Chapter 16

Bob didn't run after her. She was standing at the elevator doors, fuming, when he caught up with her. He didn't say anything then, or in the elevator, or as they left the hospital. At the bike he stopped and faced her.

"I'm going back to the motel. You can walk or ride. It doesn't matter to me."

"I'm not walking back there!" she snapped.

"Well, the last thing in the world I'd want is for you to get your clitty whizzed against your will!" he snarled.

She got red in the face and looked like she might cry, but didn't. He sat on the bike, side saddle, and waited.

"Can I drive?" she asked, her voice tight.

"Not while you're mad," he said calmly. "You'll get a ticket, and the bike is the only way we have to get home."

"I'm not going to wreck your precious motorcycle!" she said emphatically.

"I know you're not," he said. "Because I won't let you drive it when you're in this kind of mood."

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

"Yes I do!"

"No you don't. Maybe some day you'll get around to that," said Bob. "But right now you don't. You know how I know?"

"How?" she said sullenly.

"Because your mother just told me so. Apparently she and I have no secrets either. So I know you don't hate me."

She folded her arms across her chest. "Well I should!"

"Are you riding or walking?" he asked.

"I don't want to feel good right now!" she pouted.

"Then don't."

"You don't understand," she whined. "It works too good."

"Well," said Bob. "It works too well."

He thought he might have pushed her too far when she tensed up. Then she let out an explosive gust of breath.

"Okay, it works too well."

Bob took a chance. "I'm supposed to remind you to tell Dwarf how brilliant he is."

He got a grim looking smile in response. "You're supposed to remind me about that when I meet him, but thank you for reminding me that you don't get any sex for a month."

"I can live with that," said Bob. "You have the right to be mad about it, but you should be mad at me ... not your father."

She looked confused for a second and then tilted her head, examining him. "I know," she finally said.

"Good. Now, I don't mind sitting here, if that's what you want to do, but if you need some time alone to work through all this anger, I can go do something else."

"I don't want to walk to the motel," she said.

"Then hop on," said Bob. He got up and straddled the bike. He waited until she climbed on behind him before he started it up.

Then he drove straight to the motel.

Once there, he realized that they were caught up in one of the common hazards of traveling, staying in a motel, and having down time. There was nothing to do.

"I'm going to go do some laundry," he said, getting all his dirty clothes into one group. "You want me to do your stuff, too?"

"You're not washing my panties!" she said truculently.

"Okay," he said.

He left her there. It was tempting to see if she was watching him leave, but he recognized that as being self-centered and didn't turn around to look at the room. At the laundromat he found an old Reader's Digest and went through it while he did a pitifully small load. A young woman was there, about Jennifer's age. She tried to strike up a conversation with him, asking about his motorcycle and, for once, he was unhappy that the Babe Bike did its job so well. He evaded the problem by saying that his "old lady" had designed the paint job.

When he got back, Jennifer wasn't there. There was no note, but he didn't worry about it. He took a little nap, and was awakened from it when she came through the door.

"I went for a walk and a guy hit on me!" she said. "Can you believe that?"

He rubbed his eyes. "I told you you were a babe."

"A babe." Her voice seemed to bottle up more emotion than it expressed. "Is that all I am? A babe, to ride on your stupid Babe Bike?"

"Of course not," he said wearily. "I told you the deal. I know it was lame and insensitive and all that crap. But sometimes that's what men are. We're lame sometimes, and insensitive. That's probably why I don't have a girlfriend."

It was quiet for long enough that he was thinking about going back to sleep. He laid his arm over his eyes and then she chose to speak.

"Bob?"

"Hmmm?"

"How do you feel about me?"

"Right now?" He lifted his arm. "Right now you're verging on possibly having the potential of being almost a pain in the ass."

She didn't laugh, or even smile.

"You know what I mean," she said.

He got serious.

"Sweety, I really think this is the wrong time to have this conversation. You're pissed off, and anything I say is likely to get all turned around in your head and piss you off even more."

"No it won't," she said.

"Yes it will, Jen. Right now you want to be mad at me. I understand that. I even think you have a right to be ticked off at me. But the time to talk about ... us ... isn't when you're pissed off."

