Page 76 of Why Not Us?

I wave at the wall of helmets. “Do you think there’s one that has a bit more colour?”

Her smirk becomes a grin. “No.”

A store associate approaches us. “Can I help you with something?” she asks.

“My girlfriend needs her own gear,” I say, loving the way Adalie looks at me when I say that. “She’s been borrowing some, but we need to get her stuff that fits right.”

“Absolutely. What gear were you thinking?” she asks me.

“Helmet, jacket, and gloves.”

She turns to Adalie. “I see you have a helmet there. Are you looking for that style?”

Adalie shrugs. “I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I just want it to be pretty.”

The associate laughs. “I’m sure we can find something. Come on.”

They chat for a bit, going over the different styles and sizes of helmets. She tries a couple on and decides on a black one with a neon purple and pink paint-splatter pattern. We move to the gloves, and she chooses a pair that she says is burgundy but looks kind of red to me. Unfortunately, she can’t decide on a jacket.

“I know I should get one, but I don’t like any of these,” she says. “And they’re all expensive. I don’t want to spend this much on something I don’t like.”

“We still have Taylor’s old one.” I gesture to the jacket she’s wearing. “We can check out a few more places for something you like better.”

“What’s upstairs?”

“Bikes.”

She grins up at me. “Can we go see?”

That smile gets me every time. I can’t help kissing her before answering. “Why? You thinking of getting your own? Don’t want to ride with me anymore?”

“I just want to look.”

We give her helmet and gloves to the associate to hold at the register and I wrap my arm around her waist, matching her pace up the stairs.

“Whoa,” she says when we reach the upper floor. “There’s so many up here. This one is kind of like Taylor’s bike.” She points to a Honda.

I nod. “It’s a roadster like his. But Taylor rides a BMW. They don’t sell those here.”

She looks around the showroom. “They don’t sell Harleys either.”

“They wouldn’t. The Harley dealership is across the parking lot.”

“Would you ever ride something other than a Harley?” She skims her fingers along the seat of a bike before moving to the next one.

“Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“My dad rode a Harley. It makes me feel closer to him, I guess.”

Over the last several weeks of us talking every night, I’ve opened up to her about losing my dad and how much it hurt me. I don’t think I’d realized how much until I started talking about it.

She looks up at me with a soft smile. “That’s sweet.”

“I am not a sweet man,” I tell her, shaking my head.

She turns her body into mine, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Yes, you are.” She rises to her toes and kisses me, but before I can really kiss her back, she continues down the line of bikes. “Do they sell jackets at the Harley store?”

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