick steps to the door is a bit surreal. Petra doesn’t realize just how silent she’s been until the chime of the doorbell startles her and Mrs. Jaeger opens the door. As with most of Zeke’s family members, Petra hasn’t seen Mrs. Jaeger since she broke up with Zeke, but she had an amicable relationship with her. She can’t recall Mrs. Jaeger ever being angry, so she’s surprised when Zeke’s mother opens the door with a terrible scowl on her face. 

“Mom, you remember Petra,” Zeke says, moving aside so that Petra can enter first. 

The scowl quickly slips from Mrs. Jaeger’s face, replaced with a smile that Petra is more familiar with. “Petra, of course! I haven’t seen you in ages,” Mrs. Jaeger says, her voice strained. She waves Petra and Zeke in, shutting the door gently behind them. “It’s nice to see you again.” 

“Likewise,” Petra mumbles. She looks at the kitchen doorway where Zeke’s father leans and gives him an awkward wave. The man, just as silent as he was when Petra was young, gives her a polite smile and a nod in acknowledgment. 

“Sorry, we’re a bit late,” Zeke apologizes as he shrugs off his coat. He walks over to the dining room, Petra and his mother trailing behind him. “A student wanted to talk to me and it took a bit longer than I thought it would.” 

“No need to apologize! Eren hasn’t arrived yet anyway. He’ll probably be late. Again.” There’s a harsh tone in Mrs. Jaeger’s voice that Petra hasn't heard before. When she looks up, she sees Zeke’s mother hovering around the table and arranging dishes, the same polite smile on her face as she does so. “Your brother, of course, didn’t bother to send a text to notify us that he’d be late.” 

Petra wonders if Mrs. Jaeger usually speaks about Eren with such disappointment in her voice. Maybe she had always spoken about Eren like this and Petra had never been around to witness it or maybe it’s something that developed while Petra was away. Whatever it is, Zeke and his father seem used to it. Zeke merely shrugs, pulling out his phone to flip through his phone while his mother continues to mutter about how disrespectful her stepson is. Mr. Jaeger continues to stand at the doorway, not bothering to join them at the dining table, his eyes fixed on the carpet. He doesn’t bother to defend his son. 

“Maybe he’s busy,” Petra says, interrupting Mrs. Jaeger mid-rant. She feels rude for speaking while Mrs. Jaeger is talking, but sitting in silence while Zeke’s mother speaks ill of Eren doesn’t feel right either. All eyes are on her now - Mrs. Jaeger a little surprised, Zeke with an eyebrow quirked upward as if in amusement, and his father with a look that’s almost relieved. Petra clears her throat and continues. “He’s a teacher, right? It must be difficult teaching so many children every day — making the lesson plan and everything. Maybe texting slipped his mind. He’ll probably be here soon.” 

God, she hopes Eren will be here soon. Her cheeks are starting to burn bright red and she’s thinking that perhaps speaking up might not have been the best decision. 

“Ah, you’re probably right.” Mrs. Jaeger seems a little more composed now, perhaps remembering that they have company over. She settles down in the chair across from Zeke and flashes a pleasant smile at Petra. “He can be quite forgetful of these things. Of course, you’d never worry your father like this. You’ve always been so responsible.” 

Has talking with Zeke’s mother always been this difficult? Petra’s head is starting to spin, unsure of what response would be appropriate. She feels as if she should defend Eren, but she doesn’t want to make things awkward either. In the end, she smiles awkwardly at Mrs. Jaeger as if accepting the woman’s compliment and reaches out for the glass of water in front of her, raising it to her lips before she can say anything else that she might regret. 

“Dear, come sit next to me,” Mrs. Jaeger calls. She gestures for her husband to join them at the table and Mr. Jaeger stiffly walks over from the doorway before taking a seat at the head of the table. Mrs. Jaeger folds her hands on the table, her gaze still on Petra. “How have you been, Petra? We haven’t heard from you in a while. How long have you been back?” 

The series of questions leave Petra tongue-tied and unsure of how to answer. It’s so strange how casual the Jaegers can be about asking after her, like she hadn’t been such a large part of their lives — or at least Zeke’s life — ten years ago before disappearing completely. As if they didn’t know the real reason she hadn’t kept in touch. She’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to act as oblivious as them. 

“Er, I’ve been back for a while now,” she replies. She bites her lip when she sees the look of surprise on Mrs. Jaeger’s face. When she glances over at Zeke, he doesn’t look back at her. He’s returned his gaze to his phone screen, ignoring her. Nervously, she laughs. “I guess Zeke didn’t tell you, but I’m teaching at the same university he is. A few undergraduate English classes and then a graduate course on nature and romantic poetry.” Petra doesn’t know why she feels a lump at the back of her throat or the sting of tears at the corner of her eyes. She nibbles at her lip again, looking down at her lap so that she doesn’t have to look at Zeke or his family. She doesn’t have a reason to feel hurt or upset. Maybe Zeke was busy and didn’t have the chance to mention it to his parents or maybe it just slipped his mind. It isn’t a big deal. 

“Oh, that must be nice!  Who knew you two would be working together after all these years?” Mrs. Jaeger says. She subtly pushes the cheese plate on the table towards Petra, gesturing for her to take one. 

“Mmm,” Petra says, nodding as if she agrees with Mrs. Jaeger. It’s not as if she’s wrong. Petra certainly didn’t know any of this would happen. She knew some of it would — getting her degree, teaching at a university, eating dinner with Zeke’s parents — she just hadn’t predicted other things like Zeke breaking up with her, not speaking with him for ten years after knowing him her entire life, or having to pretend that she’s okay. 

Petra reaches for a cracker and a spread of raspberry goat cheese and shoves the entire thing in her mouth, hoping that she won’t have to answer any more questions. 

“The university is nice,” Zeke’s father murmurs. It’s the first time he’s spoken all night. The sound of his voice startles Petra, but the other Jaegers don’t seem too surprised. “It’s near the museum too. Very convenient.” 

“Ah, the museum!” Mrs. Jaeger clasps her hands together and looks at Petra expectantly. Petra nearly chokes on her cracker out of nervousness. “Have you been there yet?” 

“Er, not yet,” Petra says hastily, wincing at the pain in her throat. She takes a quick sip of her water to relieve it. “I haven’t really found the time, I guess.” 

“Oh, you should absolutely go!” says Mrs. Jaeger brightly. Petra had never thought Mrs. Jaeger was one to love museums, but there’s probably a lot about the woman that Petra doesn’t know now. All Petra really remembers about the woman is that she stayed at home during the daytime and worked at the hospital at night. She’s bound to have found other ways to occupy her time now that she doesn’t have to worry about Zeke anymore. 

“You sound as if you really enjoy it.” Petra nibbles at another cracker. She feels as if she should smile right now, but she’s not sure if she’s able to. “Are there any exhibits you would recommend?” 

“Oh, they’re all good! The staff especially …,” Mrs. Jaeger gushes, but her voice begins to trail off. Her eyes flicker over to Zeke as if waiting for a sign to proceed, but her son pays no attention to her. He simply reaches over for an almond on the cheese plate and pops it into his mouth. His mother’s smile tightens and she continues, “The butterfly exhibit that’s opening soon should be exquisite!” 

Petra looks from Zeke to Mrs. Jaeger. Aside from Mrs. Jaeger’s forced smile, Petra really can’t tell what’s wrong, so she puts on a false smile of her own and nods. “I know. Zeke was telling me about it on the ride here.” 

There’s a long and awkward silence. Zeke puts no effort in speaking and neither does his father, who still sits and stares at his lap. Only Mrs. Jaeger and Petra seem to be putting in any effort to pick up the conversation, both trying to appear calm as they search for some common ground to work with. Instead, the doorbell rings and Petra swears she hears a sigh of relief escape Mrs. Jaeger’s lips. 

“It seems Eren has finally arrived,” Mrs. Jaeger says, her chair scraping across the floor as she gets up from the table. As she turns to leave, she flashes Petra an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry you had to wait so long.” Petra is about to tell her that it wasn’t a problem, that she didn’t mind waiting (even if it was a lie), but Zeke’s mother has already disappeared into the next room with Zeke’s father following silently behind her. 

For a moment, Petra wonders if she should try to talk to Zeke so more. It’s not that the quiet bothers her, but she’s never felt comfortable sitting silently next to others unless she was completely comfortable with them. Ten years ago this would have been fine, but now sitting with Zeke beside her without saying a word is making her skin crawl and her throat dry. She glances at him from the corner of her eye, trying to gauge his interest. 

Zeke doesn’t seem to be bothered by the silence at all. He’s still scrolling through his phone, occasionally reaching out to pluck a cracker or another almond from the cheese plate. If he’s fine without any conversation, Petra figures she shouldn’t bother him. She settles down with her back against her chair rather unhappily and tries to occupy herself another way. 

Petra tries not to eavesdrop on the conversation going on in the other room. First, she stares down at the lace tablecloth, gazing at the delicate pattern until the floral designs are burned into her corneas. Mrs. Jaeger’s voice begins to drift into the dining room, her tone just as cold and harsh as it was when she spoke about Eren earlier this evening. Another voice floats into the room as well, a voice like Eren’s but a bit deeper and rougher than Petra remembers. As the two continue to talk, Petra finds herself straining to listen to the conversation, but she can’t quite make out the words. The words exchanged don’t sound incredibly pleasant though. 

“...if you told me we were having a guest beforehand I would have shown up on time,” Eren hisses as he walks into the room. He’s taller than he was when Petra had seen him last — probably as tall as his brother if not taller — but he walks with his head down and doesn’t seem to notice Petra seated at the table even as he pulls out a chair to sit down. Without looking up, Eren mumbles, “Sorry, I’m late.” 

