Deviants

Chapter 16

"So have I," I assure her. She bites her lip as if she is trying to hide her smile, but she doesn't succeed. It just makes her more admirable.

When we finish our drinks, I lead her outside to the motorcycle. When I'm hit with chilly night air and as I glance over at Kate in her dress, I realize how stupid I am for not borrowing Clint's vehicle. She'll freeze.

"I'm sorry," I say, "but all I have is my motorcycle."

"Oh, that's okay," Kate says quickly. "I've always wanted to ride on it." I can't help but smile at her small blush.

"Well," I say as I step around her and open the small compartment on the back. "I do have this." I say and remove a green and blue wool blanket. "It was my dad's. It's a hundred percent wool so it'll block the cold really well. It can get pretty cold on Vincent." Kate suddenly giggles and my face goes warm. How stupid did I just sound calling my motorcycle by a name?

"Vincent?" Kate asks, smiling.

"It's what my dad used to call it," I explain quickly. "It's a Vincent Black Shadow nineteen-fifty-four and he treated it like his third child." Kate chuckles.

"I see," she says, before seating on the back seat. She arranges her dress the best she can before covering herself in the blanket. I hand her the spare helmet before getting on myself.

As I place the key in the ignition I can feel her hands grip my jacket by my ribs but then she moves them and pinches my jacket near my shoulders as if she's afraid of being too forward by actually grabbing hold of me. That's what Amee did when she first insisted on me giving her a ride.

I get too enthusiastic when I press on the gas and I get a nice, jerked start, causing Kate to gasp and her arms quickly wrap around my waist. My heart pounds when I notice how tightly she's pressed against me. Amee had wrapped her arms around me too, at first, until she got the hang of it and then she moved them back to my shoulders. But unlike Amee, Kate keeps her arms wrapped around me. Maybe it was a Shad thing to do, causing Vincent to jerk like that; but I don't feel too guilty. After all, she's the one keeping her arms wrapped around me.

I take her to dinner at a small Italian place that I remember her commenting that it was one of her favorite places but too expensive to go to on a regular basis. We only make small talk about our classes while we wait for our meals and the rest of the time is passed in awkward silence as we eat our food. We each try to make conversation but it's so small that it dies away as soon as the other makes a reply. Why is it so hard to speak to each other and hold a conversation? In never seemed this awkward when we were in study groups, or when I walked her to her dorm room the other night. What did we talk about then? For the life of my I can't remember. Not now at least.

After dinner we walk out of the restaurant and head towards Vincent.

"Do you like bowling?" I ask.

"I'm not as good as Amee, but I like to play," she says. I hand her the wool blanket and helmet and drive to the bowling alley, but a foreboding feeling sinks in my stomach in when we approach it and the whole building is dark and the parking lot empty.

"What the hell?" I mutter as we both get off Vincent. Kate gasps.

"Oh, that's right. I heard that they were redoing the place and that it'll be closed for the week." An immense sense of disappointment sets itself within me.

"This isn't how I planned this night," I admit. "I thought at dinner that bowling would at least help us relax and break the ice. What do people talk about on dates anyways?" I say and she laughs.

"Beats me." She steps backwards and looks up at the starry night. "It is a beautiful night though." She smiles at me, almost slyly. My heart beats hard against my chest as I glance at her luscious pink lips. "Did you plan this?" She asks, pointing to the stars that are peculiarly bright, considering how much rain we've been having.