Cleve Week is a new thing that Cass and Poppy started over on Twitter/X (or Xwixxer as I like to call it). It's seven prompts spread across seven days dedicated to my OTP, so of course I have to participate! You can find out more on the official Cleve Week Xwixxer account, "cleveweek." And now, without further ado...let the festivities begin! -Akumu
CLEVE WEEK 2024
Day 1 - motorcycle
"Dad?"
"Steve. Oh, thank God. Where are you?"
The setting sun pierced the phone booth's smudged, scratched plexiglass, bathing the chrome frame and pay phone in a bright, bronze sheen. Steve stared down the dark ribbon of asphalt that raced into the coming night.
"It doesn't matter," he said.
"The hell it doesn't. Your mother and I are worried sick about you. You take off in the middle of the night, leaving only a note for us to find; you don't tell anyone where you're going; you wait two weeks to let us know you're not dead in a gutter somewhere; and then you call and tell me it doesn't matter? Listen, pal: while I'm here at the house in case you call, your mom and all your teachers and classmates are putting up flyers of you all over the county. The police got an Amber Alert out for you –"
"Dad –"
"Every news station for miles is parked outside, waiting to swarm us if we so much as stick our noses out the door. I can't even go out to get the paper without someone shoving a camera in my face and asking me if I think we'll find you alive –"
"Dad, shut up."
"Don't you tell me to shut up, Steven. You live in our house, under our rules –"
Steve slammed the phone on the receiver. "Yeah, I know. That's why I left."
He hit the coin release lever on the off-chance he'd get a couple cents back. No coins clattered into the slot. No one had left any in it, either.
And here I am on my last $100.
He looked west into the sun, which now hid behind the snow-frosted mountains – the Rockies, which he'd never seen before today. The sky there bled red like a murder scene.
Someone knocked on the door.
He turned and found himself looking at a girl about his age. She was tall – taller than he, in fact, thanks to her heeled cowgirl boots – with long, muscular legs that she bared in torn-off denim shorts. A black jacket suited her, and a faded red bandana wrapped her throat like a Christmas bow. The desert wind whipped her bangs and ponytail sideways like scraps of brown cloth hung out to dry.
Without removing her sunglasses, she smiled. "You done?"
He slid open the phone booth. "All yours."
He felt her shaded eyes on him as he stepped out and she went in.
Normally, he'd feel flattered, a girl that hot watching him with interest. But the grungy feel of his unwashed red hair; the cargo pants, blue Track Team jacket, and black boots he'd been wearing since last week; and the weight of his bookbag in which he carried the few clothes he'd packed told him she wasn't looking because he was cute.
He pushed open the roadside diner door. Passed a wall of missing kids posters. Wondered if any of them had found a life they liked better. Grabbed a booth in the back. Ordered eggs and hash browns. Slipped off to the bathroom to wash his hair and upper body as best as he could with paper towels and soap dispenser foam.
By the time he'd finished, his eggs and diced fried potatoes that he supposed passed for hash browns here, wherever "here" was, awaited him.
No sooner had he shoved a forkful of potatoes into his mouth than a hand slapped a missing kid poster in front of him. His missing kid poster.
"Steven Burnside?"
He looked up and saw the girl from the phone booth standing over him. She had pushed her sunglasses onto her head, and now she fixed upon him two big, beautiful blue eyes that threatened to drown him in concern.
Swallowing the potatoes, he shrugged.
She sat across from him. "You know, for your poster to be all the way out in rural Colorado after only two weeks, your parents have to really care about you."
"What's it to you?"
"My parents are dead. I'd give anything to see them again."
"You can have mine if you want. Fair warning, though: all they do is crawl up your ass about what you're doing, where you're going, and how it's never good enough for them."
He waited for her to tell him that he had it all wrong, that he was lucky to have parents who'd go so far to find him.
Instead, she smiled. "You remind me of my brother when he was in high school. He was a 'free thinker.' It got him in trouble a lot. Hell, it still gets him in trouble."
"So are you going to call the cops or what?" he asked with a mouth full of half-chewed eggs.
"Do you want me to?"
He hesitated, then said, "No. I want you to walk away and pretend you never saw me."
"All right." Ripping off a corner of the poster, she pulled out a pen and began to write. "This is my brother's address and number. He's a cop in Raccoon City, just up the road. His name is Chris Redfield.
She paused, then continued to write. "And this is my dorm number and school e-mail address, at CU Denver. My name's Claire, Claire Redfield. If you get into a scrape, give us a call. We'll give you a hand."
She slid the paper scrap to him. He examined it, took in her curly, girly handwriting, and looked up at her.
Smiling, she laid a ten on the table. "Happy trails, Steven Burnside."
And with that, she stood and left. He reread the scrap of paper, looked at the ten, then stuffing the rest of the eggs and potatoes in his mouth, grabbed his bookbag and ran after her.
Outside he found her walking the line of trucks and occasional out-of-state car. She turned the corner. He broke out into a run, yelling, "Hey, wait up!"
When he rounded the corner, he found her straddling a silver Harley Davidson parked in the diner's shade. In one hand she held a white skull cap helmet. She watched placidly as he approached her.
"You said you're in Denver, right?" he said.
"Yeah, but I'm on my way to visit my brother."
"In Raccoon City?"
She nodded.
"D'you think you could give me a ride?"
"It's hard to walk away and pretend I never saw someone I gave a ride to, Steven Burnside."
"It's just Steve. And forget what I said. Just get me to the nearest Greyhound station. I'll take it from there."
"All right, Steve." She held out her helmet. "Hop on."
Slipping the helmet over his head, he fastened the chin strap, swung a leg over the bike, and shifted himself onto the narrow passenger seat. The engine beneath them awoke with a sleeping-lion roar. Slipping on her sunglasses, she grasped the handlebars, which he took as his cue to lace his hands around her middle.
She turned her head. "Hang on tight."
The motorcycle shot across the dirt lot onto the highway. The wind battered him like a sea-worn sail, and he just barely had time to lock his arms around Claire, burying his face in her shoulder, before he kited off the bike.
Laughing, she drove them into the night.