Zeke looks up, his expression amused. “Eren,” he says, setting down his phone for once. He rests his chin in his hand, mouth quirked upward in a smile. “Aren’t you going to say hi to our guest?” 

“Uh, yeah. Hi,” Eren says, mumbling into his lap. His eyes flicker upward, first at Zeke and then Petra, but he doesn’t really register who Petra is until he takes another glance. His eyes are huge like a doe’s. He’s always had big eyes even when he was a child, large and green like gemstones. He’s grown into them more since the last time Petra has seen him, but they’re still enormous, growing wider as he recognizes her. His mouth falls open in surprise. “... Petra?” 

She can feel her lips curling in a smile. “Hi, Eren.” 

Eren smiles back at her, a little nervous but a lot more relaxed than he was when he first arrived. He’s still shy when he smiles, looking up at her before glancing down at his lap again. “How are you?” He sits up straighter in his seat, no longer slouching. 

“I’m well. How are you?” 

“Good,” Eren answers.

“I’m glad. I missed you,” Petra tells him, and she means it. 

His smile is a little wider now and Petra feels the most relaxed than she’s been the entire night. It’s nice to know that, despite everything, at least Eren hasn’t changed and she feels less awkward being at a Jaeger family dinner after ten years of estrangement. 

Mrs. Jaeger puts down a tub of what looks like a potato salad on the table, opening the container with a frown. “At least you didn’t come empty-handed,” she comments wryly. 

Eren winces but doesn’t say anything. 

Petra sits up. “It looks, um, delicious.” It doesn’t. It looks like a pile of mush and not at all like anything edible, but Petra begins to spoon some on her plate anyway out of politeness despite the look of alarm on Eren’s face. “Eren, your brother told me you started teaching recently. Where do you teach?” 

“Just, um, down the street. Not really elementary … it’s a daycare,” he says distractedly as he watches her help herself to his potato salad. Eren hesitates for a moment before taking the spoon from Petra and switching their plates. He does it absentmindedly, almost as if he doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he notices everyone looking at him peculiarly. Flustered, he explains, “It’s not, ah, I don’t think it’s very good. So.” As if to prove his point, he puts a heaping spoonful of it into his mouth, gagging on it as he swallows it down, and scrunches his face up in disgust. 

Mrs. Jaeger looks rather smug as Eren chokes. “I’ll just put this away then,” she says, removing the tub of potato salad from the table. She gestures for Petra to help herself to the other food on the table. “Help yourself to everything else, Petra.” 

“Er, thank you,” Petra says. She does feel bad about not eating the potato salad, but Eren looks pretty relieved. Because she’s talked Zeke’s ear off in the car and doesn’t know how to carry on a conversation with the Jaeger parents, she decides to continue her conversation with Eren. “Daycare seems like it would suit you. I bet you’re great with kids.” 

“I’m alright,” Eren mumbles as he pushes the potatoes back and forth on his plate, but he’s hiding a smile on his face, secretly pleased. He’s never been that good at hiding his emotions, which Petra thinks is an endearing trait. “Teaching at a university is probably harder.” He freezes for a moment and then hurriedly adds, “Your dad told me you work as a professor now. I ran into him before coming here. He mentioned that you taught English …?” 

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, casting a side glance at Zeke. She thought Zeke would have mentioned that they were working at the same university, but maybe it never came up in conversation between the brothers or they just weren’t as close as they were before. Forcing a smile on her face, she nods, “Yeah, I teach English, but I wouldn’t say teaching university is more or less difficult than handling a daycare. They have their own challenges, right?” 

“Yeah,” Eren replies, voice soft. His smile grows wider and, after Petra asks him about what it’s like teaching at the daycare, starts animatedly talking about his students. He seems very endeared towards a young girl named Gabi, a very mischievous but sweet troublemaker, and her companion Falco, a young boy that often has no choice but to be dragged into all of Gabi’s shenanigans. 

Talking to Eren makes the rest of the dinner go by easily. He’s always been easy to talk to even when they were teenagers and she was dating Zeke. Sometimes she would wait at the Jaeger house and talk with Eren while they waited for Zeke to come back from baseball practice. Eren was always so animated when he talked, using his hands and sometimes bouncing up and down his seat when he got excited. He still does that now as he talks about his work at the daycare, listening intently whenever Petra or even Zeke exchange their own stories about teaching. It makes her feel as if the past ten years hadn’t really happened, like Zeke and Eren had been a part of her life the entire time. 

“Oh, I brought dessert,” Eren says brightly. Before Mrs. Jaeger can say anything, he gets up to collect the paper bag on the kitchen counter and plops it on the dining table. He pushes it closer to Petra. “Your dad gave me some while he was closing up his shop.” 

She laughs. “I eat too many of these as it is,” Petra says, but she plucks an almond cookie from the bag. Her teeth sink into the cookie, savoring its subtle nutty flavor on her tongue, and sighs. “Don’t tell my dad. He won’t let me eat anymore when I get home.” 

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Eren grins. 

Petra peers into the bag. “Did he give you any chocolate croissants?” She looks over at Eren. “Those are still your favorites, right?” 

Eren looks surprised. “Ah, yeah,” he replies, blinking. “You remember?” 

“Of course, I remember,” she snorts. She manages to find a pain au chocolat and places it delicately on Eren’s plate. It’s a little smooshed from the ride here, chocolate spilling out of its side, but Eren still looks at it hungrily. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

Zeke leans forward. “I like the lemon bars. Let me know if there are any in there.” 

She laughs and actually does manage to find one, but it’s a lemon-lavender bar. Zeke assures her it’s fine, picking off the little bits of lavender that are on the top of the bar. They eat like that for a moment and Petra feels an overwhelming wave of nostalgia. It’s probably unhealthy to yearn for the past, but Petra wouldn’t mind if things somehow ended up the way they were before. 

When their dishes are scraped clean and the conversations begin to fade away, Zeke pats down the corner of his mouth with a napkin before announcing that they should stop for the night. He has papers to grade tonight, he explains to his parents who nod understandingly. The wooden legs of his chair scrape against the carpet as he gets up from the table and Petra slides out of her own seat, ready to follow him. 

“Ah, Petra,” Zeke says, pausing like he’s just remembered. He looks at her, head tilting slightly. He’s stopped by the door to the living room, his hand resting on the doorframe. “Do you mind calling an Uber to pick you up? I’d drive you home myself but …” 

“I …” Petra blinks, feeling like a deer in headlights. If she looked around, she would see that the rest of the Jaeger family has a similar expression. She’s not sure why she feels so surprised. Maybe it’s because she had expected him to drive her home, but maybe that was too much to ask of him after he had taken the trouble to drive her here in the first place. It’s not even that far of a drive to her house, but it’s probably too cumbersome for Zeke, who’s busy with grading papers and preparing for tomorrow’s lectures. There’s an awful lump in her throat like she had swallowed an egg whole, but Petra forces a smile on her face as she begins, “Sure, let me just call my dad -” 

“I’ll take you home,” a voice says suddenly. Everyone turns to see Eren standing up from his chair. At first glance he looks angry, but Petra blinks again and there’s only concern on his face as he collects his jacket and walks over to Petra. He shrugs it on and smiles down at her, his expression a little apologetic. “Er, you don’t mind riding on a bike, do you?” 

Petra has to lift her head to look at Eren and she wonders when he had gotten so tall. It must have been after she left for college. “No, that’s fine,” she replies numbly, too shocked to really think about it. She shuffles silently after Eren, mumbling a brief “thank you” when he helps her into her coat. 

“It was lovely having you over again, dear,” Mrs. Jaeger says to Petra, a smile pasted on the woman’s face as she saw the two out. She doesn’t say anything about Zeke not offering Petra a ride back. “Do come again sometime.” 

“Of course,” Petra says, although the promise feels empty. She’s not sure if Mrs. Jaeger notices or even cares because the woman shuts the door in her face before Eren and Petra are even out in the driveway. It’s not a cold gesture, but it’s a change from the days when Mrs. Jaeger would wait until Petra was almost out of sight before shutting the door and disappearing into the house. 

Petra shoves her hands into the pockets of her coat and follows Eren down the driveway, watching as he runs to the bike he had carelessly discarded on the ground before entering the house earlier. Embarrassed, Eren hastily picks up the bike, brushing it off and mumbling something about how he had been in too much of a hurry earlier to properly lock up his bike. Petra assures him it’s fine. She’s only half-listening anyway. 

“You can just sit here,” Eren says, patting a padded seat on the back of his bike. He throws a leg over his bike easily and looks at Petra, waiting expectantly. 

She hadn’t objected to the ride home before, but now she looks at Eren’s vehicle of choice skeptically. “Are you sure you’ll be able to pedal with me on it? I’m a whole other person.” Petra hovers beside the bike, but she doesn’t get on. 

“Yeah, it’s fine. It was fine when my boyfriends were riding in the back, and they’re a lot heavier than you,” Eren replies. It takes him a moment to register what he just said and then his face begins to color, cheeks glowing pink even in the dim moonlight. “I mean my ex-boyfriends. I rode around with my ex-girlfriend too, but she was really tiny too. She was …” He probably would have babbled on and on if Petra hadn’t sat down. 

“Your exes?” Petra asks, eyebrow raised. She hadn’t really thought about Eren dating, but it’s funny to think about now. She doesn’t remember if he ever dated anyone when he was in high school. She probably shouldn’t tease, but she can’t resist grinning at the boy and saying, “It looks like you were busy in college.” 

