Page 22 of Egg Me On (Front Range Motorcycle Collective #1)

Cash

I stared at the parts spread across my workbench like a mechanical autopsy, but my hands wouldn't move. They knew what to do—had rebuilt this exact model a hundred times—but the circuit between brain and fingers had short-circuited, fried by the memory of Aiden's face in that bathroom mirror.

The way hope had drained from his eyes when I couldn't answer his simple fucking question.

Is this just sex? It was days later, and I still hadn't found the words, still felt them stuck in my throat like engine parts too big to cough up.

I picked up a screwdriver, then set it down again.

Across the parking lot, the spot where his food truck should be gaped empty, another reminder of how badly I'd fucked up.

He'd driven himself to work. Again. For the third time this week.

My mind replayed our bathroom encounter on an endless loop.

The way he'd yielded against me, all that bright energy and chatter silenced by my hands, my mouth.

How his body had told me everything his words couldn't. The broken sound he'd made when I'd pushed inside him.

And after—the question hanging between us, his eyes searching mine for an answer I couldn't give, not because I didn't know it, but because the words wouldn't come. Never came when it mattered.

The screw I’d been holding slipped from my fingers, clattering to the floor. I cursed, dropping to one knee to search for it under the workbench. A pair of worn boots stepped into my line of sight, and I looked up to find Dylan watching me, that perpetual half-smirk on his face.

"Wow," he said, leaning against the bench. "You look like absolute shit."

I grunted, spotting the needle and snatching it up before standing. "Fuck off."

"Original comeback, man. Really devastating." Dylan's smirk widened. He glanced at the disassembled carburetor, then back at me. "That's the third time you've taken that apart today. Either you've discovered a fascinating new mechanical principle, or something's eating at you."

I set the needle down with more care than necessary, arranging it in perfect alignment with the other parts. "Just doing my job."

"This have anything to do with your food truck boyfriend not showing up today?"

My head snapped up. Aiden wasn’t here today? “Not boyfriend.”

Dylan waited patiently, eyebrows raised. When I didn't continue, he sighed. "Right. Well, your not-boyfriend has gone to that new brewery down on Spears today. Told Silas he was 'considering a new location.'"

Something cold and heavy settled in my gut. Aiden was looking for somewhere else to park his truck. Away from FRMC. Away from me.

He pulled out his phone, tapped a few times, then glanced up at me. "Check your notifications."

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it.

"It's a cloud folder," Dylan continued, undeterred by my silence. "Noah put together all the photos from the campout for the page he’s building on the website. Asked me to see if there were any you wanted for your little thirst trap project on social media. Says it’s bringing in good business."

“It’s not a thirst trap project, it’s just about bikes.”

“Sure, man… that’s believable. Just look.”

I reluctantly pulled out my phone, swiping open the notification. A folder appeared, filled with thumbnails—campfire shots, group photos, bikes lined up against the mountain backdrop.

"There are some good ones of you and Aiden in there," Dylan said casually, too casually.

I glared at him, though I made no move to put the phone away.

Dylan's expression softened fractionally.

"Look, I've known you, what, four years now?

Seen you rebuild engines most mechanics wouldn't touch.

Seen you work thirty-six hours straight when a client needed their bike for Sturgis.

Never seen you look at anything or anyone the way you look at him in those photos.

" He pushed off from the workbench. "Just thought you might want to see it for yourself. "

He walked away, leaving me with my phone and the hollow feeling expanding in my chest. I wanted to call him back, ask him what he meant, what he saw that I didn't. Instead, I stared at the thumbnails, thumb hovering over the screen.

Fuck it.

I tapped the first photo. It was from the first night, taken at the campfire.

Me sitting on a log, looking off-camera, my expression unreadable behind the usual mask I wore.

Next photo. Group shot, everyone holding beers, Aiden standing slightly apart, eyes finding the camera, smile not quite reaching his eyes.

Next. Aiden cooking breakfast, spatula in hand, laughing at something someone had said.

The morning sun caught in his hair, turning it to burnished gold.

I swiped faster, pulse quickening. Aiden and me by my bike, him adjusting the glittery helmet I'd bought him, my eyes—Christ, my eyes were fixed on his face, not the helmet. Another campfire shot, Aiden mid-story, hands animated, everyone around him laughing.

