The Motorcycle

[LionHeart]

The Motorcycle



Heather pushed open the gate to her house and started up the walk to the door. After a few steps she noticed a dark blue motorcycle sitting in her gravel driveway, basking in the bright spring sunlight as if it belonged there all along. Heather frowned at it, wondering what person had come with it. None of her relatives or friends had a motorcycle, and with the possible exception of her mother, if they did it certainly wouldn’t be one like that. It fairly screamed irresponsibility and recklessness. Heather shot the motorcycle one last look of displeasure then went into the house and straight to the drawing room. Sitting on the couch trying to look as innocent as possible was Jamie, a girl that rented one of the upstairs bedrooms and doubled as Heather’s assistant. Heather walked over and stood in front of Jamie, putting a finger on the book she was reading and pushing it down, her blue eyes boring into Jamie’s.
“Jamie, who does that motorcycle belong to?”
Jamie smiled rather sheepishly up at Heather, no longer attempting to be innocent. “The new tenant.” She said tentatively. “For the other room upstairs…”
“Aha.” Heather replied, her arms now crossed as she looked down at Jamie with a raised eyebrow. “And just what do you know about this tenant? I told you not to sign on anyone without talking to me first!”
“He seems like a perfectly decent fellow.” Jamie replied with a shrug. “He says he’s a mechanic in the city.”
“Does he have a name?” Heather asked, still not convinced of the uprightness of the tenant’s character.
“Michael Hughes, ma’am.” A voice behind her said. Heather turned around and saw Michael standing at the door of the drawing room and fulfilling every expectation she had about him. Michael was tall, about six feet, and had ruffled blonde hair and bright green eyes and a lean muscular build that implied he had probably played some sort of sport when he was in school. However, he also had a short scruffy beard, three earrings in his left ear, one more in his right ear, and another piercing his right eyebrow. To top it off he was wearing faded jeans, a faded blue grey shirt that she suspected had not been washed in a week and a black leather jacket, as well as black boots to finish off the ensemble. That, coupled with the motorcycle sitting in the driveway, created an impression of Michael that Heather did not approve of in the least. But like Jamie said he did seem like a rather decent fellow, but that could all be acting for all she knew.
“Jamie would you give me a moment with Mr. Hughes please?”
Jamie quickly jumped up and left the room, not wanting to get in between Heather and anyone she was displeased with. Michael for his part just shoved his hands in his pockets and waited for Heather’s inevitable tirade.
“Mr. Hughes, this is a respectable house, and I expect all of my boarders to be the same, do you understand?”
Michael rolled his eyes, irritating Heather further as she continued. “That means that you need to acquire some hygiene, the sooner the better, and that includes shaving. Also your shoes are to be taken off when you enter the house and left at the door, I don’t need you tracking dirt into the carpet.”
Michael looked down at his shoes, apparently looking for the dirt she was complaining about.
“And your jacket will be left on one of the hooks by the door as well. I require manners as well as hygiene Mr. Hughes; this is not a Cheapside tavern!”
Michael rolled his eyes again, irritating Heather even more. “Whatever you say, whatever your name is.”
“Heather Williams!” Heather snapped at him, finally losing what little patience she had to begin with. “And you will address me as Ms. Williams, do you understand?”
Michael shrugged. “As it pleases you.”
With that he bent down and took of his boots and dropped them in Heather’s hands, draping his jacket on top of that. Then he turned and left, stomping up the stairs to his room. Heather threw his boots and jacket to the floor and clenched her fists, trying desperately not to scream with indignation. She stomped to the kitchen and dropped into a chair, steaming. If it weren’t for the fact that she had been trying to rent that room for a month and she so desperately needed the money, she would have thrown Michael out in an instant. But her bills demanded that she put up with him. The house had been left to her by her parents, Becca and David Williams, when they had moved from London back to Cape Town, South Africa, and it was the only source of income she had. She had inherited a lot of her mother’s fiery temper too, but enough of her father’s kindness was in her to keep her from rampaging up the stairs and throttling Michael.