“Not that busy. Just … probably as busy as your average college student,” Eren mumbles under his breath, face still flushed. He gestures at Petra’s hands and then makes a motion around his waist. “You can … around me if, you know, you’re comfortable with it.” 

“Oh, right.” She leans forward and wraps her arms around Eren’s waist and wonders briefly how someone so tall can have such a thin waist. “Do you remember the way to my house?” she asks. 

“Of course,” Eren says. “It’s not that far from here.” 

For some reason, the way Eren answers makes Petra feel warm. Maybe it’s just the heat transfer from resting her cheek on his back. She closes her eyes, feeling the wind rush around her as Eren bikes her back home. 

It feels so comfortable, clinging onto someone so familiar and breathing in Eren’s scent, something like pinewood and a little bit of peppermint. He feels strong too, sturdy like a redwood tree. Petra doesn’t know why she doubted his ability to bike with her additional weight. He’d probably be fine having someone twice her weight in tow. She experimentally gives Eren’s waist a little squeeze. It must have been too sudden of a squeeze because they come to a screeching stop, Petra’s face slamming against Eren’s back and the two of them nearly go flying. 

“Oh, ouch,” Petra says. One arm is still wrapped around Eren’s lithe waist, but she raises a hand to rub her stinging face. “That hurts.” 

“S-sorry!” Eren stammers. He twists around to get a good look at Petra, forehead wrinkling. “I didn’t mean to stop so suddenly I was just … surprised.” He brings his hand down to where Petra’s arm is hooked around his waist, but he snatches his hand away as soon as their skin brushes as if he’s been burned. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Petra assures him. Her nose is throbbing dully, but it’s not bleeding. “It’s my fault anyway. I was just surprised. You’re a lot bigger than you were the last time I saw you.” 

“I’m alright,” Eren says with a shy laugh. He pushes off on the bike and starts for home again, pedaling easily despite Petra’s weight. He doesn’t startle when Petra leans against him again, her cheek rubbing against the cotton of his hoodie. His breath hitches a little when Petra wraps her arms a little tighter around his waist, but it goes unnoticed by her. 

“Were they nice?” she asks. Eren makes a confused noise, and she can’t help but smile. Clarifying, she says, “Your exes. Were they nice?” 

Eren pedals in silence for a while before responding. “Yeah. They were nice.” 

“That’s good.” Petra sighs against his back, not noticing the way he shivers as if he can feel her breath on his skin. “You deserve to date nice people.” 

Petra might have imagined it, but she thinks she hears Eren say something in reply. He says it quietly, though, and the wind carries it away too quickly for her to hear. She straightens her back, lifting her head from where it rests against Eren’s back, but he doesn’t repeat himself and she doesn’t ask. Maybe it’s just one of those things that are meant to be spoken aloud but not heard by anyone. 

They don’t speak much the rest of the way home. Petra figures Eren is having enough trouble biking with two people and holding a conversation would only tire him out more. She just lets herself rest against him, watching as they pass streetlight after streetlight. It probably would have been more convenient to call a Lyft or an Uber, but Petra thinks accepting Eren’s bike ride isn’t bad either. It saved her from having to wait awkwardly for her driver to find the house while Zeke’s parents waited for her to leave. 

She wonders if she should have gone to dinner in the first place. Maybe Zeke had only invited her out of politeness, but she had taken it to mean more than it did. She’s stupid to think that arriving at the Jaeger house meant that things could go back to the way things were. It was noticeably tense in the house. At first, Petra thought it was because of the strained relationship between Mrs. Jaeger and Eren, but now she’s not so sure. It’s not as if Mr. and Mrs. Jaeger had met her with open arms. They hadn’t been hostile, but they were polite in the way that people were polite to house guests and not in the way they would be to a childhood friend of their son. God, she’s so stupid. She should have just declined Zeke’s offer politely and never spoken to him again since he was obviously content with not speaking with her for ten years. 

Burying her face in Eren’s hoodie, Petra gives him another squeeze. Eren doesn’t brake this time. He just lets out a surprised “oh!” and falters for a bit, bike slowing, before picking his pace back up and continuing on their way. 

“We’re almost there,” Eren tells her. As he approaches Petra’s house, the bike begins to slow before stopping completely in front of the driveway. When Petra lifts her head, Eren is looking at her, smiling. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” Petra nods. She gets off the bike and pats down her windswept hair, brushing some stray locks out of her face. She manages to smile back at Eren. “Thanks for the ride back. I hope it wasn’t too out of your way.” 

“It’s fine.” Eren sits at his bike, his smile a little lopsided. He looks as if he’s about to say something, but nothing comes. It’s only when Petra turns around towards her house that he opens his mouth. “Hey, Petra?” 

Petra’s hand rests on the gate of her wooden fence, just about to open it. She looks at Eren, watching as he fidgets with the handle of his bike. “Yeah?” 

“Did Zeke …?” His voice trails off and Eren’s looking everywhere except at her face. He nibbles on his bottom lip and Petra wonders what he’s so nervous about. His expression looks pained as if he’s scared whatever he has to say will hurt her, but Petra’s not sure why it would. After a moment, Eren swallows and forces a smile on his face. “Did Zeke tell you that … I work near your university?” 

“You do?” 

Eren nods. He looks a lot less nervous now, his shoulders relaxed. “Well, it’s not that far by bike.” 

“Really?” Petra hums. “I should come visit you some time then.” 

“Oh, you don’t have to -” 

“Or you could visit me?” she suggests. 

He blinks. “I can?” Eren asks. “Is that really okay?” 

Petra almost laughs. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be? You should just let me know beforehand if you’re coming,” she tells him. She walks over, pulling her phone out of her purse and handing it to him so he can add his number. “Text me or call me. I might not respond right away because I might have a faculty meeting or a lecture, but I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” 

“Oh, alright then,” Eren says. He types away on her phone, handing it back to her as soon as he’s finished. He watches with wide green eyes as Petra sends him an emoji — a simple “Hi, Eren! It’s Petra 😊” — and looks back at her with a grin. “I’ll come visit sometime.” 

“That’d be great,” Petra says, and she really means it. “Thanks again for the ride, Eren. I really appreciate it.” 

“It was no problem,” Eren tells her. He waves as walks through the gate and up the steps of her porch. He’s still waving when she opens the door and turns around, his smile a little goofy but cute at the same time. “Have a good night!” 

“You too,” Petra says before shutting the door gently behind her. She takes a peek out the window and sees Eren still on the sidewalk with the bike. He stands there with a pensive look on his face before pushing off his bike and riding off into the night. Petra watches until he’s a tiny speck down the road. When she blinks, he’s gone. 

Petra finds her dad waiting for her in the living room, sleeping because he can’t stay awake for very long after dinner. In his lap sits a half-finished crossword puzzle. Petra smiles affectionately at her father before pressing a soft kiss on the old man’s brow. 

“I’m home,” she whispers as her father begins to stir. 

“Ah, Petra,” says her father. He looks at her, eyes still bleary with sleep, and gives her a drowsy smile. With a hand, he pushes up the glasses that were slipping off his nose during sleep. “Did Zeke drive you home?” 

Her lips press into a thin line. “No. He was busy,” Petra replies, trying to keep her voice as even as possible. “Eren took me home instead.” 

“Eren?” her father repeats, not seeming to remember the name. 

“Zeke’s younger brother,” Petra reminds him. She leans against the back of her father’s armchair as she tries to describe the half-brother. “He was a few years younger than me. Brown hair, big green eyes, kind of gangly.” 

“Oh, Eren,” her father says, nodding. Petra’s not sure if he actually remembers or if he’s just being polite, but then he suddenly says, “I saw him earlier this evening before I was closing up shop. He’s very polite. He’s a nice boy.” 

Petra leans over to rest her head on her father’s shoulder while her arms lay folded on the back of the armchair. She thinks about her ride home, how it could have been cold and miserable and lonely. And maybe her thoughts were all of those things, but the ride wasn’t. She can still feel the warmth Eren emanated from underneath his hoodie, how comforting it was to have someone to hold.

“Yeah. He’s a nice guy,” Petra says softly. 

[cartoonfangirl1218]

Motorcycle Race

Has a bit of Mick and Lisa friendship. Takes place between Rogue Air and Family of Rogues.  "Okay peoples let's get this party started!!!!!" Shawna shouted in the middle of the crowd in Saints & Sinners. 

Mark Axel, and Hartley burst in quickly behind her. Mark's small hurricanes blew the door hinges off and people ran screaming out. Mick, Leonard and Lisa dragged behind. 

"I can't believe we're robbing this place." Leonard muttered disgustedly as the crowds pushed and ran past them. 

"Aww c'mon on Lenny. It's Shawna's birthday let her rob S&S if she wants to. Besides look at all the wallets people are leaving around." Lisa grinned as another patron ran away screaming, not noticing Lisa's hand dipping into her pocket as she ran past her. "I already got 7!" 

Leonard shook his head with his usual "Why-in-hell-am-I-related-to-you-and-why-did-I-agree-to-this-stupidity" sigh.

Lisa rolled her eyes, he was the one who created the group who wanted to do said stupidity. He was the one that had wanted to get more villains to go against the Scarlet Speedster, and now they were stuck with them. 

It all had started when Shawna came to the warehouse with a bunch of shopping bags, announcing that no one should go to her room tonight because it was her birthday. Then Axel came up with the idea that they should celebrate. And with Rogues, what better way to celebrate than by filling their pockets with cash, jewelry and other stuff they got for free. Shawna insisted on Saints & Sinners because she wanted to crash at the bar so off they went. 

