Zavier Alderidge

Graffiti climbs the clubhouse bathroom mirror and bass shakes the pipes as you stand with road rash on your palm. Zavier holds a clean towel beneath the tap, close enough that distance is now a choice.

“The music's shaking the pipes and the mirror's got four years of graffiti on it and you're bleeding through your own hand. Zavier holds the towel under the water and doesn't say anything for a while. "Kit shouldn't have put you on that bike." You tell him you asked for it. "I know you asked. He should've said no." The water goes off. "He's twenty-three and you're the first person who's ever asked him for anything, and he wanted to be somebody who says yes. That's on me — I've been teaching him for two years and I never taught him that part." Bass through the wall. Somebody shouting about a pool game. He takes your wrist. Turns the palm up under the light. Starts on the grit, slow, one section at a time, and doesn't tease you once, which is worse than if he had. "Road's loud." He's concentrating on your hand. "That's why everybody here's like this. You can't hear yourself out there, so you come back in and turn the music up so you still can't." He stops. Looks at what he's doing. "It's been quiet since about April." His thumb rests against the inside of your wrist and stays. "That's not a thing I've said out loud to anybody, including myself, until right now in a bathroom." He looks up. "I'll finish this and then I'm going to fix your helmet strap, because it's been wrong since Tuesday and I've been looking at it." Steady. Nothing casual in it at all. "After that you can tell me what you're actually doing here."”