The next morning Michael walked cautiously down the stairs and peeked around the open kitchen door, trying to see if his aggravated landlady was up yet. When his reconnaissance revealed no trace of the dark haired woman he breathed a sigh of relief and set about finding himself some breakfast. Most of his apprehension was due to the fact that he was still wearing the same shirt as yesterday along with his pajama pants and he suspected that she would disapprove of his choice of wardrobe, which she would. When he finished his breakfast he cleaned his dishes, not wanting to incur the wrath of the terrible Heather, and went back upstairs to shower, looking carefully down the hall at Heather’s bedroom door to make sure she did not see him before he had managed to shower and change. Once he had showered he spent another half hour shaving and making his hair presentable, gelling it and spiking it into something less messy. After some indecision he also decided to rid himself of the eyebrow ring as well, deciding that would probably help too. As for the others no amount of coercion from her was going to make him get rid of them. He had his limits.

After making himself presentable he put on some clean and much less faded jeans and was about to put on his shirt when he realized it was his dirty one that he had been wearing for the past three days. Grumbling he left the bathroom, the shirt in hand, to retrieve a clean one from his room. On the way there he accidentally bumped into something. Looking up from his shirt he noticed it was Heather. Quickly he held up the shirt in defense, explaining rapidly that he was just on his way to get a clean one. Heather just raised her eyebrows in surprise and watched him edge away to his room, remarkably saying nothing about the tattoo of a Chinese dragon wrapped around his right bicep, or , thankfully, the angel’s wings tattooed across his back. It was just as well. He couldn’t have gotten rid of those if he wanted to.

After a couple of weeks of Michael’s arrival he and Heather had settled into a sort of truce. This merely meant that they had stopped throwing things at each other. Other than that their relationship had no more warmth to it than a tub of ice cream. Jamie stayed out of it entirely. She could tell that getting in the middle of the two of them would not improve things, but quite possibly make them worse. All it would take was one missthrown potato hitting her in the head and they’d be at each other’s throats, blaming the other for throwing it, for moving so as to leave poor Jamie open for injury, blaming the other person for injuring Jamie, etc. So she stayed well away from the two of them when by some unfortunate incident they were in the same room together.
One morning Michael was sitting in the drawing room reading his newspaper with his feet up on the coffee table when Heather came in with her own newspaper (they would never share one) and smacked his feet off the table as the went by. She settled into a chair on the opposite side of the room from him and held up her newspaper so that she would not have to see him, much as he was doing the same with his own paper. They spent a the better part of an hour like that, not saying a word to each other until Michael finally got up and folding his newspaper up dropped it on the coffee table and went to the door to go to work. He pulled on his boots and jacket and as he picked up his helmet he opened the door and called over his shoulder to Jamie that he was leaving. Heather peered over the top of her paper at him as he opened the door and left. The sunlight caught the blonde of his hair and was making it shine in an awfully attractive way… Heather shook her head and frowning returned to her paper, except now it was infuriatingly hard to concentrate on it. The same image of Michael kept popping into her head and distracting her and making it difficult to remember all the things she hated about him.

“Jamie, could I borrow your car for today? I need to do some shopping in the city.”
Heather yelled over her shoulder as she hopped on one foot for a minute as she pulled the other one on and did up the laces.
“No, I need it today. Just ask Michael to drop you off on his way to work.” Jamie called from the kitchen.
Michael, who had just reached the entryway and was pulling his jacket off the hook by the door, suddenly looked as if Jamie had told him to swallow an entire bottle of cod liver oil. Heather did not look much different.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep, sorry.” Jamie replied. “When will you be done emptying your purse of all its currency?”
“Not until late.” Heather answered. “I’ll just grab a cab back.” She grumbled at Michael.
Michael sighed in resignation and went upstairs to grab his extra helmet, shoving it in Heather’s hands and stomping out the door. He swung a leg over his motorcycle and revved it into life as Heather climbed up behind him and put on the helmet. She found some handholds on the side of her seat and held onto those, determined not to put her hands anywhere near Michael’s waist. Michael was perfectly content with that and after tightening the strap on his own helmet they sped off down the road. When they got into the city the early morning rush hour had hit and Michael’s attention was completely on making sure they didn’t get run over by a passing cab or something much larger. As they turned a corner a cab cut in front of him, forcing him to swerve to avoid hitting it and leaning over so far on his bike that his knee nearly touched the ground as he took the corner. In an instant Heather’s arms were around his waist and holding on for dear life as he went around the corner and brought the motorcycle back up again and negotiated out of the worst of the traffic. He pulled up at the store she had wanted to go to and she quickly took her hands off his waist and jumped off the bike and went to do her shopping. Michael sat there for a moment watching her walk off, and then went off to work.

