Chapter 24 #2
I don’t have a destination in mind. I just need to keep moving and let the bike and the night air clear my thoughts. He stays silent behind me, his warmth pressed against my back.
Finally, a sign catches my eye. A small roadside diner, half-hidden by overgrown trees and a weathered parking lot.
I pull into the empty lot, kill the engine, and yank off his helmet.
The sudden silence feels deafening after the roar of the Ducati, and I exhale, feeling the tension in my chest ease.
Diego slides off the bike first, holding out a hand to help me. I ignore it, climbing off on my own, but his touch lingers on my arm in a way I both hate and crave.
“This is where you wanted to go?”
He glances at the flickering neon sign of the diner.
“It’s quiet,” I say simply, shaking out my hair and tucking the helmet under my arm while my bag still sits cross-body over his chest.
Inside, the diner is exactly how I remember it.
Worn leather booths, linoleum floors, and a jukebox in the corner that hasn’t worked in years.
A lone waitress stands behind the counter, giving us a disinterested glance before returning to her crossword puzzle.
I slide into a booth in the back, motioning for him to follow.
He sits across from me, leaning back with an ease that irritates me. He’s too comfortable and self-assured. I hate how it makes me feel. Like I’m the one on edge chasing him for answers.
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises, Rossi?”
His eyes roam the bar, taking everything in as the waitress saunters over with sticky menus and worn silverware that’s seen better days. She grabs our drink orders, looking hard at Diego when he orders a beer, but decides against carding him.
“I believe you made a food poisoning comment at the go-kart track. I assume this is payback.”
There’s humor in his words.
A lightness that seeps into my chest, lifting my spirits slightly. I only slightly twist my lips, not wanting to entertain the pleasantries too long, as I need to get this over with for my own sanity.
“Tell me what really happened? I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why your buddy would say those things if they weren’t true.”
The humor slides from his face. He adjusts in the booth. His fingernails pick at a missing piece of linoleum from the tabletop.
“Because he’s a fucking idiot.”
“Diego.”
He leans forward, his elbows hitting the table slightly too hard, and rattles the silverware.
“Sorry. But Izzy, he is. He’s never been close to a woman. He’s superficial and . . . he’s . . . Hollister.”
He seems at a sudden loss for words to describe his friend’s behavior. The waitress reappears with our drinks, sets them on the table, then pulls a pen from behind her ear and flips her pad open to take our order. Neither of us has a chance to look at the menu, but I choose the first thing I see.
Diego takes a little longer, contemplating the greasy food choices with a slight frown and then deciding on a burger. He’s not wrong to hope we don’t get food poisoning. I can’t imagine the Health Department has been to this place and deemed it safe to continue serving food.
“Why are you even friends with him?” I ask when she walks away. He grimaces and takes a drink from his beer bottle, avoiding the question. “Doesn’t matter. I just wanted—”
“I was confused, Iz. It was after we had sex for the first time. You said it was a mistake and—”
“No, you said it was a mistake,” I accuse, not letting him off the hook.
He frowns, going back to picking at the tabletop.
“I didn’t know what to make of it. I was happy, but then you weren’t, and the whole blame thing.” He covers my hand when I try to object to that last part. “I’m not rehashing that. I just felt out of place, or I don’t know, but I needed someone to talk to.”
“Poor choice,” I mutter, removing my hand from his to sip my water.
“Yeah, probably, he wasn’t any help.”
He shifts in his seat again, unzipping his leather jacket and removing it to reveal a tight graphic tee that fits him like a second skin. My mouth waters until I mentally scold myself.
“You know how people speak from experience, and you just know it because it’s a bunch of shit that doesn’t even fit the situation? That’s what he was doing. That’s how he came up with me doing what I did with you for a grade. In what universe would that have ever worked?”
He shakes his head, answering for both of us. I don’t interrupt, listening to whatever he wants to get off his chest.
“Iz, sure, I was attracted to you that first day. Who the fuck wouldn’t be?
Look at you. But then I met my idol, who turned out to be your dad, and when you started translating his notes, I was blown away.
You’ve got everything going for you. Everything.
To be honest, I was a little intimidated.
Like, Diego, why would she like you back?
