She blanches. “What? What about Brandon? He can be enough, right?”
“Brandon has to stay on floor duty to secure the rooms. Maybe if you can go over the lists and clear a couple of details from the team, make sure they have no ties to anyone from the school, then I’ll fly them over here and we can go for a ride.”
“Oh my God. Then why did you say that we could go for a ride now if I—”
I chuckle. “Relax. I’m just messing with you. When it comes to bikes, I’m all you need.”
She stares at me for a beat. Then her eyes narrow dangerously. “Oh, you…concha de…la…lora.”
A wholehearted laugh bursts out of me as she stumbles through Argentinian cussing. “You’re adorable when you’re trying to be mad at me.”
“I’m not trying,” she hops on the bike and settles on the back, making room for me at the front, “I am mad at you.”
“Remember our first ride, when you fought me every step of the way, and I had to practically carry you and put you onto the bike myself because you’d rather have faced your stalker than trusted me enough to get on?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
I snort. “Well, I remember it like it was yesterday.” How rigid her body was, how she felt when I lifted her anyway, how furious she was right up until the moment we hit speed and the world cracked open around us. That sound she made—half shriek, half laugh—is burned into me like my own first breath. “Thatwas mad at me, but now…”
Now, when I climb on, her arms wrap around my waist voluntarily, and fuck if that doesn’t mean everything.
“Remember how to hold on?” I ask.
Her chest presses into my back. Even through my jacket, her warmth seeps through me. The heat of her thighs cages me in. “What do you think?”
I bite down a groan. “Perfect.”
The engine thunders, and I roll us out onto the street. Jacksonville rushes past us in blurs of palm trees and strip malls. The air smells of salt and asphalt. Humid air lashes our faces, the Florida heat shimmering everything like a mirage. The city hums like it knows we’re escaping.
I weave through streets like I’ve lived here all my life, but she’s the one who guides me without speaking. The way her grip shifts when I turn one street over another—it’s her telling me where to go. She leans into the turns with me, fluid, trusting, her laughter muffled but real against my shoulder. That sound—her laughter—undoes me more than anything. She hasn’t laughed like that since this nightmare began.
I could ride like this forever. Just her and the open road and the choice to go wherever the hell she wants. Her arms holding me like she will never let go, her body molded to mine, my heart not my own anymore.
For a few miles, I believe in miracles.
But gas doesn’t. The needle on the gauge glares red at me. I curse under my breath. To think when you pay one hundred thousand dollars plus tax, they’d fill up the tank. I pull over at the next light and cut the engine.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Need gas. Sorry, should have checked before we rode on.” I twist around to face her, pulling out my phone to open the GPS. “Any gas stations nearby?”
Her eyes dart around. Her shoulders hunch up under her jacket. Prey that has wandered too close to danger. “Not here.”
My instincts flare. I scan the area. A small church on the left. A grocery store on the corner. A few kids, squealing, awestruckby the bike. It’s just an old neighborhood. Nothing stands out as alarming. “Okay.” Even though the GPS shows a gas station four blocks from here. “How far?”
“Anywhere but here.” Her voice cracks.
“Hey, are you okay? Is something wrong with this place?”
“Please just go. There’s another station about ten minutes out,” she says quickly. “We can make it.”
I glance at the gauge again. “I don’t think we have ten minutes, Birdie.”
“Please, Tristan. We’re too close.”
Close to what? Her childhood home? Is that why she’s so nervous? She is afraid of being recognized? I want to ask, but how she’s pressing her sunglasses against her face, how she’s coiling behind me, making herself small, unseen.
“All right,” I say, even though every protective fibre in me screams something is off. This is Jacksonville, not Miami. No one here knows about Aaron. If someone realizes she’s Reagan, so what? That panic is beyond the fear of recognition. “I’ll try to make it to that other gas station, but if we don’t, we’ll have to walk there and get the gas ourselves because waiting for a tow service will take much longer. Is that okay with you?”
