His words warm my chest.
I follow him to his bike and he reaches into the saddle bag attached to it, pulling out the spare helmet he bought me shortly after I moved in with him.
“You still keep the spare helmet in there?”
He holds it out to me. “It’s there if you ever needed it again.”
I take it. “That’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“Hopeful,” he corrects, putting his own back in place as he climbs back on the bike.
I put on my helmet and slide on behind him as the engine roars to life beneath us.
My arms reach around him, my fingers locking together against his abdomen, holding him tighter than I think I ever have before, enjoying having him this close to me again.
As we get closer to town, the rumble of the engine seems to get louder somehow as we swing around a left-hand bend. It’s then that something catches the corner of my eye. I glance over my shoulder as a dark grey van edges closer to us.
I feel Killian’s spine stiffen. He’s noticed the van behind us too.
“Hold on!” Killian calls to me, and I tighten my arms around his mid-section.
He shifts gear and we pick up speed, doing his best to shake off the van tailing us, only we don’t lose it. Whoever the driver is they’re determined, the gap between the bike and the van’s bumper growing smaller.
“Killian!” I scream as van swerves towards us, narrowly missing the bike’s back tyre.
Killian manages to keep control of the bike, but it’s short lived. The van swerves again only this time and it clips us. The bike snakes, the back-end weaving left to right as Killian tries to maintain control. The tail flicks out and I’m flung off the bike.
I land hard. My right shoulder takes the brunt of the impact. I roll and roll and roll across the rough road surface that bites into my skin, shredding it. I finally come to a stop, pain radiating through my body and I look up to see the tail-end of the van disappearing from sight.
I shift, pain slicing through my right side just below my rib cage. Killian lies a few meters down the road, barely moving, his bike on its side in a ditch on the opposite side of the road.
“Killian!” I rip off my helmet and push to my feet, wincing from the pain shooting through my ankle as I rush to his side.
I drop to my knees, reaching for his neck where I check for a pulse, relieved to find it strong and steady.
“Killian?”
“Kaia,” he groans, reaching out his hand to me.
I take his hand in mine. “Does anywhere hurt?”
“R—Ribs,” he replies breathlessly.
“I’m okay, we’re both going to be okay.”
I’m about to reach for my phone to call for an ambulance, but a truck approaches in the distance and I push to stand, flagging them down. As they near, I recognise theLawson’sgarage logo painted onto the side.
Beau pulls the tow-truck off onto the side of the road and jumps out. “Kaia?”
“Beau! It’s Killian! Hurry!”
Beau breaks into a run behind me as we reach Killian.
“What the fuck happened?”
“A van ran us off the road.”
Beau unclips Killian’s helmet and gently pulls it off. “You okay, man?” Killian doesn’t respond. “Fuck. We need to get him to the hospital. Help me get him into the truck.”
