Page 12 of Broken Breath (Rogue Riders Duet #1)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Alaina

The sun is high over Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada. Finn’s home base. The track is still somewhat slick with yesterday’s rain, but the rocks have dried into silver teeth, waiting to bite. It’s practice day, and we’ve been here for hours, so I already know my line for the race on Sunday.

But Dane and Finn? They’re obsessing.

I sit cross-legged at the edge of the woods, my bike resting beside me, tires dusted with the trail’s chalky earth. My gloves lie next to my helmet on my other side, abandoned on the grass.

I pull at a patch of wildflowers—purple asters, Queen Anne’s lace, cosmos, blue cornflowers, and something pink I don’t know the name of—and start threading them into a chain.

Playing with wildflowers always calms me when I have to wait for the idiots. If I weren’t braiding petals and stems, I’d be pacing, itching to ride again to prove to the boys that overthinking is their weakness.

“Al!” Dane’s voice echoes from up the hill. “You watching this? You have to tell us who’s faster. ”

I look up just in time to see him and Finn take the same section, one after the other.

Dane’s line is bold. He bunny hops the still-slick root section, foot out like he’s racing motocross. Finn takes a tighter angle, using the banked turn like a slingshot. They both rip through it beautifully, but I already know my answer.

“You’re both slow,” I call out, biting down a smile.

Dane skids to a halt next to me. “Bullshit.”

I shrug, looping another flower into my makeshift crown. “I’m just saying, you’re riding like old men who don’t want to fall and break a hip.”

Dane looks legitimately offended, and I manage to hold back a snort.

God, I love fucking with them.

“She’s got jokes today,” Finn says with a laugh, coasting in with a casual grace before dropping his bike beside mine.

“I already have my line.” I smirk, threading in another flower. “You would, too, if you’d stop micromanaging every root.”

“Remind me who’s got three overall World Cup wins, Speedbump?” Dane flops down next to me, pulling off his gloves with a snap.

“Hear, hear.” Finn chuckles, pulling off his helmet at the same time Dane does.

“Touché.” I grin, just as Dane leans over and steals my nose like I’m a five-year-old. I swat at him, but he’s already dodging.

“What are you doing there?” Finn drops to the ground on my other side. Close. Too close. His shoulder brushes mine as he leans in to get a better look. “Doesn’t look like your usual bracelets.”

“A crown.” I lift the half-finished loop. “One day, I’ll wear this and gold at the same time.”

“Gonna be hard to race with that on your helmet.” Finn chuckles.

“Not if I glue it on.” I grin, already imagining it.

“You’d really race with a damn flower crown on your helmet?” Dane gives me his patented, exasperated big-brother look.

“If it made you two ride faster trying to catch me? Hell yeah.” I finish off the crown, closing the circle before holding it up. “I see a future in flower crowns and first-place trophies.”

Dane reaches for the band of flowers. “You making us one too?”

“No.” I swat at him again. “You don’t deserve it. You both rode like garbage.”

“Then show us how it’s done, baby girl.” Finn nudges my shoulder, a full grin in place.

I look away from him just in time to catch a rider coming down the track in front of us with a wobbly line and bad entry.

Amateur.

“Already did.” I nod toward the trail. “You just didn’t see me.”

“Impossible,” Finn simply says, making me glance at him again.

His gaze catches mine, and for a moment, gravity shifts.

My fingers falter on the flower stem, my breath catching in a way that feels too noticeable.

“And you’re gonna win everything,” he adds, like it’s not up for debate. “Crown and all.”

Fuck.

Stop crushing, Alaina.

Dane’s eyes flick between us, lingering for a second too long. He doesn’t say anything, but the corners of his mouth flatten.

I clear my tight throat and hold my finished flower crown out to Finn. “Flattery still won’t make me give you this one.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He takes it anyway and sets it gently on my head in an informal coronation. “I’ll see you wearing it on the podium.”

A loud thud jolts me awake.

I lift my head from the table, my cheek peeling off the vinyl with a sticky shhk .

Pain lances through my spine as I move, my hip screaming at me for sleeping curled up around myself.

For a split second, I don’t know where I am, caught somewhere between a dream and reality.

Then the rattling hum of the road and the familiar creaks of the bus register.

