Chapter 06 KAIDEN
“Why are we here, exactly? Again, might I add?“
the voice of the guy who’s rapidly becoming one of my best friends crackles through my helmet intercom. “We have to meet up with the guys in thirty if we want to get out before the roads clog up with everyone heading south for Christmas.”
I squeeze the handlebars where we’re parked in front of the wharf, our babies nestled between our legs, engines ticking softly beneath us.
“I know,“
I reply. “I just want to check one last time. To be sure.”
To be sure Milos really blew me off.
To be sure I really was acting like a fool standing right in front of that mural I’m staring at now.
Only this time, he’s not here.
I don’t get it, I really don’t.
I’ve been waiting to hear from him for four days now. Four excruciatingly slow days where I packed and arranged shit for my much-needed sabbatical, checking my phone every damn minute like some desperate teenager.
I love my mom. I’m genuinely happy I get the chance to visit her for a couple of months, but shit, I really hoped to see Milos beforehand. Or at least talked to him.
Just to find out if whatever clicked between us that day would still click outside of the shoot. Without the wharf. Without the camera. Without the snow and adrenaline and sixteen stolen seconds.
But… silence.
At least a few of my boys are coming with me for the first two weeks so we can celebrate Christmas and New Year’s in a slightly warmer climate. Even though the snow is gone, it’s still way too cold here for my Mediterranean ass. Thank fuck some of them agree so we can drink beers on the beach and just chill.
And, hopefully they distract me from this fuckshow.
He fucking stood me up.
“To be sure?“
Axe’s voice crackles again. “You gave him your number. He didn’t use it, and now you’re parked outside this stupid building like some lovesick idiot.”
I sigh, helmet still on, staring at the wall like it might give me answers. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Axe scoffs. The closest thing to a laugh anyone will ever hear from him. I can practically hear the implied idiot in there. “You’re absolutely certain you didn’t—”
“No. Nothing,“
I cut him off. “I didn’t miss a call. I didn’t miss a message. There’s nothing.”
I stare at my dead screen, willing something to appear from Milos. I even turned the many notifications off from my stupid social media accounts, so I wouldn’t miss it.
Fuck. I really thought there was a click there. An instant connection.
“Wow,“
Axe mutters. “That’s harsh.”
He nudges me with his shoulder before pulling off his gloves and shoving them under his ass. He shrugs his big backpack off and drops it beside the bike as he kills the engine. I follow his example before he passes me a cigarette from his overly tatted fingers, ink just as dense as mine.
He pushes his helmet off and hooks it over the handlebar just like I did, then runs a hand through his unruly blond hair before lighting up the smoke. He finally meets my gaze as he blows out a puff of smoke, handing me the lighter.
If people think my eyes are blue? Shit. Axe’s are pure ice. That husky, glacial kind of blue that makes you look twice and then quickly away before it gets uncomfortable.
I’m not exactly sure what his full background is. He only told us he was in some German special forces shit, but couldn’t share the specifics. Still, even if he didn’t tell me that, it's obvious in the way he moves, how he holds himself, in the way he scans a space without seeming to.
He’s been in our crew for around six months now, but he just fits.
Helps that he’s a scary motherfucker who doesn’t tolerate bullshit—and honestly, no one had the balls to tell him he couldn’t ride with us. He just showed up at a gas station one night while we were making stupid videos for our accounts, doing silly shit as we climbed on some random wall, waving at the camera. He threw me a compliment about my bike, and… stayed.
That was it.
No big introduction. No audition. Just presence.
Lighting the cigarette, I inhale deeply and let it settle in my lungs, trying to calm the restless edge in my chest. Not that I’m exactly agitated. Just… disappointed, I guess.
This is the third time since the shoot that I’ve come here, parked in front of this damn mural, half-hoping he might just… walk by or something. So I can ask him why. Why didn’t he call? Why he—
Shit. I sound ridiculous.
I barely know the guy. So why am I this messed up about it?
