Yes. He hadn’t expected a yes. Rosemary couldn’t possibly want to spend even more time with him, not after the awkward silence that buzzed between them throughout the entire film. Unless he was the only one that felt it. He pushed the thought away, refusing to allow himself to be the victim, not that Rosie was either. He had broken her heart and ran off with her fairytale future, but that didn’t make him a criminal. Did it?
He led her to his motorcycle, freshly polished with it’s crimson coating reflecting in the moonlight. “You remember Rusty?” He asked, wondering if she had known it was a bike she’d be led to and not a car. Rusty, the only companion he could trust to be reliable, now turned on him. This was the vehicle he met her on. That was the seat he was perching on when he first saw her strawberry blonde hair fall off her shoulders and felt the instant need to brush it along the nape of her neck. He’d done everything he could to preserve a bike that represented them before they were them.
(It was a part of him he didn’t have the heart to remove.) (The reckless adrenalin junkie.) (The man who lived fast so that he couldn’t look to his past.) (The romantic who held onto the things he loved.) (Scratch that, the enthusiast who liked to keep a memento or two.)
"There’s a spare helmet in the compartment. You’re still okay with bikes, right?" He fitted his buckle around his neck and lifted himself onto the bike. The close, uncomfortably intimate, bike that would now require his former flame to wrap her arms around his chest. He shouldn’t have offered. Why did he offer?
Almost immediately questioning her response once she saw the expression cast upon his face, the girl wondered briefly if he'd upgraded his ride from the motorcycle in her memories. Back when she was younger, her mother had always warned her about boys who rode bikes with an engine rather than a chain. And when Rosemary had met Henry, it was the bike he'd been perched upon that caught her interest at first. Even from afar, the girl had been able to sense the power his ride represented -- the power of rebellion. And nothing made her heart pound faster than the prospect of someone who didn't follow the rules she'd been raised to live by.
Following Henry around the corner, the girl decided that if Henry had now switched to a car or another bike, then that would represent the personal change he'd been through. She knew how much Rusty meant to him, and although she'd never been able to get Henry to admit it, Rosie knew he enjoyed the way people looked at him when he zipped past them in the streets. But what she hadn't considered was the happiness that swelled in her heart when she realized he'd kept Rusty in good shape all those years. She would never voice her thoughts, but seeing Rusty gave her hope that he might still be the same man she fell in love with. But that hope would have to be diminished if she were to break him the way he did her.
Nodding her head, the girl pulled the spare helmet out of the compartment. "Well it's been a while since I've been on one, but I still love the ride all the same." Stupid, she scolded herself, paranoid she'd once again said too much. Fluidly strapping the helmet over her auburn locks, Rosemary hopped on behind him, only realizing in that moment how close they'd have to be. But she was determined to keep her heart steady; if she was going to hurt him, she had to figure out if he still held any feelings for her in his heart.
So Rosie wrapped her arms around him, the way she'd done a hundred, even a thousand times. Lifting her feet off the ground and resting them on the back pedals, the girl squeezed him gently. "Let's go," she commanded softly, her expression turning into one of a smile.