Lenny hadn't wanted to go, but Lisa had goaded him to it because what would it look like if the leader of the Rogues was so noticeably absent from a theft. 

"Like he is the only sane one, so that's why he's the leader" He drawled. He ended up going anyway because he didn't want anyone to end up in jail before going on their next heist. 

Lisa had to admit, she had been against the idea of having more in the Rogues besides the three of them. Sort of an exclusivity. But it had been generally okay. Mark and Axel were all over her when Lenny wasn't around and it was nice to be so pampered and admired. 

Despite his lovesick gazes, Axel was the jokester and she thought he was the best one to hang out with. who wouldn't love a buy who stole the cold gun, freezed the hallway and started sledding races. She didn't know quite what to think of Mark and Hartley they mostly stood to each other or by themselves. But as long as they didn't mess up her life with whatever inner angst they were holding up she didn't care. 

Shawna was fun to be around, it was nice to have another girl in villainy and they sometimes compared notes on Cisco and made fun of him and the other Rogues when they went clubbing. But she also had a sneaking suspicion that she had been using her powers to get into her room, and steal her make up which was not cool at all. She had stolen those Clinique bottles through her own hard work and she wasn't going to share. The place was finally clear, the owner of the bar stared at them through widened eyes. He looked like he was going to stand his ground but one glare from Mick sent him scurrying off. 

“Best day ever" Shawna sighed satisfied sipping her bottle of vodka she took from the bar. Axel and Hartley were jamming up the cash register and Mark seemed to be trying to take off the disco ball with his mind. 

"So how long do we get to crash before the police arrive?" Mick asked absent-mindedl, lighting a cigarette. 

"10, 8 minutes or so" Leonard said checking his watch.

"Cool we stay here until last second and then off out" Shawna grinned, as she spotted a sequined purse lying under one of the tables.

"Maybe you can but we can't." Mark said, looking at the locked front door.

“Oh yeah, it must suck that you have to leave early because you're not fast enough to outrun the cops" Shawna mock-pouted "Poor baby.”

"I can out-run the cops anytime I want.”Hartley shot back.

“No way, your stick legs can't outrun a snail" Axel jeered.

“Yes I can" Hartley shoved him. "No way" Shawna called out.

"Forget running, best way to go is by motorcycle" Mick said.

"And that title is held by me" Lisa added.

“Please" Mick snorted.

"Please what?" Lisa scowled.

"I'm the one that actually taught you how to drive fast. No way you can beat the master." Mick smirked. It was true. Len had been the one that taught her to drive car, how to drive a motorcycle, how to repair the, but Mick was the one that taught her how to drive fast ad dangerously. They used to drive around Central, breaking all kinds of speed limits. 

"Mick, stop talking drunk and be serious.” Lisa snorted.

“Guys, I have the perfect way to solve this" Shawna grinned.

"Beer" Mark said helpfully.” 

“Yes, that and we race on it." Shawna suggested. The Rogues stared at each other and ran out of S&S. They headed to the old dump yard at the edge of the skate park, and took some bicycles lying around while Leonard, Mick, and Lisa took their own motorcycles. "Okay first up,” Lisa announced "You four go race starting at the half pipe, to S&S and back again. Then Mick and I will go, winner race winners." Leonard just settled down at the park bench watching them intently.

“Do we get to use our powers?" Hartley asked eagerly.

"Of course" Lisa purred "What fun would it be if we didn't?"

The four got on their bikes, and glared at the lights of S&S and the police cars in the distance.

"Ready, set go!" Lisa called Axel started up the fight by setting off parachute bombs at Shawna who was up front, she disappeared just as the bombs hit the ground. 

Which made Mark and Hartley scramble off balance into some trees. Mark fought back as lightning blast out of the sky, making Axel zig-zag into the street.

 "SHIT!! Biker coming through" he yelled as car honked and barreled toward him. Shawna reappeared once more in front but was soon overpowered by Hartley when he aimed his sonic gloves at the ground. The whole race sorta crumbled after that. 

They got so distracted with fighting each other that jumped off their motorcycle and use their powers and combat skills in a four way fight. 

"Guess we can get started then," Mick commented. “Done" Lisa pulled on her helmet, and crouched on her golden motorcycle "See you at the finish line old man" Lisa crowed.

Mick grunted. Leonard placed their guns next to him and called out "Start!”

It had been fast and furious, without the added distraction of firing fireballs me gold at each other they swerved precisely and smoothly across the streets. Lisa sorely tempted to drive over by him and hit him against the curb, but one thing she re breed from racing him years ago that knocking out you're opponent also made sure you slowed down too. 

They made it to S&S and we're greeted by the police, and the owner. "Yes, they helped rob the place!" 

"Drive back, drive back, tactical retreat" Mick shouted at her, she didn't need to be told twice. 

She zig zagged as people always said to do if you don't want to get shot by the police. She certainly didn't want to today and in this outfit. The blood would stain the chiffon for sure. She heard the squeal of tires blowing out, and cursed to see her motorcycle tire with a bullet in it. Mick was a little ways ahead of her, already getting dragged off by the police officers. 

She shook her head, dejectedly and let them cuff her without a fight. Without a gun, against their many many holsters, it didn't seem worth it. 

As she got shoved in with Mick, he huffed on yet another cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Ya know your brother is gonna killed us." 

“He could kill Shawna... She was the one with the whole birthday robbery idea and then the motorcycle race." Lisa said, "This is not worth getting killed over. If anything he would kill you for screwing me.” 

She was thinking of Leonard's ever present threat, to murder anyone, especially partners having sexual relations with her. 

"He wouldn't kill me" Mick said, carelessly.

"Really?" Lisa added doubtfully, she knew Mick was like Leonard's closest and only friend but she didn't think their friendship extended that far. Hell, he said that Mick was the last person he wanted her having sex with. “I believe his exact words were, If you think one impure thought about her I will catastrate you, boil your nuts and burn you alive." Mick said thoughtfully as Lisa stared at him in horror, with more than just the threat in mind 

“Did you like me?" She would never admit but she had a crush on Mick for a few months when she was 14. Nothing big, and it was before she knew the extent of his craziness. All she knew was that he had a car with license, had wicked prison tattoos, and an intriguing deep guttural voice. It went away after awhile but never once did she think Mick would have looked at her the same way. 

"I just saw you in a one of your evening dresses, and happened to compliment your rack out loud. That was it." Mick said. “That explains it" Lisa smiled, "And you and I dating. Never. I don't go for balding, old men."

"I don't go for idiotic train wrecks" Mick retorted.

They settled to an easy silence before she broke it again, “So what do you think of the whole Rogues thing?" 

“Worst plan ever. A guy who can make thunderstorms whenever he cries, a disappearing act that thinks robbing S&S is big game, a dumbass engineer with parental issues, and a daddy's boy with bombs. Len couldn't pick up someone cool and useful like someone who could control minds, or an assassin." Mick snorted. 

“Let’s face it. The original three of us pulled off more cons than we did with the rest." Lisa agreed. 

"Well we're stuck with them for now. It'll be like our own reality TV mess." Mick snorted. 

"I bet I could get Shawna in a fight with Mark over the bathroom and then have Axel and Hartley making out in the closet in no time." Lisa smiled, mischevious thoughts running through her mind.

"Mark and Hartley in the closet? I bet Mark and Hartley. In Leonard's office" Mick corrected.

“You're on. I can't wait to see Lenny's face when that happens" Lisa grinned.

 "After we get out of this, we're going for another round though" Mick added.

 "You want to get beaten by me twice?" “I was way ahead of you before the cops came." Mick sneered.

"You have proof?" "I don't need proof, I'm better motorcyclist than you'll ever be. I was back then and I am now.” Mick snarled. "Things changed, Rory. I'm number one now." Lisa glared back at him. 

“Things haven't changed that much, Glider. You still need to learn how to zig zag without getting shot, don't you think for a second you're not the same kid that I had to drive to school and help with...with Brazilian waxing" Mick said, with a rare smile at the memory. 

Leonard had forced Mick to go to her wax appointment with her when he got stuck at a job with Lewis. It had been a hard ordeal for both of them, and Mick ended up with a broken wrist. "It was my first time, and you wouldn't let me hold your.." 

The truck stopped with a halt, and Shawna appeared in front of them. "You're anti-heroes of the day have arrived" she cheered, opening the door and pushing them out. They fell to the ground, "Would you mind, uncuffing us first" Lisa spit dirt out of her mouth.

“Oh of course!" "Here let me help!" Mark and Axel scrambled to uncuff her.

“A little help here" Mick hissed, jingling his cuffs, as Leonard rolled his eyes to help. “That's enough for tonight" Leonard used his stern, leader tone and gestured to the motorcycles waiting at the bench.  

"You head out, we have a score to settle" Lisa said, and winked at Mick. “Yeah Goldie wants to get her ass kicked.

"Don't get so cocky, Rory" Lisa smiled, revved her engine and the two roared off to the pipeline. 

