Chapter 2
Avery
Rain hammered the roof of Avery’s dead car, drowning out everything except the sound of her own uneven breathing. She wiped her cheeks with trembling fingers, but the tears kept coming, quiet and exhausted, the kind that didn’t stop just because she wanted them to.
She unhooked her belt and then pressed her forehead to the steering wheel again.
“Please,” she whispered to no one. “Just… not tonight.”
But the universe didn’t care.
Avery’s phone buzzed against the console.
She ignored it at first. She didn’t have the energy for anything else tonight—not another problem, not another reminder of how badly everything had fallen apart.
But it buzzed again.
And again.
Avery squeezed her eyes shut. Her stomach twisted. She already knew who it was. Ryan had a way of showing up exactly when she was weakest, like he could smell it through the damn phone.
With a shaking breath, she reached for the screen.
Ryan: Avery, come on. Can we talk?
Another message appeared before she could blink.
Ryan: None of it meant anything. You know that. You always overreact.
Her chest tightened.
Typical. Typical of him to say that. He always did, turning his choices into her fault, twisting her hurt into something unreasonable, something dramatic, something she should apologize for.
Another buzz.
Ryan: Just come home. We can fix this. I love you. You know I do.
Avery’s throat burned.
He didn’t love her. He loved the version of her who didn’t question him. The one who forgave too easily. The one who shrank herself to keep the peace. The one who believed him when he said the cheating was a mistake, or the lying was stress, or the distance was her imagination.
She wasn’t that girl anymore.
Her hand trembled as she stared at the messages, at the familiar cycle, the familiar pull, the familiar ache of wanting to believe him even when she knew better.
A tear slid down her cheek.
“No,” she whispered.
Not this time.
With a steadying breath, she tapped the screen.
Block Contact. Block Caller. Delete Thread.
The silence that followed was immediate.
Avery set the phone facedown on the passenger seat, her breath shaking out of her like she’d been holding it for years.
For the first time since she’d left him, she felt something like relief.
Something like freedom.
She wiped her cheeks again, trying to steady herself.
The low growl of a motorcycle cut through the storm.
Avery froze.
The sound grew louder, deeper, vibrating through the pavement and straight into her bones. A single headlight flared behind her, bright enough to cast her shadow across the dashboard.
Her pulse stumbled.
A motorcycle engine shouldn’t have been out in weather like this. No one rode in a downpour unless they had to.
The headlight appeared behind her, slicing through the sheets of rain. The bike slowed, tires hissing on wet pavement, like the rider had been on the road long before the storm rolled in. The engine shut off. Silence fell, thick and heavy and expectant. Then boots hit the pavement.
Slow. Measured. Certain.
Avery’s breath caught in her throat.
She turned.
And the world stopped.
Seven years hadn’t erased the way he moved. Even through the rain-blurred glass, she knew that silhouette before she ever saw his face. Noah Carter stepped out of the rain like a ghost she’d never stopped missing.
Except he wasn’t the boy she remembered.
He was taller now. Broad shoulders filling out the black leather cut clinging to his rain-soaked frame.
His hair was shorter, darker, plastered to his forehead.
His jaw was sharper, dusted with stubble.
Tattoos curled over his forearms, disappearing beneath the leather.
A faint scar cut through his eyebrow, another along his jawline.
His eyes, those storm-gray eyes she’d memorized at thirteen, were harder now. Sharper. Older. Like he’d seen things that carved pieces out of him.
He looked like a man who’d lived a lifetime in the seven years she’d been gone.
He looked furious.
He stopped at her door, rain dripping from his hair, breath harsh in the cold air.
“Avery.” Her name wasn’t a greeting. It was a wound. A verdict.
Her throat tightened. “H-hi.”
“Seven years.” His voice was low, rough, scraped raw. “Seven damn years.”
She flinched. “I didn’t… I wasn’t… Noah, I…”
“Don’t.” He closed his eyes for a second, like the sound of his own name hurt. “Just… don’t.”
Before she could react, he opened her car door and reached for her.
“Noah…”
He didn’t listen. He never had when she was hurting.
