“Okay?”
“For you to touch me, yes. For you to keep jittering,no.”
The corner of his lips tip up and his palm covers my fist.
“Sor—” he clears his throat when I lift a brow. “I’m just antsy, bubbles. Ready to get the fuck out of here. Get you on a bike.”
I want to lie and tell him I don’t want that. So maybe he’ll just take us home and crash like he clearly needs to, but there’s something about the thought that makes my chest tighten up.
Last time I rode by myself.
I want to see if I can do it again. I wanthimto see me do it.
Something in his eyes lightens and my stomach flips.
“We don’t have to do that,” I whisper thickly anyway but he’s already nodding.
“Yeah, we do.”
The roar of enginesvibrating the ground has become almost … familiar.
With a race already in progress and the scent of burning oil heavy in the air, Tristen and I take our time getting his bike off the back of the truck.
He seems to be sorer than he’s letting on, all of his stalled movements accompanied by little winces and a sweat blooming on his brow.
But when he hops back into the bed and starts unstrapping Hatley’s bike, my stomach twists.
“What are you doing?”
He smirks. “You can’t have all the fun, bubbles.”
My brows pinch as I watch his tattooed fingers work the restraints until the bike is free and he’s sitting on top of it.
I pull the strings of my hood, tightening it around my face.
The sudden deep whir of his engine startles me but when he walks the bike forward, up to where the front tire meets the two by six we’ve been using as a ramp, my stomach cramps.
“Um, Tristen?” It comes out too weak to be heard over the rumble around us. Not that I’m sure I’d be able to stop him judging by the deep scowl of concentration already on his face as he inches forward, then revs the bike and takes off down the wooden plank.
My heart lurches when it slips and for a moment, Tristen is airborne.
But then he’s back on land, his tires kicking up dirt and gravel as he goes.
In the blink of an eye, he’s taking off, pulling away from me, and I fumble getting my own bike started to follow after him.
I’m so much slower, and when I finally catch up to him, he’s tearing down a path that leads away from the track, into the tree line. It’s bumpy and narrow, some patches of it lined only with a few rocks to identify where the tires are supposed to be.
When the roots in the ground jut out and make getting over them nearly impossible, I try to go around. I end up at the bottom of a hill I would almost consider a mountain with how steep its incline is, yet there’s Tristen, scaling the side of it.
My heart thunders when he slips around loosening rock, a dirt cloud following close behind him like a cape.
It’s … mesmerizing to watch.
How the hell does he do that?
There’s enough of a straightaway for him to gain speed, thebrrrrgggfrom the bike echoing off the landscape and landing right in my stomach as he aims for the peak of the hill.
He goes over it, jumping the bike into the air and throws the back end of it almost all the way sideways.