I take another drag, enjoying the quiet while Axe disappears into his own head like he so often does, fiddling with the GoPro mounted to my handlebars. We wanted to get some decent shots for the Route du Soleil, the ride down south. It’s a two-day drive, so we’ll overnight somewhere in southern France before pushing on, and some of the others wanted to edit tonight so we could show what we’re doing.
I’m not really in the mood, though.
Sure, it started out as something fun. Just us boys filming stupid shit while riding, posting clips for the hell of it. We never expected our Biketok and Bikegram to blow up like this, to become this popular.
Yeah, I participate. Albeit mostly anonymously. A few shots with my visor up here and there, but I mostly film and shoot the surroundings. The road. The nature. Just the way I like it.
I think I had something scheduled for this morning to post, but I haven’t checked if it went through okay so I pull my phone from the mount clipped near my tank and open the account I’ve been ignoring. I know it’s vain, but I’m always curious about the responses.
My latest post is actually a beautiful, slightly dramatic shot of the building in front of me. I took it in the rain yesterday, Axe grumbling beside me about wanting to go home because he was cold.
He lives on a boat, for crying out loud. It’s not like there’s any less water there.
Ass.
When I scroll through my mountain of notifications, inhaling the final drag with my free hand, I nearly choke on the smoke when the same username pops up over and over again across multiple posts.
@MilosInNeon_
He doesn’t have any posts up, or any pictures of himself, but the name is obvious.
Shit yeah.
The messages were sent last night. Not just one. Dozens. Under different clips. Different photos. Like he was trying to get my attention any way he could.
And again this morning, right under my newest post.
I flick the cigarette butt away without even looking, accepting the mint Axe offers me on pure instinct before popping it in my mouth. My heart’s suddenly racing like I just downshifted too hard, as I tap into one of the notifications.
And fuck.
The grin that spreads across my face is instant the moment I read his message. It’s reckless. Uncontrolled. The kind that hurts your cheeks because it’s been waiting there for days.
Hi… So, taking a leap here. I just have to know. There could be two reasons your number wasn’t working. One, my instinct about this, about us, was wrong. And if that’s the case, please forget I sent this and I’ll lick my wounds in private. But I for fuck’s sake hope it’s the second option and my stupid sister is just crappy with electronics. If so… please look me up on the app you work for. I have the same handle there as I do here. My address is on there. Hope to hear from you. Milos.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
He thought I blew him off.
My chest feels too tight suddenly. Too full. I scrub a hand down my face, the stupid grin still there, still growing, heart hammering like I’ve just kicked the bike into gear.
He didn’t forget. He didn’t disappear.
His sister’s just technically challenged.
“What are you grinning about? Did he finally message you?”
I’m not even sure if I nod. I’m already deep in the HandlR app, fingers moving faster than my brain can keep up, searching for his contact details like this is a damn emergency.
And the second I find it, I thumb the starter. The engine roars to life beneath me.
It’s only two blocks away.
We’ve got maybe twenty minutes before we’re supposed to meet the others and head out. But fuck them. They can wait. Or ride ahead without me for all I care.
It’s my mother’s house we’re heading to, anyway. She won’t let those fuckers in without me.
…Actually, she probably would. She’s nice like that.
Doesn’t matter.
My backpack’s already on and helmet secured before Axe fully registers what’s happening. I’m rolling out before he can say more than a sharp, “Kai—“
followed by something aggressively German through the still-open connection.
I cut the intercom.
It takes me less than a fucking minute to get there, heart pounding harder than the engine, adrenaline mixing with something dangerously close to hope. My hands feel too tight on the throttle. My chest too full.
What if he’s not there?
Doesn’t matter either. I have his details now, so that’ll work itself out.
But shit, I want him to be there.
I slow when I reach the big warehouse-like building—all steel and glass and converted industrial bones—transformed into ateliers and loft apartments. I coast to a stop in front of the right number, rev once more for good measure before killing the engine and swinging off the bike.