[kintsugi-sheep]

The Essay

The thief crouched down behind the car, making sure he couldn't be spotted from the street or the house's windows. Pulling out his lockpicking tools, he gingerly began to work the lock that secured the bicycle he'd come across. There was something about the deep blue that spoke to him. He'd almost broken the lock when the bike's owner literally kicked his front door open. The thief shot up and raised his arms, racking his brain for a half-hearted defense. Shouting, "Move, bitch!" he wasn't given time to speak, as the owner threw his fist across his jaw. From the floor the thief watched as Travis pulled out the lock's key. He preferred to keep in separate from the rest of them as it made it easier to find. Of course, when he'd fumble with the lock, have it slip from his hands into the gutter, he'd regret his decision. "Fuck!" he swore. He grabbed the cord holding the bike to the post and pulled. The thief could see the veins outlined in his neck and arms, his muscles straining as he pulled the cord to the point it snapped. Travis, calmer in his moment of clarity, took the time to acknowledge the man who attempted to take his bike. He raised it in his arms, struck him tire-first in the face, set it down, hopped on, and sped off. The gentle piano keys that Travis had set as his morning alarm resonated in his head like it was a theatre. He couldn't recall what pills he bought the night before, but they did as advertised. From 8 to 5 he cranked out a 30,000 word essay. He shut off his alarm without looking at the time and cracked open his laptop. It was 7:30. Two-and-a-half hours of sleep felt terrible, but he had an hour to look over his essay for a final time before he had to make it to his first class of the day. Three minutes into reading, Travis noticed an issue with his paper. And as he continued, he knew an hour of editing couldn't fix what he beheld. A paper that had begun with a structured, if not stilted and self-indulgently formal, tone and discussed the ethics of euthanasia and the legality of suicide transformed into a chauvinistic diatribe. Travis didn't harbor resentment, but the way he recounted the blushing face of his middle school crush when his alleged best friend kissed her on the cheek he sure seemed like he did. This diverged further into a tirade about all women. This included segments that the paper swore were real that his sober mind recognized as old dreams, tips on landing women he knew he'd heard from pickup artist infomercials online, and one comment about Mrs. Sanders' breasts. Mrs. Sanderson who he was to hand the paper in to. Mrs. Sanderson with the ex-military, hunter husband. There was another issue. He was presented with the option of either turning in a physical copy or sending an email. Email was the obvious choice and he took it. A third issue arose. When he pulled open his phone to call Mrs. Sanderson and beg her to just fail him rather than read his essay, he saw that the time on his phone was 8:45. He shot back to the computer. 7:45. He'd first forgotten that his computer would automatically set itself for daylight saving's time. Then he'd forgotten that he would be losing an hour rather than gaining one. By the time he whipped his head back to his phone, the fourth, final issue arose. His battery life dropped from one percent to zero and shut off. Travis screamed. He would later tell his roommates it was a more dignified yell, but the shrill, panicked sound betrayed it as a scream. He threw his phone against the wall, scuffing the white surface with black markings and reached into his laundry bin. He didn't recognize he'd grabbed yesterday's outfit until it was too late to care. He nearly asphyxiated himself with body spray and hastily brushed his teeth with one of his roommate's toothbrushes. Like a fool, he hopped the banister to get to the first floor. The searing pain in his shins and calves were dwarfed by the fear in his heart. He kicked open the front door, assaulted someone who he thought may have been trying to steal his bike, and sped off to campus. The next ten minutes were a cacophony of madness. Cars honked at him and their drivers swore as he cut them off and swerved his way through the path of an ambulance. He leapt off his bike instead of parking it, paying it no mind as it nearly collided with a group of students. He body checked the door to one of the buildings repeatedly before he reasoned that he should use his ID to get in. He pushed through staff and student as he dashed his way up the stairs. But, he'd made it. He slammed open the door to Mrs. Sanderson's room. All eyes were on Travis as he pulled his back pack from his shoulders, spun in a circle, and, like an Olympic shot putter, hurled his bag toward his teachers desk. As it sailed over the students, Travis had three realizations. This wasn't his first class of the day; in fact he should've been on the other side of campus. The odds of Mrs. Sanderson reading his essay within even the next two days was unlikely. And he had no way of paying for his teacher's newly-shattered monitor.

[takemedancingmaine]

10

My feet ache. My thighs are burning. I’m dodging families and vehicles. Especially dodging cyclists with their maniacal ways. Honestly, my hatred for cyclists can probably be blamed on Jeremy Clarkson, but as a runner I’ve found his rants about them much more factual than purely hatred based.

Eight kilometres into my run. Only two to go. It’s eight am. It’s Thursday. It’s a bye week, so I don’t have therapy this week. Sometimes I feel that the nicest part of the new job I’ve got is that I can wake up and make myself a real breakfast rather than just grabbing a smoothie on my way into the office.

I’ve been in the broadcast news room for a week now. It’s been enlightening. I’ve not had any big days like my first, none of my segments made it into the first two blocks, but I haven’t felt down about it since Saturday when I talked to Liam.

I’ve been managing. I’ve been doing well. I’ve learned to take solace in just being part of each nightly broadcast.

It’s when I hit the ninth kilometre, my watch beeping at me as I hit another mark. Only one to go.

It’s now that my mind starts to drift. To a certain primary school teacher.

Thoughts of blue eyes, dimples, a ginger coloured beard and strawberry blonde hair. Thoughts of a lean build in a stupidly attractive button down that was worn the other night at the pub.

Thoughts of Jack have been swirling in my mind like a maelstrom, around and around, and I’ve been unable to pull myself out of the spiral. I keep thinking of the blush that crept onto his face and the way he bit his lip. It makes my heart soar. There’s no way he could be into me. Which makes my heart sink.

And so the spiral continues.

I haven’t heard from Jack or his sister Lily since that night after she made sure I had arrived home safely.

I haven’t told Piper about seeing him again either. I don’t want to get her started on ‘shipping’ us. We are not to become her ‘OTP’. That isn’t something I need. Piper would not rest until she got us together and that would be embarrassing on a lot of fronts when it doesn’t work out.

I’ve got a bead of sweat on my brow about to drop into my eye. So I reach up and swipe it away with the inner crease of my arm, momentarily blocking my view, forcing me to have to swerve past a stroller at the last second.

“Fuck sake,” I mumble with a harsh breath in regard to the stroller as I see my street finally come to view ahead of me.

It had been suggested when I started running that I do not listen to music when I run. Melissa wanted to do a sort of test to see where my mind wandered when it had an allocated time to just think and be. So, since the day I started, I never have listened to music. As a consequence, I never bring my phone with me.

That feeling is quite freeing. For as long as I’m out running, whether it be a long run or a short one, I’m away from everything, any distractions and any micro stressors that I’ve got in my life. Instead, all I have to think about is my ability to keep going, my ability to struggle through the blisters and the ankle sprains and whatever other injuries I may get as a result.

It makes me proud of myself: running. It’s hard to do and every day I do it, for myself.

My mother and brother used to worry, of course, that I would be out around London early in the morning without a phone to contact anyone in case of emergency. When I got my new GPS watch it made them feel a bit better that it could be connected to my phone.

I turn that feature off when I’m out though so that nothing and no one can distract me from my running getaway. I don’t tell them that, though.

Let them think I’m taking all precautions. That white lie won’t hurt them.

I make my way up the front steps of the building and catch my breath quickly as I put in the pin for my building and jog up the stairs—all three flights—to get to our front door. Piper’s taken the day off from working in the gallery to take some new photos around the city.

She’s hoping to get some fall photos for a possible new exhibit. She’s trying to make the dying of summer, beautiful and spread that beauty. Fall, when the leaves slip from their branches, when the flowers lie dormant under the soil, and the sky becomes almost perpetually grey—more so than usual—is when the world renews itself.

Piper finds beauty in that. I love her for that. I like to compare her to Van Gogh in that way. She tends to roll her eyes at the comparison, but I still think it stands.

The best part of this is—her day away from the gallery—is that she’s made breakfast for us. I can smell it as I push open the front door and kick off my trainers.

“Oh,” Piper sighs when I step in and she sees me. “Thank god. Your phone just went off with an unknown number and I was too afraid to answer it for you,” she says, pointing to where it’s charging on the end table.

“You made mini quiches?” I ask in disbelief.

“I was going to make pastries and omelettes separately but I just… I got carried away.” She lifts her hands up and shrugs, almost helplessly. “I don’t really know what happened.”

With a laugh, I shake my head and pour myself a glass of milk.

“You having the day off is a very weird situation for me,” I give her an amused look.

“Yeah, well,” she smiles. “It’s weird having you home this late, too,” she knocks my elbow a bit as I drink. “I’m so used to you being gone before I even wake up. Now you’re out and about, having tea while I’m getting ready to leave for work.”

“It’s been a week and I’m not used to it either,” I say back. “I feel all sorts of discombobulated.”

“How was the run?” She asks now.

I look down at my watch and quickly calculate. “Not my best,” I make a face before smoothing it out. “But I did manage to avoid any major incidents with bicycles.”

“Now that’s improvement and should be celebrated properly,” Piper starts taking the mini quiches out of their muffin tins and placing them on a cooling rack. “Make yourself a nice brew and celebrate.”

“How many of those did you make?” I ask in awe as I watch her pull another mini muffin tin full of quiches from the oven.

“Forty-eight,” she mumbles.

“Right, well I know what my breakfast and lunch is going to be for the next week,” I tease her a bit more.

“Shut it,” she mumbles more and elbows me in the spleen.

“I’m going to shower,” I shrug and roll my eyes before heading to the bathroom.

“Good, because you smell bloody awful!” She yells after me as the door closes behind myself.

The stream is beating down on my shoulders and releasing the tension there, the steam filling up the small room around me as I breathe deeply and lean back to rinse the shampoo from my hair.

I can hear Piper put on some music and smile when I hear some Eagles playing. Piper and I had first bonded in uni when we were placed in the same housing. We were roomed directly across from each other in a six-student mixed-gender housing situation and about two months into the school year we realized we liked the same music and took our tea the same way.