She’s her, and you’re you. But then, in the urgent care, when you reached for me, shit, I was done for. ”
He falls back in the booth, gazing away at the memory of that moment as if it’s happening all over again beside us. A softness overtakes his concentrated features, and then a glimpse of a smile.
“We agreed on complicated. I believed it. And fuck, isn’t it?
But you’ve seen my life, I can do complicated.
Hell, I thrive off complicated. Simple is boring.
Sneaking around. Trying not to get caught.
Sharing a secret that only you and I know .
. . sorry, sorry, poor choice of words. But it’s exhilarating to me. ”
He’s quick to correct himself, but the softness in his features remains. There is a genuineness about him that tugs at my heartstrings.
“I like what we have. Like what we’ve started. Fuck Holli, he won’t tell. I promise you he won’t.”
I stare at him, my fingers tightening around the cold glass of water. He’s rambling, the words tumbling out of him faster than he can think them through.
There’s a rawness there.
A truth I wasn’t prepared for.
It’s disarming.
He’s lowering my defenses and slowly converting me to see things from his point of view. The first time on the bike was messy between us, both having said the wrong things. While I processed it alone, he talked to a friend. I understand, even if I don’t like the friend he chose.
“Diego, it’s not just about your friend,” I say, cutting through the air between us. “It’s about trust. What else are you not telling me? Are there any other conversations or discussions about me or us that I need to be aware of? “
“I know,” he admits quietly, but those dark eyes stare so hard into me that I’m sure he can see the emotional lump in my throat. “I fucked up. I told another friend, Dominic, about your dad and you. But that’s it. Just two.”
“Two people know?!”
Our food arrives, and it’s the distraction I needed. This has somehow gone from bad to worse. Two people know our secret. Either could tell, or both could remain silent. It’s such a gamble that my hand trembles when reaching for my fork to dive into my chicken dish.
Diego watches me, his hands pressed flat against the table rather than picking up his burger to eat.
“I . . . I feel like I keep apologizing and am only spinning my wheels into a deeper hole. I’m new to all this. New to dating someone older and certainly out of my league.”
I glance at him, desperation coating his handsome features. I’ve never dated younger or crossed the line of being with a student. Both of us are out of our league.
“It’s new to me too, but I didn’t go around town blabbering it up about us.”
Letting him off the hook isn’t what this is about. It’s still about trust.
“Are you mad at me because I talked to my friends about you or because it’s out of your control?”
His accusation stings. I recoil, lowering my fork to the edge of my plate. He’s striking at the core of who I am. Control, planning, and perfect execution are my constants and safety zones. It feels like not only a criticism but an attack.
“I’m not trying to make this worse. However, I’m trying to understand what’s at the root of all this so I can fix it.
To do better in the future with you. Izzy, you have to know, it’s not because I didn’t care.
It’s because I cared too much. I didn’t know how to handle any of this. Us, you, and what you made me feel.”
I scoff lightly, but it’s more to mask the ache in my chest than out of disbelief.
“Diego, feelings aren’t excuses. They don’t fix things or make them better.”
He nods, jaw clenching.
“You’re right. They don’t. But actions do. And I’m here, sitting in this run-down diner, telling you everything because I want to fix it. I want to show you I can be better. That I want to be better, for you.”
He is here. Handing over his bike. His time. Basically, all sense of control to trust me. Am I unwilling to do the same or, at the least, hear him out?
“What did you tell this Dominic guy?”
“He’s a fan of your dad’s, having heard the legend of him at his time at Princeton before he transferred to Harvard. I told him his daughter is my professor and how hot she is.”
I scoff and push my hair out of my face, not feeling hot or attractive.
“He warned me not to mess with you. I don’t know much, but he has experience with older women and basically said I wasn’t mature enough for you.”
I arch a brow.
“You sure know how to pick your friends.”
Diego’s lips twitch into a faint smirk, though there’s steel in his eyes.
“Yeah, I guess they don’t sound so great, but they really are. Fun fact. We saw you once. It was the Saturday before school started. You blew past us, and we sort of chased you.”
His carefree smile eases the stress lines around his eyes and across his forehead. My lips twitch, and the memory floods back in vivid detail. Rarely, if ever, do bikers chase me. That night, I enjoyed the pursuit, having something to prove to myself about steadying my first-week new job jitters.