Michael really was a mechanic, just as he had told Jamie, but he was in addition to that a common thief; a mugger and a pickpocket to be precise, so to be perfectly honest Heather’s apprehensions about him were mostly true. He parked his motorcycle and walked down the street a few blocks to the auto repair shop where he worked, picking the occasional pocket as he walked along, and smiling slightly. He only really stole to help him make ends meet, at least at first. Now he mostly did it for some extra pocket money and to entertain himself. About a block from his work he spotted a target that was just too tempting to pass up and made a detour.
Some foolish business man had decided to take the shortcut down the twisting alleyway and after a quick glance around him Michael followed him, catching up to him just as he passed a pile of crates and brought a fist crashing into the side of his head. After a few more blows he had dispatched the unfortunate business man and Michael set about sifting through his pockets. After pocketing a few things he came across the man’s wallet and opened it to see what it offered. As he did he noticed a picture tucked into it; a picture of the man and his wife and kids. Suddenly Michael got an uncomfortable feeling of guilt in his stomach. He picked through the wallet, counting the money inside, the feeling growing more persistent. Finally the threw the man’s wallet back at him in frustration and stormed out of the alley. A fine time to remember his conscience. Ordinarily he was able to pick a wallet of its contents without noticing anything about it. Just a quick in and out without hardly opening the thing. But this time he had actually opened the dumb thing all the way. Deep down he knew that his conscience was the real reason why he never opened the wallets all the way, lest he find a picture like the one the businessman had. He was a thief, but not a cold hearted one and somehow he thought that Heather had something to do with his growing sense of guilt.

About halfway through his shift Michael’s friend Kyle came in the shop and hung around by Michael’s shoulder watching him tinker with a malfunctioning shifter.
“Did you want something Kyle?”
Kyle leaned over, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure the other mechanics were out of earshot before speaking.
“I need your help with something.”
“With that, exactly?” Michael asked, not liking the tone of Kyle’s voice.
“There’s this gang out of Cheapside that’s been giving us some trouble, trying to start a turf war, and we need all the help we can get. So I thought that maybe you could…”
“No Kyle.” Michael cut him off. “You are not dragging me into that. People get killed in those stupid wars of yours I left that life a long time ago, and I am not going back.” He moved around to the other side of the car and bent over again, Kyle following him.
“Michael please!” Kyle insisted. “You’re the only honest mugger in London, and believe me, we could use someone like that. Besides, I’ve never met anyone better with a knife than you, and you’re probably the best with a pistol too.”
Michael said nothing, just kept working. He knew all too well how true that was, but still, he was not going to do it again. Not after what happened the last time. The gunshots and all that blood… No, he was not going to let Kyle drag him into it again.
“Come on Michael, I need you!” Kyle bent closer, whispering in Michael’s ear and bringing him up with a start. “You owe me Michael, and I’ve come to collect.”
Michael gripped his wrench, his knuckles going white as he gritted his teeth. “That’s not fair and you know it Kyle. I know I owe you a favor, but does it have to be this?”
Kyle sighed and kicked at the car’s tires, not meeting Michael’s eyes. “I know it’s not fair to do that Michael, I’m sorry.” He looked up at Michael, his eyes pleading with Michael. “Please Michael, just this once, I’ll never ask you again, I promise.”
Michael leaned against the car, tossing his wrench resignedly over into his toolbox with a clang. “Fine Kyle. But just this once, do you understand? Never again.”

