Page 26 of Redline Baby

"Have you?"

"There was an incident in my league days. I won't elaborate. A grown man cried over a 7-10 split. It wasn't me, but I was present, and it left a mark on all of us."

He steals a fry off my side of the basket, unbothered, like it's the most natural thing in the world for his hand to be that close to mine.

"Compared to that, you get a pass."

I laugh. Surprised out of me.

"You're ridiculous," I say.

"I've been told." He nudges the basket an inch closer to me. "Eat more fries. You get twitchy when you haven't eaten enough. I've noticed."

"You've noticed a lot of things about me in three weeks."

"I pay attention."

He says it simply, without putting any extra weight behind it, like it's just a fact about how he moves through the world and not a whole confession.

"It's not hard. You're worth paying attention to."

I feel my face go hot, and I duck my head over the fries so he won't see it, which of course means he sees it anyway.

Instead of teasing me about it—which is what Dex would do, what anyone else would do, what I'd brace myself for out of habit—he just lets it sit there, warm and unremarked-on.

He steals another fry and starts telling me some completely unrelated story about Rue trying to convince a customer that a Harley was "too loud to be a good bike," with the full, solemn authority of a six-year-old who has never once doubted herself.

By the time the basket's empty, I've laughed a lot more, and my face has gone back to a normal temperature.

The whole thing—the flashback, the shaking, the humiliating half-second where I thought I might actually fall apart in a bowling alley—feels smaller than it did twenty minutes ago. Manageable.

He drives me home.

Outside my building, he doesn't linger or push for anything more than what already happened.

"Text me when you're inside," he says. "Just the word home is fine. Nothing else."

I nod, because I can't manage more than that yet.

I let myself in, and a few minutes later, sitting on the edge of my bed with Pretty already pulled down off the shelf and held against my chest without my having decided to reach for him, I send one word from my phone.

Inside

He answers in a minute, like he'd been sitting there with the phone in his hand waiting for exactly that and nothing else.

Good. Sleep well, Kit.

I stare at those four words longer than is reasonable.

Then I curl around Pretty in the dark, and for the first time in eight months, the ache doesn't feel quite as much like drowning.

Chapter 9. Soren

Saturday rides start early at Redline, before the sun's done deciding whether it's actually going to show up, and by the time I roll into the gravel lot behind the clubhouse, there are already eleven bikes lined up in loose formation, engines idling, exhaust ghosting pale in the cold morning air.

Ni waves me into the gap beside him. "You made it."

"You say that every time like you're surprised."