Chapter 9
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— Handful —
Austen was by my bike in the full kit. I looked at her - all the way down, all the way back up, because she made it impossible not to.
I’d had my head between her thighs for a significant portion of the night. Now, she was standing fifteen feet away in riding gear and I was doing the math on how long it would take to get her back to my room for another round.
Three hours to Glenwood. Mark expecting us a little later than usual at noon. If I carried her back to my room we weren’t making noon. We might not be making dinner.
Across the lot, Glitch was watching. He looked at me, looked at Austen, looked back at me. Shook his head once — slow, deliberate, the face of a man who’d done the same math and arrived at the same answer.
I picked up Austen’s helmet. The longest she’d ridden in one go was forty-five minutes. Glenwood was a different category — highway, weather, fatigue, the part of riding where small mistakes cost something — and I wasn’t getting on this bike until I’d heard her say every rule out loud.
“Mount from which side?”
“Left.”
“Why?”
“Kickstand’s on the left, exhaust’s on the right. Touch the exhaust and I take skin off.”
“Show me.”
She walked to the left side of the bike without hesitating — one hand to my shoulder, one to the grab handle, weight centered. She looked up at me.
I looked back. “Good. Down.”
She stepped off and came back to where she’d been standing. I kept my face level. “Hands?”
“Flat on your stomach. Or the jacket if I need an anchor.”
“Show me.”
She stepped behind me, wrapped both arms around me and laid both hands flat against my stomach. I looked down at them. Those same hands that had been in my hair three hours ago as I’d licked her pussy.
“That’s right,” I said. “Feet?”
“On the pegs. Always.” She tilted her head slightly. “Even at red lights.”
“Helmet?”
“Snugged before you start the engine.”
“Tap signals?”
“Two firm taps for stop. Squeeze and hold for slow.” Before I could say show me she reached out and tapped twice against my stomach — firm, deliberate — then lowered her hand. Her chin was up. She was getting ahead of me on purpose.
I let her have it. “Lean?”
“With the curve. Never against.”
I’d expected it to take longer. A few rides in and she was leaning into every corner with me — no hesitation, no fighting it. Like she’d been doing it her whole life.
“What if you’re cold?”
“I tell you so we stop and address it.”
She didn’t push through things quietly. I’d learned that about her.
When something was wrong she said so — which was rarer than people thought.
Same on the bike. She’d asked questions on every ride, and when I’d corrected her she’d adjusted without argument.
No ego in it. She just listened and then did it right.
“Ride ends when?”
“When you say it ends.” She held my gaze.
“One more,” I said. “What’s the one thing you do not do?”
She thought about it. “Death-grip you.”
“Why?”
“Because if I’m holding on out of fear, I’m not riding with you. I’m a sack of flour you’re hauling.” She paused. “And because squeezing your ribs makes it harder for you to breathe. Harder to breathe, harder to ride. I’m not just making it bad for me.”
I almost smiled. She’d used my phrase. “Good. Let’s ride.”
She put the helmet on. Fastened the strap. Held up one finger. The strap held it snug. Gear would have approved.
“Good.” I swung my leg over and settled. “Up.”
She mounted from the left. Hand on my shoulder, leg over clean, hands flat on my stomach, feet on the pegs. The whole sequence in one motion now, no hesitation, the way she’d been doing it for two weeks.
“Okay,” she said against my shoulder. “Go.”
I started the bike.
We pulled out of the lot and two bikes fell in around us — Glitch on the left flank, Smoke a length off the rear. No signal, no discussion. My brothers had been doing it since the first ride, one or two brothers materializing whenever I took her out. Nobody made it a thing. Nobody needed to.
I pulled over at the gas station on the edge of Willowbrook and cut the engine. Glitch and Smoke pulled in behind us. Austen’s grip loosened but she didn’t let go right away.
I pulled my helmet off. She did the same.
“How are you doing?” I asked over my shoulder.
“My thighs are vibrating in a way they didn’t on the short loops.”
“Highway vibration’s different. Frequency picks up at speed. Shift your weight gently, side to side — small movements, gets the blood moving. Don’t do it on a curve.”
“Now?”
“When we’re moving. Straight road only.” I pulled off my gloves and stretched my fingers. “How’s the rest of you?”
“Cold around the wrists.”
“Gear sold us a balaclava. Should’ve got you wrist gaiters too. I’ll get you a pair.” I looked at her. “What else?”
“My back’s fine. The lean’s easy now. I’m—” she paused, looking past me at the gas pumps. “I’m not scared.”
