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voice was bruised, quiet. Very un-Macy.
                          The bikes engine roared to life. The powerful noise seeped between Elli’s ribs and the carefully-constructed raw materials of her life that did not include a man who thought happiness was a four-letter word.
                          For all the things she could have said to Macy to explain away why she couldn’t accept his apology, why she couldn’t give the guy ten minutes over coffee because she had fifty calls to make or why having a man kiss you in public until it straightened your hair was such a bad thing, Elli landed on, “I’m wearing a dress.”
                          Macy’s wide-open mouth collapsed into a compressed giggle that sounded like a duck call. “Who cares? I’ll take care of things here. Go.” And when Elli still hadn’t moved, “ Go-o-o. ”
                          Jon kicked the stand up on the bike and checked his blindside for traffic.
                          Elli grabbed her sandals and charged out of the office. The bike was already crawling when she snagged his jacket sleeve to get his attention. He turned, his helmet like an enormous insect head hiding his features. She couldn’t know if he wanted her to remove her arm or run her over.
                          He lifted his eye shield. The limited view of dark lashes, a slight deviation of his nose bridge—probably from a fight, his untamed brows, all of it wholly masculine and infinitely capable of holding onto a woman, paled in comparison to his green and gold irises cut tight across a distrustful squint. He glanced from the sandals in her hand to her eyes.
    She mouthed “a ride,” God, what was she doing? She was out here chasing him before she had put thought to it, though a few minutes was the least she could give him after she’d bludgeoned his manhood. Her daddy would recognize the girl who gave a stranger a chance, not the shrewish prude judging from her lofty rat-hole.
    Jon handed her the extra helmet strapped to the back then helped her fasten it when she twisted the strap. Her insides played a pick-up game of basketball with the engine revolutions. She had never been on a motorcycle before—a moving motorcycle—but she wasn’t about to tell him that. He might change his mind, and for Elli, who had zero chance three days ago of extracting her Daddy’s trumpet, a change of his mind now seemed a worse fate.
    She climbed onto the seat behind him, commenced a thigh-and-arm death grip that could crack a walnut and leaned into Jon Desmarais. Whether he was the Jon from the stage or the Jon from the kiss ceased to matter. Once the horsepower thundered, her heart was quite possibly already gone.
     
                                                                        ****
             Jon couldn’t say where Elli was taking him. Once they hit Canal Street she had tapped his shoulder and pointed directions at each turn. He couldn’t say he cared one way or another, either. The bike afforded him time to think, if only his libido would cooperate. Elli’s curves wrapped him, bringing her heat, her scent, her ability to completely derail his brain - this time from the reason for paying her a visit. How could he bring up the instrument’s visions without coming off like Artie Page and wanting to off himself from the High Rise—which he had discovered, while Elli was gloriously super-glued to his backside, was the highest bridge in New Orleans.
    He supposed they were even now, each having something for which to apologize. Still, when she indicated a final turn and they leaned left and entered the gates of St. Patrick’s Cemetery Number Two, he couldn’t help but think she was telegraphing a warning,  treat me like an alley cat again, you’ll end up here.
    She removed her helmet,