A RIDE TO REMEMBER
"Hey, Marina!" Declan called out as he stood at the foot of the steps that led up to her front door. He had his helmet in hand, his motorbike parked at the top of her sloping driveway. "I decided to call in after Mom said you were having a rough time with Stuart again?"
She was startled to be embraced as he greeted her and to feel his lips press a kiss on her cheek before Declan stepped away.
"You could say that but what has
really
made you call in, a busy guy like you? I've been through worse times because of him." She pointed at the garage door control that she held in her hand. "You'd better back up..."
He walked his machine back a few paces and watched as the door jerked into action. He'd already seen that Stuart's Jeep was gone from its usual pace. The door closed with a dull metallic sound.
"We always got along, and I gave myself a day off. So, I thought I'd call in and take you for a spin on my machine, which I see you looking at. Call it a distraction..."
"A terrifying one. You know I don't like those things as they're noisy and dangerous in the wrong hands."
He pointed in the machine's direction.
"It's got a sidecar, and there's a spare helmet stowed in it. Give it a try and forget what's been happening...between you and Stuart. I had thought to bring my usual machine and then remembered what you thought of them."
"It's nothing for you to go getting bothered by Declan."
She gazed at him and was disconcerted by what she felt, after hearing that Declan had thought of her and chosen to call in. She and his mom, Orla Maguire, had been friends for many years and were into all things Boho. What Orla had started as a pastime, designing and making clothes in that style, had been taken on by Declan. The business was now a raging success, hence her surprise that he was taking 'timeout' and to be with her.
His long sandy brown hair was shaggy and worn pirate style, with wooden beads threaded through it, a multitude of leather necklaces hanging over his hairy and muscled chest. The young man was wild but successful in running his business which appealed to women of her age and younger, and men. They all rebelled against what passed for the norms of the day. Baggy maroon cargo trousers belted tight at the waist were worn with a white long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves rolled up and revealing more leather straps, this time on his wrists. Wide-toe box shoes, dark brown and scuffed, didn't look clunky on his large feet. She couldn't help but like the look of him and soon met his look upon her once more.
"I'm not bothered, as you put it, Miranda...I just decided to take some time out and see if you could use some of that too."
She sighed, knowing that she could do with some distraction, and being scared might just be the cure to what she was feeling. Her patience with Stuart was wearing thin and his absences invariably meant that he was into someone else until that too paled and he came back to her. She didn't play those games, tempting as it sometimes was to think of doing so and so to restore some balance.
"I'm not dressed to go out on your machine...and sitting in a sidecar seems even scarier than if I sat behind you."
"Then do that and you can hold onto me if you get scared," he encouraged. Marina would have to hitch up her patchwork, shimmer, mini dress that she wore with floppy tasselled ankle boots, a myriad of necklaces and bracelets jangling whenever she moved, suddenly, and her red hair looked wildly unkempt and swirled. She wouldn't look out of place riding with him and, with a helmet on, no one who saw them would think that it was a scrawny woman riding with him. Marina looked, from the clothes that she now wore as one of the many chicks that he'd ridden with. "Well, what's it to be...ride in the sidecar or sitting behind me?"
She suppressed a sigh.
She wanted distraction and would never have thought of it in the shape and behaviour of Declan, her friend's gifted son. He was not a boy anymore, as she remembered, and wondered what he made of the freckle-faced woman with her rebellious clothes, silver nose ring, and the mass of freckles that adorned her skin and even on her face.
Everything about Declan reminded her of youthfulness and how rebellious she had been since her teens and that she felt again now. Declan's strong embrace as he greeted her had been in stark contrast to Stuart's determination to get away from her.
But this, the suggestion that she should ride with him on that motorbike? He knew how much she hated these things but at least he had thought it through and brought a machine with a sidecar, along with a spare helmet. If his fitted over the rebellious mass of Declan's hair, then it would fit over hers.
She gazed at him as they stood in the warm sunshine, on her driveway, and she tried not to stare at his hairy chest, at the leather necklaces and what was attached to them, at his chest as Declan's linen shirt hung open, the sleeves rolled up his strong, tattooed, arms.
She had to get a grip on herself, she realized. She was wondering about a friend's son; a man who seemed, from the gaze of his eyes, to be thinking of how to persuade her to spend time with him and in the unlikeliest of circumstances.
Declan stepped closer. "Try it, come out with me on the machine, and let's see if I can take your mind off what's been happening."
"Try it?" Marina asked confused as she breathed in the musky aroma of his body spray that, mixed with the unmistakable odour of his body. It all made her head spin. Declan soon retrieved the spare helmet, and she now hesitated on whether to take it from him. To do so would be a tacit agreement that she would do as he had suggested.
"Your girlfriends, whoever they are, may like to ride on it but I'm not so sure."
"If you don't try it, even once, you won't know why others do like it," he said, smiling persuasively.
She had been told by Orla, her friend, that his women had all possessed a striking resemblance to each other when it came to their rebellious red hair, their boho blouses and skirts, some with the same tattoos, and one having been particularly large breasted and who had endured being his lover the longest. Orla had even gone on to say that her adventurous son pursued anyone who took his fancy and, so the story had gone, were some years older than he was. Would she fit the pattern that seemed to be his life where it concerned women?
"Those motorbikes he rides seem to do something to them ...gives his women a particular thrill."
And that bothered her, as she considered what to do. The thought of her clinging to her friend's son from behind sent a pang through her body. She shook her head to clear the thought and she decided that, if she was to go on the road trip, then she would do that seated behind him.
