THE RIDE

She was waiting at the edge of the forest road when she heard him before she saw him.

The Ducati announced itself the way pretty things often do — sharp, insistent, certain of its welcome.

He pulled up beside her and looked at the Harley.

The Harley was not small. It was not subtle. It took up space with the stubborn confidence of something that had never once asked anyone's approval, not for its weight (enormous) or for its breaking capacity (suggestive, at best). I think that’s what I liked most about it. It was a rolling stone. 

He looked at it for a long moment.

"Hm," he said.

"Ready?" she said.

"You pick the way," he said. "I'm terrible with directions."

"So am I," she said.

He shrugged, which she was already learning meant your problem then.

She filed that away, reluctantly adding the first stone to what had been a weightless connection.

She led because someone had to.

The forest road opened ahead, light breaking through the canopy in long uneven shafts, the air sharp with eucalyptus and something older underneath — resin, dark soil, the particular green smell of trees that had been standing long enough to have opinions.

She was careful at first. Polite speeds. Considerate lines. Two people on best behaviour, which is its own kind of performance.

Then she took the wrong turn along the lake.

She knew it immediately — the road narrowing to something that wasn't quite a road, the water appearing on the wrong side — and there was nothing to do but own it.

She stopped.

Looked at the Harley.

The Harley looked back at her with the patient resignation of a large mechanical animal that has been here before.

The turning circle on a Harley is approximately the size of Saturn. This is not metaphor. This is engineering fact that becomes deeply personal at low speed on a narrow road with someone watching.

She put pressure on the back break, rolled on slightly, feathered the clutch. Leaned in, committed. Hauled the bars around, the bike complaining in a low dignified way, one foot skating along the gravel, jaw set, not looking at him, absolutely not looking at him.

She came through it.

She glanced in the mirror once.

He hadn't moved. Just sat astride the Ducati watching her with an expression she couldn't read from here and would spend longer than was sensible trying to.

She opened the throttle.

The Harley answered immediately, that low pattering thunder she felt in her bones more than heard, and the forest road blurred green on either side and the lake flashed silver through the trees and she stopped thinking about the u-turn and the wrong turn and him watching and just rode.

She checked the mirror.

He was there.

Not politely there. Urgently there. The Ducati tucked in close, quick and precise, his whole body suddenly awake in a way it hadn't been in the car park — the easy performance gone, something genuine and slightly challenging in its place.

“Holy shit”, she thought on his behalf. “She can actually ride.”

She pushed harder.

He pushed back.

The road climbed toward the lookout and she took it fast, pushing into the bends with weight on the pegs, the Harley broad and powerful, the Ducati flirting through its own lines alongside — different machines, different riders, both of them entirely themselves and neither of them pretending.

At the lookout she pulled in and cut the engine.

He pulled up beside her.

They sat for a moment without speaking.

He took his helmet off.

"The u-turn," he said.

"Was fine," she said.

"You prayed through the u-turn."

"I negotiated,” she clarified. "It worked.”

That laugh. Sudden, unguarded, the real one that arrived before he could decide whether to allow it.

She felt it move through her chest the way the resonance did — warm and certain and not entirely safe.

Below them the estuary spread wide and silver toward the sea. She looked at it for a moment, that slow dark water moving toward something it couldn't stop moving toward, and felt the echo of it in herself without knowing why.

Then she put her helmet back on.

He glanced at her.

She kicked the Harley to life.

The ride home was pure exhilaration — both of them unleashed now, the politeness burned off on the lakes road, nothing left but speed and forest and the particular magic of two people flying through the same air and keeping perfect pace.

A delinquent angel and a free spirit.

She didn't think about the way he'd shrugged and said your problem then.

She didn't think about anything.

That was, she would understand later, precisely the point.

She pulled into the drive and cut the engine. He pulled up on the street.

They sat a moment, helmets still on, engines ticking.

He took his helmet off. Looked at her with something new in his expression — a recalibration, quiet and complete.

Brix appeared from the undergrowth, assessed the Ducati, transferred his attention to the visitor. Some negotiation occurred. Brix rushed off.

"Same time next weekend?" she asked.

He laughed, helmeted up, kicked the Ducati to life and was gone.

Inside, Wilder hit the flyscreen at a run with a biscuit grievance of elaborate proportions.

She caught him, swung him up, pressed her face into his neck.

He squirmed, giggling, already forgetting the injustices of cookie capitalism.

The house settled around her.

She was still smiling.

She would remember that later. The smiling. The way the afternoon had felt like something beginning rather than something already in motion toward its end.