Come With Me: A Short Story

By Joelle Fraser

The Husband. The Wife. The Waitress. In “Come With Me,” a good marriage is at stake when a man discovers a passion for riding that his wife doesn’t share. But another woman does.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joelle Fraser
• Release date: Feb 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311219565

Joelle Fraser

Joelle Fraser is an award-winning author of two books, The Territory of Men, and The Forest House. She’s also the publisher of HardRider Press, whose short stories are set in the motorcycle world. www.joellefraser.com

Book preview

Come With Me

A Short Story

HardRider Shorts #5

By Joelle Fraser

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Copyright

Come With Me

A Short Story

HardRider Shorts #5

Copyright ©2014 by Joelle Fraser

Smashwords Edition

The characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover image design by Pro_ebookcovers.

Icon of motorcycle copyright jackrust / 123RF Stock Photo, used with permission.

Author photo by Noah Porter, used with permission.

Published by HardRider Press

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Table of Contents

Come With Me

The HardRider Shorts Series

About the Author

Come With Me

The Husband

Vince Garrido first heard the motorcycle one sultry July night while his beloved wife slept beside him. He’d been halfway through a Waylon Jennings biography and reflecting on how no one would ever write—let alone read, "The Ordinary Life of Vince Garrido,"—when the rumbling noise approached from the south.

He knew it came from Flamingo Road, one street over. It cruised a block or so, close to the intersection of Finch, he guessed, then stopped.

A stab of disappointment surprised him when only the silence remained. Vince laid the book down on his chest. It was probably a Harley. Although he’d never owned a motorcycle himself, he loved vehicles and engines. He’d spent his early teens hunched over a desk, getting high off glue fumes as he assembled models of ’57 Chevys and Ford Mustangs—dreaming of vehicles he somehow knew he’d never own.

That night, he’d try to explain later, the sound awakened a void, a disturbing emptiness he hadn’t known was there. But it was. It felt as if a door had opened, just a little, and let in a cold draft.

Claire shifted and he studied her face in the soft lamplight. Her silky hair cascaded over her cheek. She’d been dying the gray blonde for years, which he secretly liked because he’d always enjoyed the contrast between them: his swarthy Italian looks next to her Nordic beauty. Somehow, his own hair was still a rich black. The lines around her eyes faded and her broad face was smoothed in sleep. She looked ten years younger, but he believed it a blessing of aging together that you always saw the younger person even in your older years—it was if the older woman was a hologram, and the beneath, lived the college girl he fell in love with: the statuesque, laughing, lusty