When Heather stepped out of the store that evening she stopped with a start at the curb. Michael was sitting there on his motorcycle waiting for her and upon noticing her arrival held out a helmet to her.
“I thought you’d prefer this to a cab.”
Heather took the helmet and got on the bike behind him, not quite sure what to say. He seemed oddly serious as they drove home, silent and brooding over something. When they got back to the house the climbed off and handed him the helmet.
“Thank you.”
“Welcome.” He replied, taking the helmet and smiling faintly and breaking out of his sullen mood slightly.
Heather opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, then chickened out and went back to the house, Michael coming in a few minutes later looking as if he wished she had said it. Later that night Heather climbed the stairs to his room to call him for dinner and found him sitting at his desk cleaning a pistol. He saw her come in and quickly stowed the pistol, looking sheepish.
“I didn’t know you had a pistol.” She said finally.
Michael fidgeted slightly. “Yeah…I work in a kind of rough part of town so I got it just in case. And the knife too.” He nodded at the knife that he had been cleaning and sharpening as well, wanting to explain that before she asked about it.
“Right…” Heather said, as though she did not quite believe him, but not pressing the issue. At dinner she kept glancing at him and he persistently did everything he could not to look at her, already feeling guilty enough as it was. Jamie noticed something was amiss between them and not the usual sort of amiss either. She watched the two of them throughout the meal but whatever it was, she couldn’t figure it out. After he finished eating Michael got up and put his dishes in the sink and informed Jamie that he was leaving.
“Friend of mine needs help with something, I’ll likely be out late, so don’t wait up for me.”
Jamie nodded and as he left Heather suddenly jumped to her feet and called after him. “Please be careful!”
Michael stopped, his hand on the door handle.
“It’s started raining, so… you should be careful.” Heather finished.
Michael looked over his shoulder at her and smiled softly as he stepped out. “I will, I promise.”

By the time Michael met up with Kyle it was pouring rain and the street was flooded and slick. He had his pistol and knife stowed safely in his belt but was determined not to use them unless it was absolutely necessary. The two gangs were well into their battle a few hours later and the rain had not slackened in the least. Michael wiped the water from his eyes for the thousandth time and launched himself at the nearest opposing gang member, his foot meeting the man’s jaw with a crack. Michael himself already was sporting a cut above his eye and on one cheek and washing the blood from them was the only helpful thing the rain was doing. The man he was fighting buried a fist in his jaw and Michael fell to the ground with a splash, rolling over quickly as the man’s foot shot out at him. Michael got to his feet again and had a moment for his panic to register before the knife lunged toward his side. He managed to dodge it, but he wasn’t fast enough and he felt the knife cut across his side as he brought up his fist to slam into the man’s head. He staggered backwards and Michael managed to beat him back enough to ensure he wouldn’t get up again.
“Michael!” He heard Kyle yell behind him and as he spun around just in time to see one of the rival gang members shoot Kyle and he fell to the ground. The other man’s friend had produced a pistol too and pointing it at the man standing next to Kyle’s prone form trying to protect him. In a flash Michael’s own pistol was out and with two sharp bangs the two men fell to the ground clutching the hands that had been holding their guns. A few more sharp bangs and the remaining rival gang members were suitably wounded as well and in full retreat.
Michael ran over to Kyle, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that his injury wasn’t critical. The other man wrapped it up and pulled Kyle to his feet to get him to the hospital. Michael helped him pick up Kyle and shook his head at him as they walked off. “Never again Kyle, never again.”
Kyle lifted a hand weakly in acknowledgement and disappeared into the night as Michael went his own way back to his motorcycle, clutching the wound at his side.

