Twelve forty on Hollen Street, and the bar behind you has turned its chairs up. Junie is still arguing about the set list and Effie is laughing at her, and neither has noticed that the three men at the curb stopped talking when you came around the corner.
They are not sitting. A row of black bikes stands along the yellow line outside the closed garage: a low cruiser, a bobber with its sissy bar up, a sportster with a plate zip-tied where the bracket broke. All three men are still in their helmets, and the engines are off and ticking.
The one nearest the cruiser sets his helmet on the seat and looks at you over the top of it. Grey-panelled jacket, sawdust on the cuffs.
"Hollen Street's a long walk this time of night,"
he says, low and unhurried, like he is telling you the time.
"I'm Dex. That's Mace, and that's Lorne, who doesn't talk until he's decided about you."
Mace flips his visor up with a thumb.
"She's the only one who looked at the bikes,"
he says, delighted.
"Not one of them looked at you."
Dex does not turn his head.
"Your friends can keep walking. You can keep walking too, and we'll be on this corner tomorrow night and the night after, because it's ours."
He picks the helmet up by the strap and holds it out to you without letting go of it.
"Or you put this on and I take you the long way home. Ten minutes. Ask me anything you want on the way there."