Free Sidecar by Amy Lane Page B

stalking from one end of the yard to the other, his hands in the pockets of his lined leather jacket, his booted feet crunching in the one or two inches of snow that had hit the ground the night before. He heard the puttering whine of a motorcycle with a small engine and a light frame about three minutes before the shitty-looking UJM with the peeling electric-teal paint job on the tank pulled up. Casey was on the back, and because there wasn’t a bitch seat, he was scooted forward so far his crotch must have been rubbing the other kid’s ass for the entire ride. His head was as bare as a baby’s ass, and he was shivering in the hooded sweatshirt he’d worn to school that morning.
    The kid on the front was in full regalia: a helmet with a windscreen, leather jacket, leather riding gloves, and a scarf. Joe’s jaw tightened. Casey got off the back of the bike, blowing on his hands and looking apologetically at Joe.
    “I’m sorry,” he chattered as he took a few awkward steps forward. “The truck wouldn’t start. I tried getting it jumped and everything, and I d-d-d-idn’t figure out what it was.”
    Joe closed his eyes and swore. Okay. That was forgivable. Then he opened his eyes and narrowed them on the kid with the helmet.
    “Take your helmet off,” he snarled, and the kid did. Joe didn’t like him any better without it. He had a narrow face, with acne (it was the age—Clearasil wasn’t helping Casey none either), but he sported about six hairs on his chin and five on his upper lip and was trying to pass them off as a goatee. His eyes were nice—blue-green, lined with dark lashes—but Joe was not going to be pacified by the thought that Casey’s hormones allowed him to overcome his common sense.
    Joe glared at the boy long enough to make him uncomfortable.
    “Casey, I thought you said you didn’t live with your dad?”
    “C’mere,” Joe snapped. The kid did, taking a few tentative steps in. Joe gave him a quick open-palmed smack on the side of the head.
    “Hey!”
    “That hurt?”
    The kid just gaped at him, and Casey was screaming “ Joe! ” behind them.
    “Did that hurt?”
    “Yes!”
    “What do you think a crash would feel like?”
    The kid’s mouth opened and closed, Casey shut up abruptly, and Joe nodded. “’Kay, I’ll give you points. You were trying to do a good deed. Good for you. Points for good intentions. Do you see his head? Nice shape, right?”
    The kid nodded, those pretty eyes wide and apprehensive, and his gaze raked Casey over. He stopped for a moment to make soft eye contact with Casey himself, who smiled encouragingly. Wonderful. “Yeah, I guess,” he stammered.
    “Glad you think so. Now I’ve ridden a bike in that canyon for a year, and I’ve flipped it twice, and I’ve been riding for fifteen years. What do you think would happen to that pretty melon you like so much if you flipped your fuckin’ bike?”
    To his credit, the kid let his jaw drop in fear, and he closed his mouth and swallowed. “Wouldn’t be good,” he muttered.
    Joe nodded. “Yeah. Wouldn’t be good. I’ve seen firsthand how it wouldn’t be good.” He shuddered, trying not to replay a slide show of the worst moments from his ER and ICU rotations. “Next time you have a friend on your bike, you either carry an extra or you go without, you hear me? That’s the right thing to do.”
    The kid nodded, his cheeks going paler in the cold and those expressive eyes welling up and shiny under the full moon.
    Joe sighed. “Go inside. There’s coffee made if you want. You can warm up before you go home.”
    “Thanks,” the kid whispered. He took some stiff-legged steps to the house, apparently planning to take Joe up on the offer, and Joe turned to Casey, who was looking embarrassed and still cold in the silver dark.
    “Sorry, Joe,” he muttered, not looking Joe in the eyes.
    Joe took a few steps in and put an arm over his shoulders, as much to warm him up as to steer him inside. “Jesus