"I'm not pissed off anymore," she said.

He lifted his head. She'd sat down in a chair, and had one leg crossed over the other in that way that only women and gay men seem to be capable of. Her leg wasn't bouncing and she looked calm, if a little tense. He sat up, stood, and walked around to the side of the bed. He sat and faced her.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"Do you love me?"

"Yes," he said, with no hesitation.

"What does that mean?"

"Mean?" He looked less sure of himself. Lots of things flickered through his mind, but, like most men, he wasn't used to examining those things too closely, or discussing them. "I'm not sure I can explain it," he said. He expected her to be unhappy, but she wasn't.

"Try," was all she said.

"Well," he said weakly. "You're smart ... and pretty ... and you make me laugh sometimes. You're ... I don't know ... you're Jennifer, and I just love you."

Jennifer rolled her eyes once, looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

"When we're done here, and you take me home, where are you going to go after that?" she asked.

He blinked. "Back to Atlanta, of course," he said, sounding confused.

"And how do you feel about that?"

"It's where I live," he said helplessly. "My shop is there. Where else would I go?"

"I'm not going to Atlanta with you," she said firmly.

He blinked again. "Well of course not," he said, feeling like he had just stepped onto ground that was likely to be mined.

"So that's fine," she said, her voice flat. "You never see me again, and it's no big deal."

"Stop right there," he said. "That is exactly what I was talking about when I said this was the wrong time to do this. I never said anything about never seeing you again. It's absurd to even think that I'd never see you again. You're twisting things all around, and all that's going to do is piss you off."

She took a deep breath and seemed to be going through an almost physical struggle. Then she let it out. He almost thought he heard her counting.

"How are you going to feel when you ride away from our house, knowing that I'm staying there and you're going back to your shop to work on motorcycles, and that you won't see me again for maybe months?"

Bob, being a visual person, closed his eyes and imagined the scenario she had just described. He saw himself driving away and almost turned his head, right there in the motel room, to look back at what he was leaving. His eyes popped open.

"Terrible," he said softly.

"Why?" she asked, leaning forward.

"What do you mean why?" he asked, his voice rising. "Because I'm leaving!"

"And you're going to miss all the sex," she suggested.

He drew in a deep breath and almost laughed. What she'd said was so absurd it was laughable.

"Of course not," he snorted. "I can get all the sex I want pretty much any time."

It was already out of his mouth when he realized how completely idiotic and insensitive his words had been. He expected her to scream at him. She leaned back in the chair and he felt like he'd struck her with his words. Her face didn't take on a look of anger, though. He was astonished to see that she appeared to be actually thinking about what he'd said.

"Yes ... the Babe Bike," she said softly.

He defended himself instantly. "I told you that wasn't about you. You weren't supposed to ever ride it. It may have been stupid and juvenile and all that, but I never meant to hurt you or anybody with it."

"That's what I mean!" she said more forcefully than she'd been speaking. "Why wasn't I ever supposed to ride on the Babe Bike? What's wrong with me? Why am I different?"

The change of wind caught him off guard and he felt like the boom of a mast had just whipped around and knocked him silly.

"You're Jennifer," he said helplessly.

"So I'm Don's baby girl," she said flatly. "I'm the little stuttering girl you had to feel sorry for all these years. I'm not really a woman ... I'm just your adopted niece who you have to be nice to."

"You're twisting things again," he moaned. "I knew this was a bad idea!"

"Did you ever wish you could see me naked before you brought me on this trip?" she asked.

Bob had plenty of experience using SCUBA gear to negotiate treacherous underwater currents. He knew the tricks of the trade to keep those currents from taking him out to sea and killing him. But the currents he was caught in now were something he'd never even thought about trying to fight his way through. He was reduced to simply stroking, in whatever direction he could, with whatever energy he had

"Yes," he said. "Okay, I'm not proud of it, but you've always been cute and sexy since you got into your teenage years, and there were lots of times I wished your swimsuit would fall off, or that I'd blunder into the shower while you were there, or something like that. But that doesn't mean I wanted to get you on the Babe Bike."

"Are you sorry you did get me on the Babe Bike?" she asked, her voice intense. "Are you sorry we had sex?"