An R1 isn’t exactly subtle. The sound echoes. A lot.
And yeah, that kind of horsepower can be useful.
Because he’s already there.
Standing in the wide sliding doorway that opens up his entire place, neon glow spilling out behind him like a halo around his messy, dirty-blond hair.
I rip my helmet off, place it on my bike, heart still hammering in my throat before I advance on him.
“You saw my message,“
he breathes, eyes wide when I come closer, stepping outside in his socks onto the cobbled street, the wind off the river whipping around us. “I thought you’d be in Spain right about now.”
I don’t reply. I fucking can’t.
I just close the distance, walk straight into him, barely registering the hopeful, heated expression flashing across his face before instinct takes over and I’m on him.
My biker-gear-clad arms wrap around him, pulling him flush against me, and his hands find my neck on instinct, fingers sliding in my messy hair as our mouths collide.
Warm. Familiar. Better than I remembered.
All the frustration, the waiting, the stupid what-ifs of the past days burn off in that single moment. His lips are soft but eager, a relieved breath escaping him into the kiss as he steps closer instead of away, chest pressing against mine, cold forgotten completely.
He tastes like coffee and mint and something unmistakably him, and when his fingers tighten at the back of my neck, grounding, like he needs to make sure I’m actually here, something in my chest finally unclenches.
Yeah. There it is.
That click.
“Well, isn’t this romantic,“
I vaguely hear from somewhere behind me—Axe, who must’ve followed me—but I ignore his stupid ass completely, only having eyes for the exquisite man in front of me.
I press one last kiss against his mouth before I take a small step back, breath fogging between us as I grin, still a little breathless, adrenaline and relief tangling in my chest.
“I’m buying my sister a technology-for-dummies book,“
he mutters, voice rough.
A relieved chuckle escapes me, my shoulders finally dropping as the tension leaves my body, and for the first time in days, everything feels exactly where it’s supposed to be.
“Your bike in order?“
I ask, pushing closer again, leaving no space between us. He has to tip his head back just to hold my gaze. “Give me sixteen seconds to convince you to ride to Spain with me. My friends are riding back after a couple of weeks. You don’t have to stay the full two months. If there’s… nothing here—or, you know, because you have a life and work and all that shit—you head back with them.”
“To go all the way to Spain with a stranger?“
The corner of his mouth tugs up as he teases, but his eyes give him away—bright, curious, excited in a way that makes my stomach flip. “You think sixteen seconds is enough?”
“That’s all I ask.”
My top lip grazes his bottom one, barely there, before I brush my mouth just beneath it, feeling the hitch in his breath.
Shit, those lips.
So close to mine again it makes my head spin.
“All I want.”
“All you want?“
he rasps, sounding like a damn echo of my own thoughts, his hands fisting in my jacket now, pulling me closer instead of away. The world narrows to heat and breath and the solid feel of him against me.
The noise in my head dissolves into static.
“Yeah,“
I breathe, forehead resting against his, noses brushing, breaths tangling.
“Because those sixteen seconds…”
A beat. A promise.
“…are all I need to make you mine.”
His cheeks flush again, that beautiful, helpless honesty flashing across his face as I lean in and kiss him again—slower this time, softer, my lips lingering against his like I’m sealing the promise instead of stealing the moment.
His hands tighten in my jacket, breath hitching, and for those few seconds the whole street disappears. No river wind, no bikes, no waiting and grumbling Axe. Just warmth and relief and the quiet certainty settling between us.
When I finally pull back, our noses still brushing, his lips still barely grazing mine, he exhales a shaky laugh.
“I think I already am,“
he confesses softly when my sixteen seconds are up.
My smile widens despite myself, matching his, and I already know what he’s gonna say before I say the words.
“If that’s the case…“
I murmur, still close enough to feel his breath against mine, “then grab your bag and take that little leap with me?”
The way his lips curve, the way his fingers tighten in my jacket, is all the answer I need.