Chapter 2
FIRST GEAR
TANK
Iwas in the garage before sunrise, hands deep in the Shovelhead's guts, trying to outwork the strange restlessness that had followed me out of sleep.
The clubhouse was quiet at this hour—that particular stillness that only existed in the space between night and morning, when even the most dedicated insomniacs had finally surrendered to exhaustion.
Irish wouldn't surface until someone made coffee.
Ghost was probably still unconscious, sprawled across his bed the way only twenty-three-year-olds could manage.
Even the birds hadn't started yet—just the soft tick of cooling metal from the bikes outside and the distant hum of the highway, carrying early truckers toward destinations that had nothing to do with us.
I liked this time. The stillness before the world remembered to be complicated.
The transmission was giving me trouble. I'd sourced the parts from a guy in Nevada who swore they were period-correct, but something wasn't seating right, a misalignment I could feel more than see.
I adjusted my grip on the shaft, rotated it a quarter-turn, felt the gears resist and then finally catch with a satisfying click.
Small victories. Some days, that was all you got.
"You're here early."
Tyler stood in the garage doorway, two cups of coffee in his hands, steam curling into the cool morning air. He was dressed simply—jeans, a gray henley with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows—and his hair was still damp from a shower, darker than usual, almost black in the low light.
"Could say the same about you."
"Couldn't sleep." He crossed the concrete floor, footsteps quiet, and held out one of the cups. "Figured you might be here."
I took the coffee. It was hot, strong, made the way I liked it—black, no sugar, the kind of brew that could strip paint if you let it sit too long. Which meant he'd been paying attention, or he'd asked someone.
"Thanks."
Tyler nodded and settled onto the same overturned crate he'd used yesterday, wrapping both hands around his own cup like he needed the warmth. The morning was cool, but not that cool. Something else was keeping him cold.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds the occasional clink of my tools and the slow brightening of the sky outside.
It should have been awkward—two men who barely knew each other, sharing space without speaking—but it wasn't. Tyler had a way of being present without demanding anything, and I found I didn't mind the company.
"I've been thinking about what you said." His voice broke the silence, quiet but steady. "About the Shovelhead. The rebuild."
"What about it?"
"You said I should learn. About engines." He paused, took a sip of coffee, and I watched his throat work as he swallowed. "Did you mean it?"
I turned back to the transmission, giving my hands something to do. "Wouldn't have said it if I didn't."
"Then I'd like to take you up on it." Another pause. "If the offer's still open."
It was. "Pull up a crate. I'll show you what I'm working on."
He did. And for the next hour, I walked him through the basics of a four-speed transmission—how the gears engaged, why synchronization mattered, what happened when you forced a shift instead of letting it find its own rhythm.
He listened with that focused attention I was starting to recognize, asking questions that showed he was actually processing the information instead of just nodding along.
The sun rose while we worked, spilling through the open bay doors and painting the garage floor in long golden rectangles.
Dust motes drifted through the light like lazy thoughts.
Somewhere in the clubhouse, a door opened and closed—Irish, probably, stumbling toward the coffee maker with the single-minded determination of the recently awakened.
"This is different than I expected." Tyler set down his empty cup, his voice thoughtful.
"What is?"
"This." He gestured vaguely at the garage, the bike, me. "Sitting here, learning about transmissions. It feels..." He searched for the word. "Normal. Like something a person would just do."
"Is that bad?"
"No. It's—" He stopped, shook his head. "I spent eight months pretending to be someone else.
Before that, four years undercover with Cross.
Normal stopped meaning anything a long time ago.
" He looked at the transmission, then at me.
"I forgot what it felt like. To just be somewhere, doing something, without calculating every angle. "
Words weren't my strong suit. Never had been. So I just handed him a socket wrench and pointed at the bolt that needed tightening.
He took it. His fingers brushed mine in the exchange, brief and incidental, and neither of us acknowledged it.
"You know what would help?" The words came out before I'd fully decided to say them.
"What?"
"Learning to ride."
Tyler's hands stilled on the wrench. He looked up, something unreadable flickering through his expression. "You'd teach me?"