It actually started when she had gotten upset with one of our other roommates for having sex—loudly—in the room adjacent to hers and so she’d placed her jbl speaker right against the wall they shared and started blasting Baba O’Riley as loud as it would allow her to.

I’d taken pity on her and told her she could sleep on my bed and I’d take the couch. She’d declined, but we ended up sitting up half the night on the couch drinking brews and discussing the music that was still playing loudly from down the hallway. We’d woken up with kinks in our necks from sleeping sitting up on the couch and ended up skipping our morning classes in order to sleep in our beds and then talk some more.

We’ve been best friends ever since.

It’s starting to get quite cold in the mornings, my runs more frigid than they had been just a few brief weeks before. The cold seeps in slowly after I run, the heat of my workout leaving me and the cold pulling me under. It’s why my typically cooler showers heat up so much in the winter. It’s the way I raise my body temperature back up.

With the shampoo all gone from my hair and the chill finally gone from my bones, I turn and push the water off, sighing as I dry off and wrap myself in a warm towel. In the mirror, I can’t help but notice the contrast between my dark, damp hair and my pale skin

I think it’s something about being British that I actually don’t mind being pale. Perhaps its because I’ve never really had the opportunity to see myself tan to compare.

There’s something almost cathartic about combing out my hair that I just love. It’s relaxing. Melissa thinks I use it as a metaphor. A sort of way to physically feel and see tangles being removed from my hair and by extension, my life. Piper, even though she’s fully supportive of me in all ways, thinks that’s a load of bullshit.

“Your phone buzzed again, and your tea is ready,” Piper calls as I tread from the bathroom to my bedroom to get dressed.

“You really are a blessing, no matter how in disguise you may be,” I tell her a few minutes later when I reappear from my room all clothed.

“You’re such a toad,” she pushes a plate filled with four mini quiches toward me as I lift the mug with my brew in it to my lips, blowing on it to hopefully cool it down a bit.

When I move the mug away from my mouth I give her a smile and a wink.

“You might actually be the worst,” she shakes her head.

“I honestly think I might be,” I shrug and take a sip of the brew. It’s perfect. Oh my gosh, it’s exactly what I needed. My eyes close and Piper giggles at my reaction.

“You and your brews are honestly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, Wren,” I open my eyes in time to see Piper pop a mini quiche into her mouth.

“Verdict?” I ask.

“I did a proper good making these,” she brags.

“Oh come off your high horse, Pip,” I take a bite out of one of the pastries she’d given to me and I fight hard to keep my reaction to myself.

“It’s good, innit?” Piper asks with a smirk.

“Shut it,” I mumble around the food in my mouth and she laughs more before heading off to her room.

“My camera battery should be charged by now and I want to get as much out of the day after my whole, GBBO morning…” she trails off and I hear her shuffling in her room.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’d at least make it past the first round,” I call out to her.

“Thanks for that support you little shit,” she comes out of her room wearing her leather jacket and with her camera bag over her shoulder. “I’ll see you tonight, love,” she leans over and kisses my cheek. “Knock ‘em dead,” she grabs her keys and opens the door.

“God, sometimes I feel like we’re married,” I groan.

“Power couple of the year,” she winks before she’s gone, the door closing behind her and I’m left shaking my head.

11

It’s not until I’m leaving for work an hour later when I pull my phone off the charger on my way to the front door, that I’m reminded I have messages. One is from an unknown number, a voice message, while the other is from my brother asking if I can watch Charlie for a few hours on Saturday.

He has to head to work for a few hours.

I shake my head but quickly text back that I should be fine to watch Charlie and then slip my phone into my jacket pocket, doing up the bottoms and then heading out the door.

Every few moments I’m glancing at my watch, hoping to whoever or whatever that I make my train on time. I’d lost track of time when I was plaiting my hair and listening to a podcast, not realizing I was cutting it very close on time.

The cool air, while unwelcome while I’m out on a run, is actually some of my favourite weather and I feel a sense of calm fall over me as I shuffle past everyone who’s out and about on the sidewalk while I’m actually trying to get somewhere on a time frame.

A shocking idea to some people in London, I muse as I swipe my oyster card and practically jog down the escalators to get to the right platform on time.

“Fuckin’ hell,” I breathe out a sigh of relief as I step into the carriage just as the doors close. I honestly feel a bit like Indiana Jones when the doors just miss me. I find an empty seat and plop down into it unceremoniously before digging into my bag for headphones and plunking them in my ear before attaching them to my phone.

I open my voice messages and click play.

“Wren.”

My breath catches. It’s Jack.

I start to fiddle with the button on my coat nervously as I continue to listen. What if something happened to Charlie and Liam was too busy taking care of it to call me? I feel my pulse quicken as I listen more.

“It’s Jack.” There’s a breath and a pause. “I wanted to see if maybe you’d like to grab dinner with me.” Another pause. “I’m walking into school now so I won’t be able to answer until after three if you call back, but I’d love to hear from you.”

That’s it. He ends the call.

The people on the tube with me must think there’s something wrong with me—if they’re paying any attention at all. I’m flushed and breathing quickly, my heart beating at a quicker pace than a hummingbird’s wings. I’m almost sure it can be heard over the rattling of the train.

He wants to get dinner. With me. I think of his cheeky smile and feel my blush spread to the tips of my ears as I look down at my hands in my lap and bite my bottom lip.

I know for sure that by the time I reach work, walking forward out of the elevator, my blush is still noticeable on my cheeks. I feel like everyone can tell I’m giddy. Perhaps they think I’ve taken drugs. Even James, who’s been busy trying to convince Seamus to put something into the copy all day, seems to be looking at me funnily.

Consistently throughout the day, I find myself thinking about Jack. It’s worse than usual. When I run something over to Karl about the new speed cameras on the M5 I jump when I think about how close it is to three.

We’ve had the daily rundown meeting, through which I had a hard time focusing, and I’d been counting down the hours since I’d had a free moment to do so.

“Are you feeling alright?” Jamie asks when I sit down at my desk block. She’s diagonal across from me in the grouping of three, so she’s probably been watching me all day. “You look a bit flushed and you’ve seemed a bit out of it all day.”

“I’m fine,” I assure her. “Just a little distracted, but I’m fine,” I shoot her what I hope to be a reassuring smile and she nods, unconvinced. She returns her focus back to her desktop though and lets the subject drop, for which I’m grateful.

It’s five after three when I glance at the clock and feel my throat dry. What do I even say to him when I do call him? Shit. I’ve been so enamoured all day that I’ve forgotten to work out how to respond.

I know I want to go out with him, but how do I express that?

For a split second, I think about calling Piper and then immediately I shake that thought from my mind as quickly as it came. That would take me telling Piper about seeing him last weekend, would get her all excited for something that would more than likely turn out to be nothing. There was a reason I hadn’t told her in the first place.

No, that’s not something I’m interested in.

So now I’ve got to figure it out all myself. I mean, it’s not like I can ask Liam for advice. He’d probably lock me up in my bedroom if he knew I was thinking about going out on a date.

My older brother, who’s been married and has a child, is petrified by the very idea of my dating.

Find the logic behind that for me and I’ll pay you heartily in Yorkshire puddings. The best food in the world as a reward for a small tidbit of information. That’s a more than fair offer is all I’m saying.

It’s while I’m thinking that I realize I’ve opened my phone and pulled up Jack’s number to call him back. By now it’s almost four. That’s what all my planning has resulted in: no plan and an entire hour passed.

I hit his number and taking a deep breath I hold it and hover my thumb over the call button for a solid minute before releasing the breath and pressing the button.

“Hello,” his voice greets me after two rings.

If I was standing my knees would’ve given out. Such a simple word.

“I’d love to go to dinner with you,” I blurt before I can say anything else. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from rambling because in the brief silence I can feel myself wanting to ramble. Almost like word vomit.

“Is tonight good?” His voice lulls again, thankfully before I can let anything stupid to slip past my own lips.

“I don’t get off until nine,” I say now.

“That’s fine,” he tells me.

“I don’t want to keep you out late,” I continue.

“I don’t mind.”

“I’d be keeping you out late… on a school night!” I gasp for dramatic effect. “What is your mum going to think? She’ll call me a nuisance and a bad influence!”

“It could be argued that you’re both, but typically I don’t listen to what my mum says when it comes to things like this,” his voice has me blushing at my desk. In an open bullpen, at a shared desk, I’m blushing.

Oh god. I’m so embarrassed. On so many levels.

He continues. “I’m fine with however late you feel fit to keep me out. Hell, keep me out all night if you have to.”

I can hear his smirk just through his tone. I know that on his end of the call, as he holds the mobile to his ear, he’s just got a smug little smirk plastered on his face.

I, meanwhile, have a hand covering my eyes as my forehead rests on the desk and I try to make myself as small as possible.

“How about we get together on Saturday instead? I’ve got to watch Charlie for a bit but maybe we can just grab coffees and go to my friend’s gallery?” I ask, my stomach eating itself with my nerves.

“That sounds great,” he says. “I’ll see you Saturday, Wren.” He ends the call before anything else can be said.

There are butterflies and then there are elephants. I’ve got elephants clomping through my stomach, just smashing into each other and toppling and stampeding. It feels like I’m going to be violently sick in anticipation.

And that’s when I realize.

Now I have to tell Piper.

12

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“I bloody don’t know, Wren but something is up with you.” We’re sat on top of unoccupied driers in our local laundromat, The Spin Cycle, watching our clothes spin round and round in the washers opposite us.

Every other Thursday night has been laundry night since uni (minus the few years Piper was up in Liverpool) and even with my schedule change, that’s remained the same.