Heather’s head came up with a jerk as she heard the front door close and the sound of heavy boots being taken off drifted to the kitchen. She had been sitting there for hours waiting for Michael to come home, nearly beside herself with worry. She jumped up and nearly ran into Michael as he stopped outside the kitchen door, clearly not expecting to see her there. He had turned off the lights as he came in, since she had berated him so often for leaving them on at night when he had first arrived. He hesitated outside the kitchen, a hand holding his left side.
“Why are you still up?”
“I was waiting for you.” Heather replied. “Where have you been, I was worried.”
“You were worried about me?”
“Well of course, you were gone so long and everything…”
“Just had a lot to take care of that’s all.” Michael said.
“Right.” Heather replied, wondering what he had really been up to. The hallway was too dark to see his face and figure out what he was thinking and so before he could stop her she reached over and turned on the light, gasping at the sight of his face and looking at the blood stain under his hand with horror.
“What happened to you?!”
“Ran into some trouble, I’ll be fine.” Michael replied, going into the kitchen and pulling out a paper towel to clean the blood off his face.
“You’re not fine.” Heather insisted, and pulled him over to sit on the kitchen table and pulled out the first aid kit from a drawer. He sat patiently as she cleaned and bandaged the cuts on his face, distress written all over her face.
“I’m sorry.” Michael said quietly. “For making you worry.”
‘It’s alright.” Heather replied as she gently put a bandage over the cut on his cheek. “I forgive you.”
Michael smiled slightly at that then grimaced in pain as Heather pulled his bloodied shirt over his head to inspect the wound in his side. It was a long cut but not terribly deep so he wouldn’t have to get it stitched up. She cleaned it off and bandaged it, relieved that it had finally stopped bleeding. She packed up the first aid kit and looked him over to make sure she had taken care of everything.
“There. You should be alright now.”
“Thank you.” Michael said quietly, the smile almost back again.
Heather smiled and stepped back but Michael reached out and caught her, a finger hooked into a belt loop on each side of her jeans and pulled her back again, his eyes, those gorgeous eyes looking up at her. She touched her forehead to his and looked deep into those eyes, her hand resting on his unwounded cheek.
“Do you love me Michael?”
He smiled and those beautiful eyes positively glowed. “Like a fish loves water.” And with that he gave her a kiss that left her in absolutely no doubt of it.





THE END

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

What?!?! that's it?! come on! nothing else? nothing more? :p

that's was cool LH...

i've always loved riding on motorcycles...

and i knew they're gonna end up together lol...

[LionHeart]

lol yep that's it. I wrote it on short notice so I didn't really get to fatten it up much

I'd love to have a motorcycle one of these days. I love the things

well of course. :P

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

:P aren't you gonna make more?

[LionHeart]

more what?

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

more stories like this!

i say you're good at it.. :p

[LionHeart]

I've done others ya know. :P for some reason though a few of them got put in the prose section. still haven't figured that one out yet.

thanks very much. :)

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

oh.. they;re in the rose section? some of my stories are in the prose section too... :\

reading commencing...

[LionHeart]

yeah, I think I'm going to try and get them moved to where they belong.

yay :)

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

i didn't finish readin' em.. >.< finished around 2 sigs and a wallpaper today..

maybe tomorrow..

[LionHeart]

ah, making sigs is fun

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

yep...

[LionHeart]

what do you use to make yours?

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

Adobe Photoshop...

you?

[LionHeart]

paint and an HP program. I wish I could use photoshop

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

meh... i just learn from tutorial stuff lol...

[LionHeart]

still, it's a nice program

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

*nods head*

can't you download the trial version online?

[LionHeart]

don't think so, I've tried

[Siri_Jaeh_Kenobi]

oh.. that's too bad..

[LionHeart]

ah well. I'll live

[LionHeart]

ah well. I'll live

[la-vida-loca]

Okay, so started to read it. Great imagery! Amazing, really. Ever publish anything? lol. Didn't actually finish it. like ur last story, try a few spaces between paragraphs. What i read, thoug= Pretty awesome.

[LionHeart]

yay! So glad you liked the imagery, I love using it. Still working on the spacing thing, getting better with my other stories, I promise. It always looks right in Word until I post it in here...
nope, never published anything

[la-vida-loca]

That's cool. I still need to finish the story, but I'll get there eventually! (there really aren't enough hours in the day).

it's all good.

[LionHeart]

never enough hours in the day really