“Hey,” I said, stepping back to let them in. “Thanks for coming over.”
Xavier’s eyebrow arched slightly. “Ready to ride our dicks?”
“Jesus, be polite, X. At least kiss her hello.” Milo slapped Xavier’s ass, and he yelped and scurried out of the way, letting Milo step past him and lean in for a sweet, slow kiss. When he backed off, he smiled down at me.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said, beaming up at him.
“You called me Daddy.”
“Your kink is fucking weird,” Xavier muttered.
“Not what you say in bed when you’re letting me decide when you get to come,” Milo teased. “You want lunch, Junie, or some fun first?”
“I actually wanted to show you guys something.”
“We’re all for new positions,” Milo said with a grin, following Xavier into my living room. Then he spotted the papers spread across my coffee table, the laptop open to CAD software. “Whoa, what’s all this?”
“My latest project at work,” I said, gesturing for them to sit down. “I’ve been assigned to assess Heleonix’s electric motorcycle prototype. Test riders hate it, but their feedback is all subjective, and I don’t know what any of it means. That’s what I wanted to show you.”
Milo tilted his head. “I thought you were going to show us your boobs! Wait, is that what the chicken emoji meant?”
My eyes darted around the room. “Um. Yes. That is what it meant.”
Xavier rolled out one of the schematic drawings, his expression shifting from playful to focused in an instant. He studied the drawing, fingers tracing the lines of the motor housing. “Is this the new Helios bike? The one they’re claiming will revolutionize the industry?”
I nodded, watching his face. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Everyone in the bike world has heard of it,” Milo said, peering over Xavier’s shoulder at the schematic. “Big claims, lots of hype, but no one I know who’s ridden it has anything good to say.”
“Yep, but the feedback makes no sense to me,” I said as I pulled out the stack of feedback forms. “Look at these comments. ‘No soul.’ ‘Feels synthetic.’ ‘Disconnected.’ Like, how do I engineer a bike with soul?”
Xavier set down the schematic, turning to me. “Maybe you need to take a step back and try to understand bike culture first, to understand the reason we ride. A motorcycle isn’t just transportation. It’s not just acceleration and top speed and range.”
“It’s freedom,” Milo added, his voice soft but passionate. “It’s connection—to the road, to the machine, to something... primal.”
“But how does primal translate into engineering concepts?” I asked.
“Maybe that’s the problem. You’re just looking at the math. A motorcycle isn’t something you understand with your brain. It’s something you feel.”
Xavier’s eyes narrowed, studying me with the intensity that always made me feel like he could see straight through me. “You’ve never been on a bike before, have you?”
I shook my head. “No. Is it that obvious?”
Milo laughed, the sound warm and without mockery. “The way you talk about motorcycles like they’re just machines? Yeah, it’s pretty obvious.”
Something clicked in my brain. This was a puzzle—a translation problem between two languages I wanted to become fluent in. Engineering was a language I was fluent in. But I had no experience with their language; the culture and slang of bikers.
“What do you think, Junie? Ready to ride with us?” Milo asked, his smile encouraging. “We’ll take it easy. Promise.”
“I don’t have a helmet,” I said, grasping for practical objections.
“Good call. First stop, bike shop,” Milo said. “Then we ride.”
“Shop today. Ride tomorrow,” I said. “Both on the same day is too much.”NEWCHAPTERFinding a motorcycle jacket when you had sensory issues was a challenge, but I loved the one that I settled on. With the thick leather and armor, it was heavy, almost like walking around in a weighted blanket. But it had a stylish cut that was still pretty flattering, I thought. Working up the courage to get on the back of Xavier’s motorcycle was another thing entirely. I’d spent all morning trying to think of things that would help this bo well. I had earplugs in my pocket in case it was too loud, and a heavy pair of gloves in case my hands got cold. I hadn’t been able to find a pair of motorcycle pants, though I sort of wanted them, so I was wearing jeans and my Doc Martins.
I eyed the motorcycles. “Do I need to learn to ride to really understand this?”
Xavier shook his head. “Riding backpack will give you a good feel for it. We can teach you to ride if you want, but that’ll take a lot longer.”“Backpack?” “Pillion. As a passenger,” Milo clarified, patting the pad behind his seat on the motorcycle. “It’s a joke based on the way the passenger sits.”