Piper had seen how drained I was after one of my first therapy sessions and knew that doing coursework would’ve been too much for me. Still, she argued that I needed to feel productive somehow to pick me up and she had piles upon piles of clothes on her floor so that’s what she came up with.

It helped. And the routine was born. The two of us chatting lightly as we wash, fluff, and fold our laundry.

“Honestly, I dunno what you’re talking about,” I shrug now and wring my hands together.

“Well, that’s a lie, innit?” She gives me a prompting look.

“It might be,” I fire back.

“Oh, it might be?” She nudges me a bit with her elbow. “You’re such a cheeky fuck, aren’t you?”

“Fuckin’ right,” I smile back at her.

She shakes her head with a smile but after a minute of silence, she gets back into the inquiry. As a journalist and a news producer, you’d think Piper would be intimidated by my interviewing knowledge. You’d also think that I would be good at interviews and interview tactics, but not when I’m on the opposite side of the coin from normal.

I want to shiver just as she turns back to look at me.

“What is it?” she asks, her voice low, her eyes sincere.

The sincerity gets me. That’s what forces me to answer.

“You remember Charlie’s teacher?” I ask quietly, mumbling, hoping that she didn’t actually hear me, knowing that she did.

“Hot for teacher,” she nods, looking at me earnestly. I can see her trying to figure out just what I’m trying to say, the wheels are turning. Piper’s deductive reasoning is not to be messed with.

“Well,” I shrug, hoping that does it. That that answers her questions. And I know it doesn’t, but there’s a small hope.

“Y’know sometimes,” she gives me a look, “talking to you is like talking to a fuckin’ wall.”

I glare. Then, I sigh. “I saw him on Saturday.”

“You fuckin’ wot?!”

“I went to Simmons after Charlie’s party because I needed a drink and my whiskey stash at home ran out about a month ago,” she nods. She helped me finish it off. “I’d just gotten my drink, had just taken a sip to let the alcohol seep into my blood and I hear my name being called. It’s him and he’s with his sister.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” she asks.

“I didn’t want to get you excited over nothing!” I explain. “All that happened was that we chatted, mostly I chatted with his sister though.”

“So, tell me why you’ve been so jumpy tonight then,” she knows I’m not telling her the whole story.

“He’s the unknown number that called me this morning,” I explain.

“Shit,” she gasps. “What did he want?”

“He just asked if I wanted to go to dinner with him, so when I called him back I told him we could grab coffee and go to your gallery this Saturday,” I say in a rush, in one big breath.

“You did what?” She asks. She’s got wide eyes as she looks me over. “You’re fucking nuts, love! You did all that on your own? The fuck do you need me for now?”

“I’m so goddamn nervous,” I sputter out.

“Oh, love,” she pulls me into her side, wrapping an arm around me. “Listen to me, right? He called you,” she reassures me. “He wants to spend time with you, get to know you. You have no reason whatsoever to be nervous. None at all.”

“But he’s only known me briefly,” I tell her. “Just the one day when I picked up Charlie and then the other day Saturday, but his sister was there to smooth over any awkward bits in the conversation.”

“Who gives a shit about awkward bits?” she spits, angrily. “Life is fucking awkward,” she shakes her head. “Let it be awkward. Embrace the awkward,” she gives me a nudge.

“What the fuck are you on about?” I ask her.

“I’m saying,” she squeezes me, “that nobody gives a shit if you’re awkward. Even if it’s awkward it can still be good,” she shrugs.

“I’ve never had that experience,” I tell her begrudgingly.

“Wren,” she sighs. “Just, he clearly wants to spend time with you, and knowing you, even in your brief time together, you’ve been awkward around him. He doesn’t care. He wants you around, wants to see where it goes.”

I take a deep breath. “That’s bull-“

“Does he make you blush?” she asks, cutting me off. “Does he give you butterflies and make you feel something you’ve not felt before, something not Ed nor Evan made you feel?”

I bite my lower lip and hesitate. He’s intriguing. He does make me blush, does give me butterflies. I don’t know him well enough to answer whether or not he makes me feel something neither of my boyfriends past could make me feel. When he gives me that cheeky smile though or looks at me with those sincere, deep blue eyes… there’s an inkling. Something lingers under the surface that makes me think there could be more.

So I nod.

“That’s your answer then,” Piper lies her head on my shoulder. “You’ve got to embrace the awkward to find out what that feeling with him is, right?”

“Okay,” I acquiesce.

“Fuck, what’s his name again?” she asks.

“Jack,” I smile, his name slipping out from between my lips, the sound like velvet as it crosses my skin.

“There you are,” she pulls back and looks at me, pointing to my face. “Your face, just now when you said his name? You’ve got to see where this takes you,” she smiles. “I have a feeling this is going to be very, very good for you.”

[gravelcruiser]

This story was in the final print issue of Bicycle Times.

Three miles from the end of the road, the rain cloud that we’d been skirting for the last 15 miles finally caught up with us. It opened up as we wove along Carbon River past the ranger station, blasting the sheet of water off the windshield with the wipers set to Mach 1. For the first time in the last 90 minutes, my son was silent in the back seat. At 5-and-a-half, I wondered if he had yet gained the emotional ability to be pensive. Truth be told, the confident front I was putting up to hide the butterflies in my stomach probably wasn’t fooling even him.

Mom is away and the boys are going to play. He and I were headed straight from school on a Friday afternoon to the northwest corner of Mount Rainier National Park for a quick overnight in the backcountry. Though Carbon River Road has been closed to vehicle traffic since it washed out in spots back in 2006, it’s still passable by four-wheel drive, or bike—its five-mile stretch leading to the marvelously appointed, and now remote, Ipsut Creek campground.

It seemed like an easy-enough introduction for him to the wonderful world of bikepacking, and we were both eagerly awaiting sleeping outside for the first time this season. The rain let up a little, and I turn back to him. “We should be there in a minute or two, are you ready?” To which I got an enthusiastic response: “Yeah Dad, I am ready to go bikepacking!”

When we first brought home an Adams Trail-A-Bike, I noticed almost immediately that the hand-me-down had enough random holes in the rear dropouts that I could probably get a rack onto it. A family bike-camping trip was being hatched right there and then. I found a rear rack for a 24-inch bike at our local bike co-op, and have been ready for the adventure ever since. All winter I had been eyeing the waiting rig in the corner of our basement, and when the day finally arrived, I attached my Rock Lobster gravel bike and loaded it down with two full panniers, a bear-proof barrel and a 45-pound kid.

The rain started letting up. Struggling around the gate like an 18-wheeler in a Walmart parking lot, we were on our way into the backcountry with, save for our car, an empty parking lot behind us. We were going to have it all to ourselves.

If there were any moments along the way when I began to get discouraged because I couldn’t ride a soft, rocky, uphill section, my spirit would instantly be lifted by the giggles of my boy. He thought it was hilarious that I was off the bike, grunting and pushing while he got to pedal. He would even clamber off and help push, because, apparently, pushing your bike is a necessary part of bikepacking, and I was giving him the full experience.

It only took about 100 feet for me to start sweating through my rain gear, and another mile to get a little tired. But as soon as I’d start wishing for the campground to be just around the next bend, I’d hear a yell from behind, letting me know that he was shifting into a better gear to help more as if he could tell I was feigning. A flurry of pedaling would ensue from behind, and—like a black-and-gold ’73 T-Top Firebird—my underweighted front tire would lift off the ground. We happily swerved, wheelied and bounced up the river valley, keeping a keen eye out for bears.

I had been watching the weather forecast for the weekend degrade for days, but we had been granted a window and made it to the campground without it raining. Even better, we were able to set up the tent and get most of dinner in before the next set of showers rolled through. We climbed into the tent, and I settled in for trying to contain a little boy after a long car ride and not a whole lot of rumpus time. Expecting this, I came prepared. I got him into dry, warm clothes, and surprised him with a little Lego set he didn’t see coming. It brightened his mood and gave us a light, compact and fun in-tent activity.

As the last blocks clicked together, the rhythmic patter of rain slowly fell silent, and we left the tent to make a short pajama-clad exploration of Carbon River. The sun slowly sank below the ceiling of clouds on some far, unseen horizon, bathing a perpendicular valley in a blaze-orange sunset. A bear could have appeared in the river bottom riding atop a moose juggling live salmon, and we would still have been more surprised by the sunset on this rainy evening deep in the mountains.

The rain really started in earnest at about 1 in the morning. After that, I didn’t sleep much, trying to plan our exit strategy the best I could. I knew the hardest part was going to be getting out of the tent to retrieve the bear barrel, but after that I could cook from the relative shelter of our vestibule.

I awoke the sleeping boy after his oatmeal and hot cocoa were already cooked and cooling. Keep him warm was my mantra. The hot chocolate, a two-prong approach, warmed the belly and put a little extra oomph in his step. After hours of restless worrying, the transition from bag to bike went swimmingly, and we were cruising downhill in no time. It would have been rad to stay and explore the river and trails some more, but it seemed foolish to tempt the rain any further, and we had a violin recital to get to.

Three miles into the five rainy miles back to the car, I was a little apprehensive on what his outlook would be. This could turn him off forever. I try not to push things on him, lest he never want to do them again. The proof was to be in the pudding.

I had taken my hood down so I could hear all the chatter from him as we rode. He had gotten silent again for a bit, and I called back to make sure I wasn’t spraying him. He replied, “No Dad, I just think we made the right decision by camping and not staying home.” An hour later in the car, when asked by his Mom on the phone what his favorite part of the trip was, he enthusiastically responded, “Riding through the rain this morning on the way back to the car!”

