By R8080
“You lost kid?”
The car pulled up alongside Alex, a big 4×4 with the dirt marks to show it was used by a local and not some rich mother dropping her kids off at school.
Alex leant on the frame of his broken road bike and tried to make out the drivers face in the shadow of the car. Alex had taken the Friday off work and spent most of the day out on his bike so he could recover the rest of the weekend.
“Broke some spokes and my battery’s dead,” Alex said.
“Where you going?”
“Kings Forest.”
The driver whistled.
“That’s a long way to push a bike,” he finally said. “Hop in. I’ll take care of you.”
Alex began to protest but realised it would be gone midnight before he made it back. A double century, what an achievement he thought it’d be, cycling two hundred miles in a day only to get wrap a wheel around a fallen branch the far side of the turnpike.
“Come on boy,” the driver said impatiently. “Put your bike in the boot.”