Page 32 of Broken Breath
I cross my arms fast, folding in on myself to hide inside the fabric, silently praying the table’s edge did its job shielding the very obvious C-cup situationAllendefinitely isn’t supposed to have. I lift my chin and attempt to sound unfazed. “Problem with that?”
“Not at all.” Finn’s mouth twitches. “One of my favorites too.” He lets the break in conversation hang just long enough to make me squirm before he adds, “Looks like Dane’s the only Crews whose taste in music sucks. Your other cousin, Alaina? She’s into The Offspring too. Or at least, she was seven years ago.”
He remembers that?
Fuck. Fuck.Fuck.
“Yeah.” I keep my arms crossed, gripping my sides. “I got it from her.”
His eyes gleam, and he leans forward slightly, elbow on the table. “And she got it fromme. So ergo…” he taps the air between us, “… you got it from me too.You’re welcome.”
Then hewinks. Just a little one. Just enough to wreck my internal systems. My mouth opens, then closes, then I glare at the table as if it’s personally betrayed me.
“Have you ever gotten to ride with her? Alaina, I mean. She was something else.” He grins his damn grin. “She had the most distinct style. Like chaos with a purpose.” Heexhales a soft laugh. “I could tell her apart from anybody else with my eyes closed.”
His words settle over me like sunlight I’m not supposed to feel. I want to soak in it, but the air suddenly feels too thin.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“No. She quit before I started.”
“Pity.”
His answer hangs in the air like a trap. I cannot tell for the life of me whether he’s toying with me or knows exactly who I am and isreallytoying with me.
Finn sets his drink down and nods at the notebook on the table. “You always this intense about your setup?”
What does he even want?
I shrug, my brain short-circuiting. “I don’t like surprises.”
I’m not about to tell him that I wake up from nightmares with the taste of blood in my mouth and the urge to check my bike overwhelming me. How I’ve jolted out of sleep and crawled to my setup so I can run my fingers over every bolt, every screw, making sure no one’s touched it. How the crash didn’t just break my body but shattered every ounce of trust I had in my hardware. How it left me with this twitchy, gnawing need to control every damn variable.
Because that didn’t happen toAllen.
Theoretically, Allen can sleep without knowing exactly, beingabsolutely surethat he was the only one who laid a hand on his bike.
But maybe Allen is just as obsessive. Writes everything down. Checks every bolt, every cable, every angle. Twice. Three times. Memorizes torque specs like they’re mantras.
But the moment I, or Allen, stop, the second trust is placed in anyone’s hands but our own, we lose.
Ilose.
“Sure.” He arches a brow. “That’s why you’ve got pages and pages of handwritten notes in there like you’re logging scientific research, not bike maintenance.”
I bristle. “How’d you know?”
Finn has the decency to look sheepish. “I snooped while you were sleeping.”
“What the…”
“Relax.” He lifts his hands. “I didn’t read your diary. Just saw that you scribbled torque numbers and gear ratios in the margins like a total psychopath.”
“It’s more than maintenance,” I mutter, clutching the notebook tighter. “It’s memory.”
“Okay.” Finn doesn’t laugh or give me his usual smirk. He just leans in, curiosity sharpening the edges of his expression. “Butwhy?”
I glance at the pages, the messy handwriting, and at the little arrows I draw to remind myself what to double-check. I shouldn’t say it, but the words are already crawling up my throat.
