Linda, Seth, Mike, and Billy quickly gave their order to the fast-scribbling, freckle-faced waitress. "They think I'm going to end up with my head smashed in," Seth said, matter-of-factly.
"Do you ever think about getting into an accident on the motorcycle?" she asked.
"If it happens, it happens," he said. "When you ride a motorcycle, you have to drive defensively all the time. But I don't worry about wrecking. If your numbers up, it's up."
Mike started chuckling as he listened along, handing the menus back to the waitress.
"Tell her about the time you wrecked your dad's car!" Mike said, giddily.
Seth's lip snarled as he looked across the table at Mike. "Why don't you tell her? You were there, remember?"
Mike leaned forward to tell her the story. "We were fifteen. Some Friday night we snuck out after Seth here borrowed his daddy's keys. We went to a kegger my older brother was going to. It was the first time either one of us drank beer. On the way back we got almost all the way back to his house and then Bam! He hits a telephone pole. When we got back his dad was standing on the front stoop staring us down. I got out of the car and ran home."
Seth interrupted "And I was grounded for the whole rest of that year for that little adventure. He made me pay for the fender and the broken headlight, too."
"How did you do that?" Linda asked, knowing that most kids did not work until they turned sixteen.
"I went to work and got money to pay for it," he said.
Billy and Mike started snickering.
"Did you get a job?" Linda asked.
"I guess you could call it that," Seth replied, visibly turning red.
She was going to ask him what type of job, but Billy blurted out "He got a paper route. Every day at five o'clock in the morning, his ass was up and riding around on his old sting ray bike tossing papers onto yards up and down the street."
Linda tried to imagine the tall, handsome, headstrong Seth riding a bicycle and tossing rolled-up newspapers onto yards. She could not. "Hey," she said. "You paid him back and everybody was happy, right?
Seth smiled wryly and said "Depends on what you call happy."
They ate a pleasant meal of burgers, chili, and fries, after which Linda excused herself to go to the lady's room. When she returned, only Seth still sat at the table, with a pile of dollar bills on the center of it. "Where did the other two guys go?" Linda asked, anxious that it meant that this would be the first time she and Seth would be alone. "I told them to go ahead. So, when are you going to make it back my way?"