Page 71 of Furious

Unbelievably, she scoots in to knock her head softly against mine. “You’re a Bike Girl™ anyway.”

I lean into Zaynah. Everything is not instantly put right, but we’re family. As long as we’re both willing, we’ll find a way to work it out.

If biking to work at 9:00 a.m. was unpleasant, it’s nothing compared to biking home in the early afternoon through the clinging late July heat. I’m half-standing on the Rockhopper, pedaling hard to get up Magnolia Street, the steepest hill in Dell’s Hollow, I swear, and right on my route, when I hear the rumble of a V-8 slowing behind me, then beside me. Electric blue paint ablaze in the high sun, and a beautiful girl in a bright green jumpsuit leaning out the driver’s window.

“Need a ride?” JoJo asks.

Because I know her, I can see that her grin (which I would’ve called cocky if we’d just met) is glass-fragile, like my heart when I look at her. It would be safer to shake my head and keep us both from shattering.

But I think JoJo Emerson-Boyd is worth being brave.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

JoJo

“Sure.” El grins back at me, her smile slowly unfolding. Her face is red from biking up the hill and her sweat-slick hair clumps on her forehead under a bulky bike helmet, but she’s beautiful.

A pang of relief shoots through me at her reaction, considering the stony silence that’s persisted between us through the last four weeks. And the fight we had the last time we were around each other. And all the other millions of ways she could have just told me to fuck off.

But she said yes. It’s all I can do not to cheer.

Pushing my sunglasses onto my head, I pull over, turn the Hornet off, and nearly leap out as I open the door. El waits a bit farther down the road. She gives me a little wave as I walk toward the back of the car. We don’t talk as we do this weird dance around and toward each other. Hands shaking with nerves, I drop my keys, and fish them out of the roadside gravel. She scuffs her shoe against a mangy dandelion that’s growing along the road. I try to help her wheel her bike, but we end up making the pedals collide with the Hornet’s back bumper. I fumble my keys again as I slip the right one into the trunk’s lock. Both of us lift El’s bike, and the front wheel smashes into the side of my head. Still not talking, we take the front wheel off and cram the bike into the Hornet’s trunk, where it barely fits in, but we manage to wedge it awkwardly by taking off the front wheel.

Then, too fast almost, El is getting into my car, and settling into the seat. She pulls a water bottle from her bag and downs all of it. I slip into my seat, buckling my belt and inhaling.

I’m still not sure why I called out to her. I could’ve driven past, pretended I didn’t see her. Revved the Hornet’s engine and sped away, rather than slowing down. But as soon as I saw El, standing on her bike pedals, pushing hard to make it up the hill, little dots of sweat tracing the shape of her spine down the back of her T-shirt, a rush of feelings went through me. It was longing, loss, and excitement all at once.

But I clearly didn’t really think it through because now El Blum is in my car, and I have no idea what to say to her.

She smells like Putt by the Pond and nachos and sweat and her coconut shampoo. It’s all I can do not to bury my nose in the spot between her neck and her shoulder and just breathe in the scent of her.

I hold myself back, gripping the steering wheel.

“Hi,” she says after what feels like a year. She buckles her seat belt and turns to me.

“Hi,” I echo.

“Nice car.” El pats the dashboard, nodding toward the pictures of Jamie Chadwick and Sara Christian I’ve wedged into a spot near the radio. She bops the little plastic cat hanging from the rearview mirror with her index finger. It swings back and forth between us, its plastic eyes goggling like it can’t believe El Blum is in my car, either.

“Thanks,” I say, pride in my voice. It is a nice car. My favorite car, which El knows of course.

El catches the cat mid-swing and looks over at me. “What I mean of course is, nice car and I can’t believe you’re driving. I got grounded until the end of summer.”

“Which explains the bike,” I surmise. “Instead of the Oatmobile.”

“Exactly.”

More silence stretches between us. I want to ask her all the questions I’ve been wondering about: How much trouble did she get in really beyond the grounding? Did she hear from Max at all after we left Richmond? What did her parents say? Did she miss me even a little bit? I want to fill her in on everything happening with me, but I don’t know where to start. So, I just sit there, breathing in the scent of El and the grassy smell of summertime in North Carolina. A pickup truck races past us, making the Hornet shake.

I’m just about to put the keys in the ignition when El says, “Wait.”

Unzipping the front pocket of her backpack, she pulls something small and dark purple out of it. It’s a tiny car, dangling from a key chain.

“What’s that?” I ask, though I recognize the car instantly.

El smirks at me. “I thought you’d know. It’s a 1969 Dodge Charger on a key chain.”

“That’s Dom Toretto’s car, right?” Of course it is.