Page 17 of Her Age Gap Match

“Hands on me,” I said. “Don’t let go. You lean when I lean and don’t fight it. Ready?”

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was right by my ear, muffled by the helmet but so sweet that it made a shiver go up my spine.

“Alright,” I said. “Hang on tight.”

I pulled out onto the street.

Poppy tightened her grip immediately, her breath picking up a tick. After the first block, she started to relax into it.

I could feel the exact moment it clicked — the way she stopped anticipating and just followed, her body moving with mine through the turns like she'd been doing it for years. Like she trusted me already. It did something to me that I wasn't prepared for, that easy trust, her weight shifting when mine did without any hesitation.

I'd taken Cassius and Marco out on the bike when they were teenagers. That was different — that was two boys white-knuckling it and pretending they weren't scared, too proud to hold on properly. Poppy held on properly. Both arms, firm grip, her chin probably up by now behind that visor, watching the city move around us.

I liked it more than I had any business liking it.

The cold was sharp off the lake, the kind of November air that clarified everything, and she pressed closer against my back without thinking about it — just seeking warmth, purely practical — and I felt the full length of her against me and had to redirect my attention very firmly back to the road.

I took the long way over to Wicker Park.

I was going to be late for my noon meeting, but I truly didn’t give a damn; just made the choices that kept us moving, kept the ride, alive, kept us touching. There was a stretch along the park where the trees were bare and grey and the lake was visible between them, choppy and dark, and I slowed down slightly without meaning to. Just to give her a second with it. Just to give myself a second with her arms still around me and nowhere to be yet.

She didn't say anything. Just held on.

At a red light I felt her shift, her helmet coming to rest lightly against my shoulder.

“Still good?” I asked.

“I love it,” she said.

The light changed.

We kept riding.

Into Wicker Park now, where Poppy leaned close to start giving me directions.

Left on Milwaukee, she said, he lips close enough to my ear that I could feel the warmth of her breath even through the cold.

I turned.

Right on Damen.

Her hand lifted from my waist to point, her arm crossing my chest, her body pressing closer so I could hear her. I caught her scent, warm and sweet, not the hot chocolate but a perfume or shampoo I’d noticed across her desk a dozen times and never let myself think about too much.

I was thinking about it now.

If my sheets would smell like that after I’d spent a day or a week making her come in my bed.

Just past the intersection—the brick three-flat, yeah, right there⁠—

Her voice was so close. Every direction delivered directly into my ear, my jaw, the side of my neck. I was operating heavy machinery. I was doing fine. I was extremely aware of every place her breath landed and how quickly the cold took it away.

I pulled into the alley she indicated and cut the engine.

The quiet was immediate and total, just the tick of the cooling bike and the distant sound of the street. Her arms were still around me. Neither of us moved for a second — just a beat, just long enough to acknowledge that the ride was over and neither of us was in a hurry about saying goodbye.

Then she climbed off. Unclipped the helmet with slightly clumsy fingers, pulled it free, her red curls spilling out around her shoulders.

“This was…” she stopped, laughing a little. “I don’t know what this was yet. But it was good. I’m—when do you want to⁠—”