Good Guy

Part Five

It turned out that trouble was already waiting for Cleo, even if it wasn't in the form of Scotch Wilkins. At the moment, it was in the form of two things: the heavy traffic jam of Monday morning, and the meager twenty-five minutes before her class started. "Freaking fudge-nuggets, not again," Cleo complained as she recklessly sprinted through the hall and hurried down the apartment stairs. "Oh man, I hate this."

Cleo managed to rush from the steps and onto the driveway without cracking her head. On any other day, she would've taken a second or two to thank her lucky stars. But Monday wasn't 'any other day,' and she had to use every second of it to reach school before the bell rang.

Before she could resume her run from the driveway though, somebody yelled from behind the apartment's second floor railing.

"Hey! Down below!" a very familiar voice called out. "Is there a fire or something?!"

Cleo looked up, ponytail swinging in surprise. Part of her knew that she should be hitting the road already, not wasting any precious seconds to answer him. But a bigger part was urging her to not be an ass and at least spare a moment to say hello.

"No!" she yelled back, embarrassed grin on her face. "Just me being late!"

She adjusted her bag, ready to scurry off before she could humiliate her tardy self any further, but Scotch seemed like he wanted to take up her whole morning by having a balcony conversation.

"Wait a sec!"

"Can't!" she said, her feet jittery, ready to dash as soon as he gave her a nod of goodbye.

"Just wait!" he urged, his tone frantic.

She watched as he tugged the straps of his own backpack, and walked briskly to catch up to her. He turned and disappeared at the end of the hall, presumably to go down the stairs. Scotch emerged from behind the bend of the landing, an easy smile on his face.

Cleo's eyes widened as the different possible reasons for Scotch's approach pelted her mind. From his determined gait, it appeared that he wanted to catch the public bus together. 'Appeared' being the operative word, because she didn't want to be too presumptuous. It was normal and completely unavoidable that they'd bump into each other while going to school—perhaps even convenient, since two people could better flag down a bus. But he could at least walk a little faster.

"I don't understand why you're so chill with wasting all our time," she griped, clutching anxiously at one of her backpack straps.

Scotch scrunched up his nose, but then gave her another sunny smile that almost—almost—made up for the fact that she was going to be late if she dallied any longer. He walked past her, towards the chain-link fence which separated the apartment building from the establishment next door. "You do know that there's a better way to get to school other than the bus, right?" he pointed out, patting the leather seat of a black and chrome motorbike. "I'm taking that way myself."

Cleo's eyes widened, taking in Scotch's familiarity with the vehicle. At that moment, she was able to deduce two things. Firstly, Scotch owned and rode a motorcycle to get to school. Secondly, he didn't just want to go to school together. He was offering her a ride.

And she didn't know how to respond to that. It was convenient, sure, but she'd never been comfortable with accepting free rides from anybody. And receiving one from an upperclassman she barely knew—and whose skills on the road she wasn't familiar with—was even more unnerving than that.

"I don't wanna be late, but I also don't wanna die," she blurted spontaneously, much to her horror and to Scotch's amusement.

"Ouch." He chuckled as he unhooked one of two helmets secured to the handlebars and held it out for her to take. "I'll have you know that I'm an excellent rider. And if you really aren't sold, I have a spare helmet."