His arms slid under her knees and behind her back, lifting her like she weighed nothing. The air in her lungs stalled as her body pressed against his, solid muscle, heat, leather, rain. The scent of him hit her next: smoke, storm, and something darker she didn’t recognize.
He carried her through the rain toward Sweet Treats, jaw clenched, eyes forward, like he’d been waiting seven years for this moment and hated every second of it.
Inside, he kicked the door shut behind them. The bakery was dark, dusty, and cold. The air smelled like old flour and forgotten memories. But he didn’t put her down until he reached the counter.
Only then did she feel the weight of the leather cut he shrugged off and wrapped around her shoulders.
It was warm. Heavy. His.
Her gaze dropped to the patches.
BLOODLINE SAINTS MC curved across the top. A skull with wings—one angelic, one dark—spread across the back. And on the front, over the heart:
VP ROOK
Her breath stuttered.
Vice President. Of a motorcycle club. With a road name she’d never heard.
She looked up at him, heart pounding. “Noah… what is this?”
He didn’t answer right away.
He just stood there, rain dripping from his hair, chest rising and falling like he was trying to breathe through something sharp.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he finally said, voice tight.
But she couldn’t look away from the cut. From the life stitched into the leather. From the man he’d become without her.
“You’re in a motorcycle club,” she whispered.
He didn’t deny it.
He didn’t explain it.
He just stared at her like she was the last thing he expected to see and the first thing he’d never stopped wanting.
Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the bakery for a split second, dust motes floating in the air, the faded paint on the walls, the ghost of her childhood lingering in every corner.
And Noah.
Standing in the middle of Sweet Treats like a storm she’d never learned how to weather.
Her voice trembled. “You’re… different.”
His jaw flexed. “So are you.”
She swallowed hard. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
“I didn’t think you’d come back.”
The words hung between them, sharp enough to cut. Avery felt them settle in her chest, heavy and familiar, like the echo of every choice she’d made since the day she left him standing on that curb.
Seven years of pretending she didn’t wonder about him. Seven years of telling herself he’d moved on, grown up, outgrown her. Seven years of trying not to picture him in this town, in this bakery, in any life that didn’t include her.
And now he was standing three feet away, rain dripping from his hair, looking at her like she was a ghost he wasn’t sure he wanted back.
Her fingers curled tighter into the leather of his cut. The weight of it pressed into her palms, warm from his body, smelling like smoke and rain and something she remembered too well. It felt wrong on her shoulders. Too big. Too intimate. Too much like a promise she didn’t deserve.
She wasn’t ready for any of this. Not the town. Not the memories. Not him.
Especially not him.
Noah didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched her with eyes that held seven years of silence and something sharper, hurt, maybe. Or anger. Or the kind of disappointment that made her stomach twist.
The storm cracked outside, a flash of white slicing through the bakery windows. Dust floated in the air. The old counters creaked. Everything looked exactly the same, and nothing felt the same at all.
Noah shifted, like he felt her looking. His jaw worked, a muscle ticking hard beneath his skin. For a second — one fragile, impossible second — it felt like he might say something. His lips parted, eyes flicking over her face like he was searching for the right words.
Avery opened her mouth too, the beginning of his name on her tongue.
But whatever lived in his eyes shuttered fast. He looked away, shoulders tightening, the moment collapsing between them before it ever had a chance to become anything.
The silence that followed was sharp enough to bruise.
He exhaled slowly, the sound low and rough. “Get some rest,” he said, voice quieter than the rain. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
Avery didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her voice felt trapped somewhere behind her ribs.
Instead, she reached up, fingers trembling, and slipped the cut from her shoulders. The weight of it had settled around her like a shield, but now it felt like something else, like a truth she wasn’t ready to wear.
She held it out to him, her hands unsteady, her heart worse.
No words. No explanation. Just distance she didn’t know how to close.
Noah stared at the cut. At her. At the space between them that used to be small enough to step across. His jaw tightened, something flickering in his eyes, something she didn’t have the courage to name.
Then he took it.
His fingers brushed hers. Brief. Electric. Final. A spark and a goodbye in the same breath.
And when he turned away, the silence he left behind felt colder than the storm.