Page 38 of Devil Inside

“You hungry?” Deak tosses a tot in the air, snapping at it like a trained seal. Of course he misses. The potato hits his chin, rebounds to the ground somewhere.

“I’m good, thanks.” My appetite has been missing for months now.

“More for me.” Deak tries again, this time he gets the tater tot in. Nothing but net.

The air is thick with tempura. Fried oil coagulates the atmosphere. Eat your fill. Sticky Rice is a Richmond institution. Where else can you get your sushi sliced up by tatted itamaes? The sleeves of these guys, I swear, it’s like murals across their bodies.

“So.” Deak clears his throat. “How’s it feel to be back in the land of the living?”

Small talk. Sure, let’s do this. “Just fine, I reckon.”

“How’s PT treating you? Still going, yeah?”

I clock the concerned tone. The doubt. “What, you checking up on me?”

“Somebody’s got to.”

“Still going.”

Deak doesn’t blink. He’s giving me that look that says I’m full of shit.

“Hand to God.” I even hold my hand up, placing my palm on an invisible bible.

“We’re worried about you.”

“Who’swe?”

“Thecrew. Who else?”

I first met Deak at a bike jousting tournament. During the summers, there’s a Ren Faire redux for gearheads. A courier Olympiad that includes all kinds of cockamamie competitions. Relay races. Polo. Traffic cone bowling. We were on the soccer fields overlooking Church Hill, at separate ends of the green, facing off on our bikes like this was all some kind of medieval tournament. We were both on the receiving end of a foam-padded lance, nothing more than a sawed-off broomstick swaddled induct-tape and bubble wrap. I hadn’t met Deak until I pegged him in the chest, knocking him off his bike at about eighteen miles an hour. I dismounted and reached down to help him back up.

Nice hit,he mumbled to me, rubbing his solar plexus.Wanna go another round?

Friends for life ever since.

“I thought I’d lost you.” He sips the head off his beer. “Thought you were gone.”

“I was.”

“Yeah, but—for good. You were dead, Jordan. Do you know how fucking terrifying that was? I was there, in the hospital. You were all hooked up to these wires and...”

Chains.Bike chains strapped to my skin.

“I swear,” Deak keeps going, “you weren’t there. Your body was, but you were gone.”

“Back now.”

“You thinking about riding again?”

“Maybe. One day.”

Never.

“I can fix up your frame. Put on some fresh tires. Fix the gears. Good as new.” Deak has been working on opening his own bike shop. Give gearheads a spot to pull in and repair their bikes on the go. Maybe sell a Schwinn now and then. He’s been pinching those pennies for so long, he’s just about there. I have to admit: I’m proud of him.

“That’s awfully kind of you...”

“But...? I can hear it coming a mile away, man...”