Right. Race circuit. Somewhere on a mountain road between Scotland and Poland, chasing the next muddy slope we’re supposed to throw ourselves down with a smile and a death wish.

I shift in my seat, biting down on a groan as my hip pops and my spine realigns with a dull crack. Everything hurts. Already. Still. Always.

My eyes flick to the notebook in front of me. It’s crumpled, smudged, and bent under the weight of my sleep-heavy arm. I was logging everything I did to my bike last night. Every bolt, cable, and tiny adjustment so I could go over it all again in my head.

There’s no room for error. The last time I left my bike unattended, it cost me everything, and thanks to Dane doing exactly that, I ended up tearing it apart and putting it back together in the freezing dark because I had to.

Which was how I found myself sitting on the cold ground beside Mason Payne, way too close to someone who looks at me like he sees straight through my cracks .

He never even said a word.

“Good morning, sunshine.” The greeting comes from beside me, and I startle.

Fuck.

I shove the memory down and lock it away for later.

I can’t think about one pro rider when another one is standing right in front of me, especially not when this one is Finn Greer.

The smug, long-limbed, snack-hunting demigod is framed by the glow of the refrigerator light as he casually steals one of my energy drinks.

His shirt pulls across his shoulders in a way that should be illegal as he shuts the refrigerator door with his hip and turns to me with a slow, amused smile.

“Caught you drooling,” Finn teases, cracking open the can with a hiss.

I wipe my mouth automatically, then freeze when I see his shit-eating grin.

“Ha-ha.” Idiot.

He chuckles and drops onto the bench across from me, stretching his long legs out under the table, brushing mine. Electricity flares in my body. Or annoyance. Maybe both.

I glance out the window and notice that the sky is already fading toward evening again, soft pinks brushing the horizon, telling me I must’ve been out longer than I thought, which explains why the pain is even harsher than usual.

I haven’t had any meds in hours. The urge to grab my pills from my bunk claws at me, but I don’t move, not with Finn here. I won’t let him see me desperate. I’d rather chew glass.

So I grit my teeth and stay still, pretending the pain isn’t there and ignoring every nerve that’s begging to be numbed.

“What are you doing here?” My voice comes out rough, but that’s a good thing because I forgot to deepen it .

Finn raises an eyebrow. “Here, as in your sacred nap zone?”

“No. Here, as in my bus . Don’t you usually roll in one of those high-end team buses? Beds, espresso machines, TVs bigger than Dane’s ego…”

God, I miss those things. Those buses made hours on the road feel like spa days. This rust bucket couldn’t cushion a sneeze.

Finn shrugs, then takes a slow sip from his can. “Figured a twenty-six-hour drive was the perfect time to catch up with my best friend. Share the wheel, swap stories. Because apparently, his little cousin prefers passing out at the table to pulling his weight.”

He’s been driving with us from the start?

Then again, I can’t even remember hitting the road.

“Right.” I shift in my seat. God, I hope I didn’t snore.

Finn watches me over the rim of his drink. “Dane and I have got a lot to talk about, you know. Seven years is a long time. Whole lives can happen in that span.”

There’s something about the way he says it, like it’s too pointed with a gleam in his eyes.

Shit. Dane wouldn’t have told him.

He wouldn’t.

Right?

I keep my face neutral. “That so?”

“Mm-hmm.” He leans back, one arm slung across the seat. “People change. Grow up. Get faster. Bolder.”

“Or older,” I mutter.

He laughs, completely unbothered by the dig, but he doesn’t stop watching me. Doesn’t even blink. I toy with the edge of the notebook, unsure whether he’s just being his usual smug self or is fishing.

“So, Allen .” Finn takes another sip, eyes still pinned on me. “Tell me about yourself. ”

“Looking to poach secrets from the privateers?”

He just chuckles. “You into The Offspring?”

“What? Why?”

He tilts his head and gestures with the hand holding the can, pointing it directly at my chest. My gaze follows, and heat floods my face with a punch. Shit.

I’m wearing a faded gray Offspring shirt. No binder. No bra. Just soft cotton and a whole lot of Oh my God . The graphic is stretched in ways I really didn’t think about when I threw it on last night.

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 situation Allen definitely 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.”