Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I scrub a hand over my face and huff. “You never need to be scared of me.”
Her lips part, soft sound caught in her throat. “I’m not,” she starts but then stops herself. “You’re just intense tonight, Kellum. Well, today at work too.”
“I don’t hit women. I don’t throw shit. I don’t yell just to bleed noise. If I’m saying something, doing something, it’s with purpose. I don’t take my anger out on someone else unless they earn it.” I sink onto the edge of the coffee table across from her, elbows on my knees, head bowed. “Sometimes I just feel trapped. Like the walls are too damn close and my skin is too tight. Today is one of those days. It’s not a you thing, it’s a me thing.”
I can’t believe I even let the words come out. I’ve never shared with anyone how things build up inside me.
She’s quiet. Then her voice comes low, soft, careful. “Well, how do we make you feel free?”
My head lifts. She’s looking at me like I’m not a problem to solve but a man to steady. No pity in it. Just her offering.
The static hums, shifts, sharp edges dulling under her words. Something in my chest does a stupid, painful thing. I reach across the space between us and grab her hand. Small, warm, steady.
“Come ride with me,” I offer, gravel in my voice.
Her eyes widen. For a second, hesitation flickers. But then she nods. No overthinking, no excuses. Just yes.
Blind trust.
We move. Out the door, into the cooling air. The bike waits, dark and gleaming under the porch light. I hand her the helmet. This time she doesn’t fumble. She straps it on herself, chin high.
I swing a leg over, settle into the seat, and when she climbs on behind me, her hands go right around my waist without me telling her.
Firm.
Certain.
Claiming her space.
The static eases the second I thumb the starter. The engine growls to life and the night takes us exactly as we are. The road swallows us in one clean bite. We are one with the evening and the machine.
I take the long way out of town, the one with fewer lights and more dark, where pine trees lean in like they’re trading secrets. Air’s cooler now that the heat bled off the day. It slips under my collar, fingers through my hair, scrubs the shop out of my lungs. Behind me, Kristen’s grip firms as I ease us through the first curve. Not panic. Not that clutching hold from the first time. She’s holding me like she means it—like I’m the thing you trust when the ground turns into blur.
“Lean with me,” I order over my shoulder when the next bend threatens to make a lesson out of us.
She answers by moving, no hesitation, her body matching mine by instinct instead of reacting in fear. It changes the whole ride. We fall in with the bike. Corners smooth out. Straightaways open up. We stop being parts and become one machine.
I keep the throttle steady, not revving, not babying it. You ride for the passenger when you’ve got one, teach them what they can do, but guard them with everything. Every time she exhales, I feel it through my back. Shaky at first. Then longer. Then easy. It gets into me until my own shoulders drop.
Past the city limits, the world flattens into fields stitched tight with ditches. The smell shifts—damp earth, cut hay, the faint iron of water sitting still too long. Dragonflies flicker through our headlight cone and stitch themselves away. The horizon throws a slash of brighter darkness where the sound waits. I point us toward it because water always calms my thoughts down to my soul.
We hit the high-rise bridge to cross into Emerald Isle. Far below, the water glistens. Salt rides the air and envelopes our bodies. Kristen presses closer in that instinct people have when something deep in the body recognizes a home it didn’t know it had.
I don’t talk. She doesn’t either. You don’t waste the road with words you don’t need.
On the far side of the bridge I swing us off, down toward the public ramp I like because the light’s bad and the view’s good. Gravel pops under us until I roll us to a stop at the end of the lot, front tire pointing out at nothing. I kill the engine. The sudden silence pops my ears.
The night here isn’t quiet. It’s layered. Marsh insects run their tiny chainsaws. Water whispers against pilings and tells the same story it told yesterday and will tell tomorrow, about coming and going and never being the same water twice.
Kristen’s chin rests between my shoulder blades for a second longer like she forgot she could stop. Then she lifts. I feel her breathe in deep, deeper, chasing salt. Her palms slide off my stomach slow, leaving heat through leather. I swing a leg and stand; she stays on the seat like the bike is a horse she’s befriending and doesn’t want to spook.