This is just how I am.
Hopefully she likes how I am. If she doesn’t, well, let’s be honest. I’d change everything about myself for that woman. But I don’t want to have to. I want her to like me for me, as cheesy as that is.
“Lark?” I call into my helmet, loud enough to be heard over the wind noise. At nearly ninety miles an hour, the wind is surprisingly deafening, even with the helmet.
She whips her head around, looking for the source of the voice in her own helmet. When she spots me, she stares at my bike for a long moment before facing forward and hesitantly responding. “Colt?”
Opening the throttle, I speed up until I’m almost even with her. “Close but, no, it’s Remy. I can see why you’re confusedwhen I must’ve jacked Colt’s helmet by accident. I know we’ve never connected our helmets. Although, we should totally fix that.”
“Oh, sorry.” Her soft voice crackles through the speaker. “Um, nice to see you?”
I chuckle at how awkward she sounds. “You, too, love. So, whatcha up to tonight?”
I do happy wobbles as I wait for her to answer, enjoying talking to her probably a little too much. She glances over at me and laughs at my weaving around.
I can’t help the stupid grin plastered to my face at making her laugh. It feels good to be causing joy instead of frustration, like I usually do.
She shrugs, the movement a little stiff in all her gear. “Not much. Just riding around.”
“Well, in that case, you wanna come with me to a stunt meet? You can watch people do all sorts of cool tricks, and I can even teach you some if you want.” I waggle my eyebrows at her before realizing she can’t see it with my tinted face shield.
While humans need to change to a clear visor at night, I can see perfectly fine with my smoky one. And I’m way too lazy to fuck with swapping visors daily, so I just leave the darkened one on twenty-four seven.
She’s silent for long enough that I worry I said something wrong. When she does eventually respond, she sounds almost wistful. “That sounds fun, but I don’t wanna impose. I’m sure you’re meeting up with friends, and I doubt you want a random girl tagging along and making things weird.”
She’s right that I’ll be meeting some buddies from outside the valor there. But I couldn’t care less about them if it means I get to spend time with her. Lark will always come first.
And she must’ve not been listening to anything I said last night if she thinks she’s a random girl to me. We’d also neverbring a random onto our valor’s lands, around our siblings, or to meet our parents. She means a hell of a lot more to us than she apparently realizes.
Instead of saying any of that, I try to reassure her in a way that won’t have her freaking out or thinking I’m too much. “You aren’t imposing,alouette. It’s the more the merrier at these meets.”
After a long pause, she nods. With her helmet on, it makes her look like a cute bobblehead. “Then, yeah, I’d love to. Where is it?”
I do a little victory dance on my bike at her agreeing that has her laughing again. “Awesome! It’s in a warehouse district on the outskirts of Willow Bend. You good just following me? Otherwise, we can pull over, and I’ll give you the address.”
“I’m good following behind you. As long you can restrain yourself from smoking me, that is,” she teases.
“I’m riding one of my stunting 600s, so no smoking happening tonight.”
“You can still leave me in the dust on a similar displacement bike if you’re skilled enough. And you seem like you know what you’re doing with bikes.”
I preen at her praise, but I have to disagree. “I focus on stunting, not going fast. While I can out stunt any of the guys, Hal and Azrael will both hand my ass to me on the track."
“Hmm, not sure I believe that, but I guess I’ll take your word for it.”
My chest puffs up in pride at her thinking I’m a better rider than Azrael and Hal, even if she’s wrong. It’s rare anyone thinks I’m good at anything, really, so I’m going to soak up her confidence in me while it lasts.
We keep the conversation light as we ride fifteen minutes to the warehouse district. When we pull off the highway, we wind through streets lined with silent warehouses that have seenbetter days. While most of the warehouses are operational still, the area is abandoned by nighttime.
I feel the thumping bass of the music in my chest before I see the meetup. I smile when I finally see the chaos of the event—hundreds of bikes, swarms of shifters and other supernaturals, music so loud I can barely hear my own thoughts, and under glow illuminating everything in shades of blue, purple, and green.
“Wow,” Lark breathes as she gets a good look at the barely organized chaos. “It’s likeFast and Furiousbut with bikes.”
I snort, but she’s not wrong. It does look like something out of a movie, with the glowing bikes and people crammed into every available square inch of the massive parking lot. Leading us around the outside of the meet, I find a spot big enough for both of our bikes before parking.
After Lark maneuvers into the space, I turn off my bike and climb off. Walking over to Lark, I offer her a hand to help her off hers. She hesitates for a moment before placing her palm in mine and letting me steady her as she dismounts.
“Thanks,” she mumbles into the comms before shutting it off and taking off her helmet. I do the same.