I looked at her. The bright eyes, flushed face.
Exhilarated. She meant it — no performance, no asking for reassurance.
Just the truth. I wanted to throw my head back and whoop right there in the lot.
She was on my bike. Six hours round trip, my road, and she wasn’t scared — she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
I looked away before I made it weird.
We got coffee. Stood at the edge of the lot, me with a black drip and her with something that had too much milk in it.
“Do you usually stop here?” she asked.
“No.”
She looked at me. “Then why today?”
“Wanted to get you off the bike a while. Walk around, shake it out, a proper break.” True enough. The rest of it — that I wanted my eyes on her, not just her weight against my back — I kept to myself.
She caught it anyway. The glint gave her away before she said a word. “So you engineered a stop just so you could eye-fuck me at a gas station.”
“You complaining?”
“Just noting it.”
“Seems fair. You’ve had your hands all over me for the last half hour. A man’s owed.”
“That was safety.”
“That was you copping a feel at sixty. Don’t dress it up.”
She laughed and didn’t argue it. The way she stood there — coffee in both hands, color high in her face, loose and in no hurry to get back on — told me she was loving this. The ride, the road, all of it. She just wasn’t going to hand me the win by saying so.
“How much further?” she asked.
“Two and a half hours.”
She nodded. “Did you tell your brother and his wife I’m coming?”
“Mark knows. I called him Wednesday.”
“What did he say?”
“You’re bringing a girl?” I drank my coffee. “A woman, I said. He didn’t have much to say after that.”
She smiled. “And Heather?”
“Heather’ll assess you. Two kids, a husband who doesn’t worry enough, so she does it for the whole house. First ten minutes she’ll decide. After that you’re either in or you’re polite strangers for the day.”
“And if she doesn’t like me?”
I looked at her — the coffee, the gear, the way she was standing at a gas station in the middle of nowhere like she’d always been part of this. The woman I was going to convince to be my old lady. I thought about what my property of cut would look like on her back.
“Heather will love you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Because I—” The word I actually wanted sat right there and I couldn’t say it. I looked away. “She just will.”
Across the lot, Glitch caught my eye. He tilted his head toward the highway behind us and raised his chin. We’re heading back. I nodded. He said something to Smoke and they rolled out with a wave.
We finished our coffee and got back on the bike. Her arms came around me and, after a quick check, I pulled onto the highway.
The next two hours were the quietest I’d ever spent on a bike. She was warm behind me. Solid. Present. Every curve I took, she came with me — no delay now, her weight shifting with mine.
I felt every breath she took through my back.
No speeding. No fast line through the curves. I rode steady, clean - except nothing about the route I knew by heart was the same. She was behind me.
The Glenwood exit came up and I slowed for the curve and she squeezed once — not the stop signal, not the slow-down signal. Just a squeeze. Telling me she was there.
I already knew.
I reached back anyway. Palm flat to her thigh — the way I had three times on the highway, brief. She settled a little more against my back.
I put my hand back on the bar and took the exit slow.
The last half hour was different. Off the highway the road narrowed, speed came down, and Glenwood opened up around us. I knew every light, every turn.
She was quiet behind me, taking it in the way she took everything — without filling the space. By the time I turned onto Mark’s street I wasn’t sure what I was more aware of: the town I’d grown up in or the woman on the back of my bike seeing it for the first time.
Heather was at the door before I’d cut the engine.
That was different. Usually Heather waited inside — coffee ready, dish towel on her shoulder, the measured greeting at the screen door. Today she was on the porch with her arms crossed and her eyes on the bike, watching Austen dismount and clocking every detail.
Austen got off the way I’d taught her — left side, right leg over, feet on the ground before letting go. The helmet came off and her hair spilled out, pressed flat on one side, wild on the other. She smoothed it without success and shrugged.
“Heather,” I said. “This is Austen.”
Heather looked at her. Austen looked back. A full second of two women reading each other.
“Heather. Nice to meet you.” Austen put out her hand.
Heather shook it. Firm, brief. “Tyler hasn’t brought anyone here before.”
Austen glanced at me, then back. “I figured.”
“You ride?” Heather’s eyes went over Austen’s gear.
“He put me on the bike two weekends ago. Today’s the longest ride.”
“And?”
“Terrifying. Beautiful. I understand why he does it.”
I wanted to pick her up and spin her right there on Mark’s front porch. I also wanted to put her back on the bike, turn around, and not stop until I had her in my room, on my bed, with the door locked. I kept my face level.