Page 50 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“We’d break you out,” he said, a small smile working its way through the scowl.

“My hero.” This time, when I leaned in to kiss him, he turned, making it into a proper kiss. He wrapped his arms around my waist, joining his hands at the small of my back, and so I slid my own hands around to loop around his neck, keeping myself stable.

He kissed hard and hot and like he was afraid this might be the last time he got the chance. I responded in kind, and for a few seconds—not nearly long enough—everything else ceased to carry any real importance. We were together. We were going to figure out a way through this.

Someone cleared their throat behind us.

“Sorry to interrupt, but if we want a chance of beating my father to the house, we should go,” said James.

I leaned back, hands still linked behind Sam’s neck, and twisted to look toward James. He was standing in the doorway, cheeks flaming red, looking like he wasn’t sure which of us he was allowed to be focusing on. Finally, he met my eyes.

“You’re really going to roller skate all the way to my house?” he asked.

“I don’t drive, and even if I did, we only have the one car; this is better.” I let go of Sam’s neck. He reluctantly took his hands from my waist. “Do I look respectable enough?”

Cylia had packed my injured shoulder with gauze and topical painkillers, creating a bulky distortion in my silhouette. I was compensating with a heavy cardigan that put an unfortunate amount of pressure on the wound, but also concealed it completely, and would hopefully slow any further crossbow bolts enough to give me time to react. Wool isn’t the best armor out there. It still has Old Navy polar fleece beat, hands down. My jeans were dark and crisp and new enough to be respectable, while also being unlikely to show any bloodstains that happened to arise from the day’s work. Really, the most disreputable thing about me was my bag, a battered leather thing Cylia had found for me in a thrift store in Oklahoma.

“You look fine,” admitted James, after an overly-long pause for consideration. “My father will definitely believe you’re my type.”

“Nerd?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go with that.”

I smirked. Even while pretend dating, James was doing his level best to act like my breasts didn’t come into the room ahead of the rest of me. I respected that. It’s impolite to stab your allies.

His bike was propped against the porch. I stepped down to ground level, using my toe stops liberally to keep myself from rolling, and started stomp-skating along the gravel driveway. Each step jarred the hole in my shoulder, making me question my life choices and the efficacy of the painkillers in my system at the same time. I knew I couldn’t take anything stronger if I wanted to be any use for the rest of the day, but oh, how I longed for a numbing agent free of all side effects.

James walked down the driveway to join me, holding his bike by the handlebars, a twisted smile on his face. “I’m starting to feel like the lead in a teen detective story,” he said.

“Neither of us has been a teen for a while,” I noted.

“Yes, but if we were in a movie about adults, we’d have a car. And we’re in our mid-twenties, which is basically the same as being sixteen in Hollywood years.”

The gravel twisted beneath my wheels as I trudged along and considered his depressing pronouncement. “I have way too much sex to be in a teen movie.”

“CW show, then.”

“And what, we’d be a modern-day Buffy spin-off? No, thanks. If someone popped up and told me they were the chosen one, destined to save the world from darkness, I’d ask them very nicely to get away from me, in case it was catching.”

James laughed. We came around the final curve in the driveway, and there, blessedly, was the street in all its poorly-maintained glory. Sure, it was a typical Maine country road, meaning there were potholes as big as my torso every few hundred feet, but it was a hell of a lot better than gravel. Whooping, I skated on, feeling the tension drop from my shoulders as my wheels met pavement.

Allowing myself a few seconds of peace, I skated a wide circle, feeling the muscles in my thighs tense and relax in the familiar dance of derby. James slung his leg over his bike and pedaled after me, catching up in short order.

“You’re pretty good on those things,” he said. “Think you can keep up?”

I didn’t have any protective gear, not even a helmet, which meant he could see my grin in all its feral glory. “Try me,” I suggested.

He did.

The average human, on the average, nonracing bicycle, can sustain a speed of twelve to fifteen miles an hour if not pedaling hard enough to be a danger to themselves and others. The average human, on the average, properly-fitted roller skates, can sustain something similar. James was someone who rode his bike for convenience and speed, not necessarily as part of an actual exercise program. Whereas I was someone who rode my skates for the sole purpose of being faster than everyone around me. I wasn’t passing blockers or scoring points, and I didn’t get too far ahead of him, since he was the one who knew where we were supposed to be going, but speed? Oh, I had speed on my side.

After his initial surprise at how fast I could move had faded, James laughed and settled into coasting alongside me. When cars approached, I moved behind him, trusting him to understand the flow of local traffic better than I did. When the road was open, which was more often than not, we rode as a pair.

My shoulder ached, but skating works a different set of muscles, and it wasn’t like I was actually playing roller derby, for all that if I let my eyelids drift to half-mast I could hear the rattle of wheels on the track and the distant cheering of the crowd. I missed my teammates more than I would ever have thought possible before this little adventure, and I couldn’t wait for the day when it was safe for me to go back to them. They’d give me hell for my long unannounced absence, but I was confident there was some loophole somewhere in the rules that would let me start skating again, once they saw I was sincere. There’s always a loophole. If you look long and hard enough, there’s always a loophole.

The road, which had been briefly almost decent, became more pitted and cracked as we swung back into rural territory, having traveled less than two miles overall. We turned up a driveway as long and winding as the one back at the rental house, although this one was paved and better tended than the road. No gravel here.

No smile on James’ face, either. The levity he’d displayed during our ride disappeared, replaced by a look of grim determination. He didn’t look like a man marching toward his own death, quite: more like someone heading for a dinner where they knew the menu wouldn’t include anything they could eat.