This had been an amazing time with my son in the backcountry, our first father-and-son-only camping trip. I will remember it fondly, forever.

[classysandwichcollection-world]

Safavieh Mojavi Gray 4-Piece Wicker Patio Seating Set with Beige Cushions

Find the low prices on Patio Furniture Compare ratings and read reviews on Clothing stores to find best deals plus discount offers At: . There are many deals onPatio Furniture in the Shops online, therefore research before you buy. Whether you are searching for Patio Furniture , Can help you save money along with online discounts and coupons on affordable selections - find a Patio Furniture that is best for you.

Rerate Posts

Patio Furniture

Gazebos

Parks Playsets Playhouses

Outdoor Living Kits

Lawn Mowers

Ultra Play Double Bay Commercial Bipod Swing Set with Tot Seats and Blue Yokes

Dero Swerve Rack 2-Bike Powder-Coat Surface Mount 22 in. Bike Rack

Martha Stewart Living Charlottetown Natural All-Weather Wicker Patio Swivel Rocker Lounge Chair with Quarry Red Cushion

Step2 Step 2 Nat Playful 32 in. x 3.7 ft. x 1.3 ft. Sandbox

RST Brands Astoria 4-Piece Patio Corner Sectional and Conversation Table Set with Charcoal Grey Cushions

Cedar Summit Willowbrook Wooden Playset / Swing Set

Titan Block 81 in. Round Fire Pit Kit in River Rock

RST Brands Cannes 6-Piece All-Weather Wicker Patio Love and Club Seating Set with Sunset Red Cushions

Power Care 8 in. Universal Wheel

Honda HRR (Steel Deck) Lawnmower Front Wheels (1-Pair)

Swing-N-Slide Playsets 1-Person Toddler Coaster Swing

Swing-N-Slide Playsets Monkey Bar Kit

Pleasant Hearth Wilderness 36 in. Steel Fire Ring in Black

Gorilla Playsets Yellow Plastic Safety Handles (2-Set)

Backyard Discovery Oakmont All Cedar Playset

Frame It All Two Inch Series 4 ft. x 4 ft. x 5.5 in. Composite Square Sandbox Kit with Cover

Paris 64 in. Silver Galvanized Traditional Bicycle Rack

GREENLINE Classic 54 Spring 5 ft. x 10 ft. Artificial Synthetic Lawn Turf Grass Carpet for Outdoor Landscape

Greenworks 16 in. 10 Amp 2-in-1 Walk Behind Battery Push Mower

Hampton Bay Mill Valley 4-Piece Woven Patio Sectional Set with Cushion Insert (Slipcovers Sold Separately)

Pavestone SplitRock 38.5 in. W x 17.5 in. H Square Fire Pit Kit in Yukon

Atlantic Contemporary Lifestyle Nice Grey 5-Piece All-Weather Wicker Patio Seating Set with Gray Cushions

Hanover Metropolitan Brown 8-Piece All-Weather Wicker Patio Seating Set with Sahara Sand Cushions

AE Outdoor Beltline 5-Piece All-Weather Wicker Patio Deep Seating Set with Sunbrella Beige Cushions

Classic Accessories Veranda X-Large Deep Loveseat Sofa Cover

Oakland Living Rochester 3-Piece Patio Rocker Set with Oatmeal Cushions

MoJack Push Mower Lift

Classic Accessories Atrium Patio Arm Chair Cover

Lasting Impressions 1-Hump Bike Rack

Pavestone SplitRock 38.5 in. W x 10.5 in. H Square Fire Pit Kit in Charcoal/Tan

Worx 7 in. Landroid Robotic Lawn Mower

John Deere 42 in. Mower Belt for Select John Deere Mowers

Canadian Playhouse Factory 8 ft. x 6 ft. Little Alexandra Cottage with Covered Front Porch

RST Brands Cannes 2-Piece All-Weather Wicker Patio Club Chair Seating Set with Maxim Beige Cushions

Sunjoy Alouette 11.5 ft. x 11.5 ft. Steel Gazebo

PlayStar Monkey Ring Kit

Classic Accessories Ravenna X-Large Rectangular/Oval Patio Table and Chair Set Cover

EZtrak Seat Cover for John Deere Z425 Mowers

Brown Jordan Vineyard Patio Furniture Cover for the Motion Lounge Chair

KidKraft Lil' Doll Table and Chair Set

Hampton Bay Woodbury Patio Accent Table

John Deere Z375R 54 in. 25 HP Dual -Hydrostatic Gas Zero-Turn Riding Mower-California Only

Slackers 12 ft. Slackline Kit with Rack

Keter Corfu Charcoal All-Weather Patio Loveseat with Grey Cushions

Necessories 48 in. Grand Fire Pit Concrete Fire Pit in Santa Fe

StarPro Greens 1 ft. Wide Heavy Duty Seam Tape for Lawn Grass and Putting Turf, Each box contains 20 ft.

Pavestone Rumblestone 73.5 in. x 17.5 in. RumbleStone 90 Degree Planter Kit in Cafe

Pavestone 38.5 in. x 21 in. Rumblestone Square Fire Pit Kit in Cafe

Hanover San Marino 6-Piece All-Weather Wicker Patio Seating Set with Country Cork Cushions

Patio Armor Polyester Patio Loveseat/Bench Cover

Big Splash Waterpark Playset

Gorilla Playsets Chateau Tower Treehouse with Timber Shield Cedar Playset

Gorilla Playsets Malibu Treasure Trove II with Amber Posts Cedar Playset

Hanover Monaco 3-Piece Round Patio Bistro Set with Natural Oat Cushions

Brown Jordan Marquis Patio Furniture Cover for the Lounge Chair

Swing-N-Slide Playsets Grandview Twist Wood Complete Playset

Toro TimeCutter MX5025 50 in. Fab 23 HP Kawasaki V-Twin Gas Zero-Turn Riding Mower with Smart Speed

Pavestone Rumblestone 106 in. x 14 in. RumbleStone Double Tree Ring Kit in Greystone

Ultra Play Green Paws Dog Park Commercial Bench

Duck Covers Essential 74 in. L Patio Chaise Lounge Cover

M&M Sales Enterprises Case IH Treadz Belt Swing

Ultra Play 4 in. Commercial Park Bi-Level Charcoal Grill with Post

Classic Accessories Atrium Rectangular Patio Tableand Chair Set Cover

PlayStar Spiral Tube Slide for 5 ft. Play Deck

Classic Accessories Veranda 66 in. Patio Day Chaise Cover

RST Brands Cannes 9-Piece Patio Corner Sectional and Club Chair Seating Group with Slate Grey Cushions

Hampton Bay Pembrey 4-Piece All-Weather Wicker Patio Conversation Set with Moss Cushions

Pavestone Rumblestone 89.2 in. x 17.5 in. RumbleStone Rectangle Planter Kit in Greystone

Ultra Play 10 ft. Galvanized Commercial Park Double Sided Bike Rack Portable

Ultra Play Early Childhood Rockin' Drums Commercial

Gorilla Playsets Pioneer Peak Treehouse with Fort Add-On and Timber Shield Cedar Playset

Ultra Play Discovery Center Super Sprout without Roof Playground Playset

Paris 68 Gal. Metal Animal Proof Trash Can in Black

Portable 8 ft. Pressure Treated Wood Commercial Park Table

Brown Jordan Vineyard Patio Furniture Cover for the Chaise Lounge

Duck Covers Ultimate 87 in. W Patio Sofa Cover

Ultra Play UPlay Today Boulder Point Commercial Playground Anchor Bolt Kit

Ultra Play Early Childhood Commercial Big Outdoors Playsystem Standard Platform

Gorilla Playsets 8 mm Spring Clips Pair

RST Brands Deco 6-Piece All-Weather Wicker Patio Love and Club Deep Seating Set with Spa Blue Cushions

Toro Striping Kit for 42 in. or 50 in. TimeCutter SS and Z Models

14 ft. x 14 ft. ACACIA Captain Navy Gazebo Replacement Canopy

RST Brands Astoria 6-Piece Love and Club Patio Deep Seating Set with Delano Beige Cushions

Ultra Play 21 ft. 3-Row Tip N' Roll Aluminum Bleacher Frame

Classic Accessories Ravenna Medium Patio Day Chaise Cover

Ultra Play UPlay Today Maddie's Chase (Playful) Commercial Playset with Ground Spike

Toro 2-Cycle 25.4cc Attachment Capable Straight Shaft Gas String Trimmer with Brush Cutter Attachment

Briggs & Stratton Battery Charger

Pure Fun 6 ft. Wavy Kids Slide

Classic Accessories Veranda Medium Square Patio Table Cover

Sunjoy Cantina Brown Patio Conversation Set

ECHO 21 in. 58-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless Lawn Mower with String Trimmer and Blower Combo Kit

Oakland Living Cast Aluminum 3-Piece Patio Deep Seating Set with Sunbrella Cushions

Home Styles Lanai Breeze Deep Brown Woven 2-Piece Patio Accent Chairs and End Table

Mr. Bar-B-Q 72 in. x 15 in. Patio Umbrella Cover

Backyard Discovery Safari All Cedar Playset

Trex Outdoor Furniture Cape Cod Classic White 6-Piece Folding Adirondack Patio Conversation Set

Ultra Play Dual Grate Commercial Park Charcoal Grill with Post

Gorilla Playsets Lemonade Sign

Ultra Play 15 ft. Aluminum Portable Commercial Park Bench with Back Surface Mount