‘Hey! Raven! ‘sup!’
Raven looked up and there was Dylan, Curry’s uniform hidden beneath his thick duffel coat, heading directly towards her. ‘Yo, Bryan.’ He raised his voice and waved across at the Halford’s clerk. ‘You still want to check out that bike with me later?’
‘Yeah, man. I’m off at six. You?’
‘Five-thirty, but I’ll come over here and hang.’ He grabbed one of the bicycles in front of him and popped it into a wheelie position. ‘I’ll give one of these babies a run for their money. Can I have a hells to the yeah?’
The hot blonde girl gave him a slow clap then went back to tagging her anti-freeze. She’d clearly been pranced in front of by more than one shopping centre assistant in her day.
‘Yo, Bryan. Why aren’t you over here helping out Raven?’ Dylan’s voice went all melodramatic like the man who did film previews, ‘The artist with the Magic Eyes. I bet she could do some voodoo shit on you if you don’t watch it.’
Raven looked at him. What the actual fuck was he talking about?
Bryan, to be fair, looked equally perplexed.
Dylan started laughing. ‘Ah, you guys. You’re hilarious. I’m just messing with you. I’m just messing with you.’
Crikey. Dylan needed a hobby or something else to use up his clearly very over-active imagination.
‘So what brings you to the finest shopping centre in da hood?’ he asked Raven.
She wasn’t really inclined to answer whilst he was channeling his inner Kanye. It was weird.
And then, all of a sudden, he became normal, friendly Dylan. ‘You looking for a bike? I’m friends with Bryan. I can see if he can use his staff discount for you if you find anything.’
This was so weird. Did he think they were friends?
‘Are you getting a new bike? Doing some spring training?’ He began jogging in place with his hands on an invisible set of handlebars. When he caught the not-altogether neutral look Raven had shot him, he stopped. ‘Sorry. I just ate, like, a whole packet of salted caramel Hobnobs and am riding one hella sugar high. I’ve just come over here to burn some of it off during my break.’ His eyes flicked over to where the Curry’s was. ‘That place is, like, totally dead this time of year. No one wants to buy anything new in March.’ He leaned in and said ominously, ‘Tax. Time.’
Dylan was a nutter. A funny nutter, but, Raven looked away. When people were funny with her it made her suspect. As if the friendly banter was all an elaborate set-up to make her the punchline of a joke she hadn’t seen coming.
‘So.’ He did some display hands across the line of bicycles, taking over Bryan’s role with clear relish. ‘Which model are you looking at, Madame? Is this for pleasure or for pootling about our lovely Oxfordshire lanes?’
‘It’s for a charity ride.’ Wot???? Which weird demented spirit made her say that?
‘Cool. Cool beans. How long?’
‘Just under two hundred miles.’ Seriously??? Shut the actual fuck up, Raven!
‘Super cool. In, like, India?’
‘Nooo.’ Why would she buy a bicycle here to ride in India? ‘Hadrian’s Wall.’ And why was she still talking?
‘Nice. Charity ride, hunh?’
‘Yeah.’ Sweet mother of over-talkative teens. What was going on with her? ‘LifeTime. It’s the—’
‘Mental health charity.’ They finished together. She met Dylan’s eyes and saw a flicker of something she wouldn’t have expected to see in there. Recognition. And then it was gone.
‘You set up an Insta account yet? I could follow your adventures.’
This caught her cold. She looked away and touched a little girl’s bike that had purple sparkly tassels coming off of the handlebars.
‘That one might be a bit small,’ Dylan joked, then saw she wasn’t smiling. ‘Hey. You okay?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Fine.’ She zipped up her coat. ‘I’d probably better get going.’
‘That’s cool. Hey,’ Dylan looked over his shoulder to where Bryan appeared to be trying to be helpful to the blonde clerk. ‘Top tip? Get one on eBay if you don’t really know what you want. Total money saver.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Take it from a man who’s been there, done that.’
Raven scrunched her nose up. Dylan could lurch from persona to persona faster than she could blink.
‘Seriously, though,’ Dylan said, following her to the door. ‘If you want me to help, I go through bikes like that.’ He snapped. ‘That’s why I’m here. Bryan’s looking to become a freestyler, like wot I iz and we’re going to go see a BMX. Dude went and broke his leg and is giving it up.’
‘Wouldn’t it be bad luck? Buying someone’s bike that they got injured on?’ she asked, remembering too late she’d just moved into the house where a man had killed himself.
Dylan looked at her with a dazzling smile. ‘Not if you’re a better rider than them. Seriously.’ He pulled his phone out of his pocket and wiggled it between them. ‘You want any help? I’m your man.’
He was obviously a complete and utter idiot. And a nutter. But by the time Raven was halfway to