"You're going to be around the club. Makes sense you should know how to handle a bike." The reasoning was practical. Sound. "Can't always rely on a cage to get where you're going."
"I've never—" He stopped, started again. "I don't even know where to begin."
"You begin as a passenger. Learn how the bike moves before you try to control it.
" I wiped my hands on a rag, already calculating logistics.
"We'll go out this morning. You'll ride behind me, get a feel for the balance, the lean.
Tomorrow, I'll put you on the training Sportster and we'll work on basics. "
Tyler was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful, controlled, like he was handling something fragile. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why would you do this for me?"
"Because you should know how to ride. That's it."
It was. It had to be.
"Okay." Something shifted in his expression—not quite a smile, but close. "Okay. When do we start?"
I stood, stretched the kinks out of my back, and nodded toward the lot. "Now. Go find a helmet. Second cabinet in the equipment room, bottom shelf. Should be one that fits."
He went. I watched him cross the lot, moving with that careful deliberation that seemed permanently wired into his body, and then I went to prep my bike.
The morning had warmed by the time we rolled out, the sun climbing toward a sky so blue it looked painted. I'd chosen a route that wound through the foothills—good curves, light traffic, enough variation to give Tyler a real sense of how a bike handled different terrain.
He'd found a helmet that fit, matte black, unadorned. He looked different with it on—anonymous, almost. Like anyone else who might climb onto the back of a Harley.
"Rules." I turned to face him before we mounted. "You hold on to me, not the bike. When I lean, you lean with me—don't fight it, don't try to stay upright. Keep your feet on the pegs, your knees against my thighs. And if something goes wrong, you do exactly what I tell you, no questions. Clear?"
"Clear."
"Good. Get on."
He swung his leg over the seat behind me, settling into position with more grace than I'd expected from someone who'd never ridden. His hands found my waist, fingers curling into the leather of my cut, and I felt the heat of his body against my back even through the layers between us.
"Relax. You're stiff as a board. The bike's going to move—you need to move with it."
I felt him exhale, felt some of the tension drain from his grip. Not all of it, but enough.
"Better. Hold on."
I kicked the engine to life.
The Harley rumbled beneath us, a deep, rolling growl that vibrated up through the frame and into our bodies. I felt Tyler's hands tighten involuntarily, then relax again as he adjusted to the sensation. Good instincts. Faster learner than I'd expected.
I eased us out of the lot and onto the access road, keeping it slow, letting him acclimate to the movement. The bike swayed gently beneath us as we navigated the first gentle curves, and I felt Tyler shifting his weight, trying to find the rhythm.
"Don't think about it," I called back over my shoulder. "Just feel. Let your body follow mine."
We hit the main road and I opened the throttle, smooth and steady. The acceleration pressed Tyler against my back, his chest flush with my shoulders, his thighs tightening against mine as the wind began to build around us.
The foothills rose ahead, golden-brown and studded with scrub oak, the road winding through them like a gray ribbon unspooled across the landscape. I took the first curve at an easy angle, feeling Tyler lean with me, his body responding to the shift in balance without resistance.
Good. Very good.
The road climbed. The curves tightened. I pushed the speed higher, not dangerous, not reckless, but enough to feel the engine working beneath us, enough to let the wind become a presence rather than a whisper.
Tyler's grip had steadied now, his hands no longer clutching but simply holding, trusting the bike, trusting me. I could feel his breathing against my back—deep, measured, the rhythm of someone who'd trained themselves to stay calm under pressure.
We crested a ridge and the valley opened below us, a patchwork of farms and orchards and the distant glitter of the reservoir. The road dropped in a long, sweeping descent, curves banking left and right in lazy switchbacks that begged to be taken fast.
I gave in to the invitation.
The throttle opened under my hand and the Harley surged forward, engine roaring, the world narrowing to asphalt and motion and the rush of air that tore at our clothes and screamed past our helmets.
I leaned into the first curve and felt Tyler follow—perfectly synced now, his body an extension of mine, both of us tilting toward the pavement as the bike carved its arc through space.