Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
He nodded immediately. “Same. I always use condoms, except with you, and I was tested not long ago. Everything’s fine.”
There was a pause. Then, quieter, more personal, he added, “After having you, my dick couldn’t get hard for anyone else anyway.”
I laughed softly, shaking my head. “You’re ridiculous.”
“But honest,” he countered.
I smiled, warmth spreading even as uncertainty lingered. “Still. I don’t know that this will work.”
He stepped closer again, hands resting on my hips, steady and sure. “Neither do I.”
He kissed me then, not desperate, not hurried. Just deep and grounding, like a promise without words. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark but calm.
“What I do know,” he added, “is I’m not walking away from this just because it’s complicated.”
“I wouldn’t respect you if you did,” I replied.
He smiled at that. We stood there for a long moment, neither of us in a rush now. When he finally turned toward the door, I felt the absence already forming, a hollow space where he had been all week.
At the threshold, he looked back at me. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yes,” I responded honestly. “I always am.”
He nodded, accepting that answer even if he didn’t love it. “I’ll call.”
“I know.”
The door closed behind him with a soft click. I stood there, listening to his footsteps fade, to the distant sound of the building returning to its usual rhythm. My chest ached, but it wasn’t regret. It was hope, cautious and unguarded. I didn’t know if this would work. But for the first time in a long time, I was willing to let something unfold without trying to control the ending.
And that felt like its own kind of strength.
Chapter 17
Loco
North Carolina hit different after being back in DC.
The air was thicker, slower. Pine and damp earth instead of exhaust and concrete. Even the sky felt wider, like it had room to breathe. I rode in under a late afternoon sun, the highway unwinding into back roads I could’ve navigated blindfolded. The mountains came into view easing the tension in my body.
Home.
And still, my chest felt unsettled. Because home wasn’t fully home without her.
Home had felt like her apartment. Her couch. Her laugh in the kitchen when I said something smart just to see if she would smile. It had felt like waking up to quiet that wasn’t lonely, the kind of quiet that meant someone was there even if they weren’t talking.
I rolled up to the clubhouse with the familiar crunch of gravel under my tires, killed the engine, and sat for a beat with my hands on the grips. The building looked the same as ever, brick and steel and stubbornness. Men posted outside, heads turning as I pulled in.
A nod here. A lift of a chin there.
I was back.
My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket before I even swung my leg off the bike.
I already knew.
I didn’t look at the screen right away, didn’t want to seem hungry for it, but my body betrayed me. My mouth went dry. My heartbeat hitched.
Nita.
I answered on the second ring. “Yeah.”
Her voice came through like a hand settling on my chest. “You make it?”
“Just pulled in.”
“Be careful,” she said, like she could see the building behind me and knew exactly the kind of trouble it could breed.
“I always am.”
There was a pause, the softest sound of her breathing. “That’s not what I mean.”
I stepped away from the guys lingering out front, pushing through the door, letting the dim interior swallow me. The clubhouse smelled like beer, sweat, leather, and history. Same old ghosts, same old rules.
“I know what you mean,” I murmured. “I’m good.”
“You better be,” she said.
I smiled without meaning to.
And that was the thing that kept knocking me sideways, how relaxed I felt hearing her. How something inside me unclenched just because she existed on the other end of a line.
I ended the call, pocketed my phone, and went straight to Dippy.
He was in the back room where he always was when he wasn’t riding, laptop open, fingers flying, a cigarette burning down in an ashtray like it was an afterthought. The glow from the screen made him look younger than he was, but his eyes were the same as they’d always been—sharp, restless, always searching for the angle.
He didn’t look up when I walked in. “You’re late.”
“I’m not on your schedule.”
He smirked. “Everybody’s on my schedule, old man. They just don’t know it.”
I shut the door behind me. “I need something.” That got his attention.
He glanced up, eyes narrowing. “That’s not ominous at all.”
I took my phone out and set it on the table. “Her.”
He didn’t ask who. Didn’t need to. Dippy leaned back in his chair, studying me like I had grown a second head. “You know you’re going down bad, right? First Gonzo, now you. If Tower shacks up, we’re all done for.”