Free Love Me Broken by Lily Jenkins Page A

want to say hello to Watson?”
    She looks up at the ceiling, as if seeing through the floor. “I’ve got an appointment to catch first. I’ll see him when I pick up.”
    Levi smiles. “No problem. See you in an hour?”
    “If I don’t fall over dead on the way,” she says. Then she turns to me again and gives me a wink. “See you later, new boy.”
    She waltzes out the garage door and turns to the street. When she gets to the sidewalk, she flips her scarf around her shoulder, then marches on with her body erect.
    I’m still trying to recover as Levi has me check her bike into the computer. “Who
was
she?” I ask.
    “Eliza Burnside, an Astoria institution. She’s pretty cool, for an old lady.”
    I take this in, and then look over the register to her bike and sidecar. “She’s left her dog.”
    Levi nods. “Uh-huh. I watch the General for her while she does her errands.”
    “She named her dog the General?” I ask, laughing.
    “General Burnside,” Levi corrects. “They’re inseparable, except the General doesn’t really get along with other people. He’ll bark and jump on them, and she just laughs. People complained, threatened to put him down, so now when she goes on errands she leaves him here.”
    I look again at the dog. He looks back at me, and I imagine the huge creature jumping on strangers in the street, stopping traffic and barking at frightened schoolchildren. “Is he dangerous?” I ask.
    Levi shakes his head. “Not unless he thinks you’re a threat to Eliza.”
    We finish with the register and start working on her bike. The first step is for Levi to lure the General out of his sidecar with a few pieces of beef jerky, which I learn are kept under the counter for that exact purpose. He ties up the dog in the corner of the room and sets out a bowl of water before we go back to the bike.
    “It’s a beast,” I say, looking at the bike. “How long has she had it?”
    “Her husband’s,” Levi says. “He died years ago. Apparently, she learned to ride as a way to commemorate him, and then just sort of fell in love with it.”
    Levi looks briefly at the bike, and I notice the old-fashioned speedometer and the siding buffed with decades of use. Then Levi starts to inspect the inside.
    He’s in the middle of showing me the differences between her bike and a modern one when he stops. He doesn’t just stop—he freezes with the strangest look on his face. His eyes are wide, and he looks like he’s seen a ghost. I am about to ask what’s wrong when I hear a small cough from the open garage door behind me.
    I turn, and there is this girl, a redhead. She’s wearing a tight green shirt and even tighter jeans that show off her figure. She’s standing with a shy smile, and she holds a basket of muffins. She looks like a pin-up model, and I wonder if I’m dreaming.
    Then I realize: it’s Erica.
    I’m stunned. She looks quite different when she’s not in her pajamas. She looks...
    I want her right there.

 

    From the looks on their faces, you’d think I just walked into the boys’ locker room. Adam is there, wearing light blue workpants and a tight-fitting gray shirt with short sleeves. His bicep tenses as he pushes himself up, trying to recover from my surprise appearance. Next to him is a scraggly-looking guy with bad hair and more tattoos than I can count. He looks like he might have just gotten out of prison. I plaster a smile on my face, balancing my basket and the canvas bag I have looped around one arm.
    I walk up until I’m facing Adam. His eyes—I forgot how startlingly crisp they are. His dark eyebrows only intensify his gaze, and my smile falters for just a moment. Then I refocus and smile pleasantly up at him. “I brought you a thank-you gift,” I say, trying to be casual. “For helping me with my cat the other day.”
    He looks at me with such intensity, as if he wants to shout at me or embrace me, I can’t tell which.
    His friend is a different story.