And then.

The photo stopped my breath. It was from the second night, after I'd fucked him so thoroughly neither of us could walk straight.

We sat around the fire, slightly apart from the others.

Aiden leaned toward me, saying something no one else could hear, eyes bright with mischief.

And I was smiling, my eyes soft. I looked younger.

Lighter. Like someone had removed a weight I'd been carrying so long I'd forgotten it was there.

Like he had removed that weight.

But it was my eyes that shocked me most. They were fixed on Aiden with a tenderness I'd never seen in them before, had never felt capable of. It was naked, that look. Raw. Unguarded in a way I never allowed myself to be.

But it wasn’t just me. He was leaning in, staring up at me as he talked, like I had him captivated.

Like he was feeling it, too. And somewhere, deep down, I had started to hope he did.

Was it just that I was too afraid to ask?

That anxiety coiled in my throat too tight that the hard questions and the revealing answers couldn’t work their way out?

I could remember that moment, the story he’d been telling had been a funny one. It was just a silly story from early in his food truck days that made everyone laugh. But Aiden always made everyone laugh, even me. Especially me.

And Dylan was right. It was all there on my face, plain as fucking daylight. What Aiden did to me. What he meant to me.

I swiped again, faster now, hungry for more evidence of this person I became around him.

More evidence that he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

More campfire shots. Aiden teaching Liv how to flip an omelet.

Me watching from nearby, that same softness in my expression.

Aiden stretched out on a camp chair, beer in hand, head thrown back in laughter at something Dylan had said.

Then the one that stopped me cold. Us on the Harley, coming around a bend in the mountain road.

Someone—probably Marcus, who'd been riding ahead and stopped at a pull-off to photograph the group—captured it perfectly.

My body leaned into the curve, Aiden molded against my back like he'd been built to fit there, his glittery helmet visible in profile.

His arms were wrapped around my waist, face turned toward the view, and I felt the pure joy of the moment bleeding through the photo.

The joy he expressed every time he was on the bike with me, even that very first time, when he’d been scared shitless.

Joy that I gave him, that I shared with him.

My face wasn't visible behind my visor, but I’d let go of the handlebar to touch him, and there was something in the way my hand covered his on my stomach, something protective and possessive and strangely gentle.

Something that made me feel the way he’d pressed even closer and told me that he loved riding with me.

"He looks good on the back of your bike. Like he belongs there. Like he wants to be there."

I jerked my head up to find Dylan had wandered off, and now Silas was standing beside my workbench, arms crossed, expression thunderous. I hadn't heard him approach, too lost in the photos, in the evidence of something I'd been too stubborn or scared to acknowledge.

"Thought you were at the supply run," I managed, lowering my phone.

"Just got back." Silas's eyes flicked to the disassembled carburetor, then back to my face. "Saw Aiden at that new brewery."

My stomach clenched. "And?"

"Said he's considering relocating. Permanently."

The word hit like a physical blow. I set my phone down carefully, afraid I might crush it in my suddenly white-knuckled.

Silas stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Look, I don't know what happened between you two in that bathroom yesterday—"

"Nothing." The lie tasted sour on my tongue.

"—but whatever it was, you fucked up." Silas continued as if I hadn't spoken.

"And I don't care about your love life, Cash. If you want to be single and fuck around, that’s fine by me.

But I do care about those breakfast sandwiches, which are the best goddamn thing to happen to this shop since we installed the espresso machine.

So fix whatever you broke, because there's no way I'm giving up my breakfast because you can't get your emotional shit together and tell that adorable boy that you’re head over heels in love with him. "

He was right. I knew he was right. But admitting it felt like swallowing broken glass.

Silas crossed his arms, studying me with the same critical eye he used on engines. "Look, I know you have some kind of trouble with talking. But if a person you like asks you all kinds of questions and you don't answer, he thinks it means you don’t care. And I think you do care.”

I swallowed, not sure how to explain that I couldn’t fix it.

"Maybe you're so afraid of saying the wrong thing that you say nothing at all. It’s too bad, because, in the end, silence is its own kind of answer."

The words hit too close to the truth. I looked down at my phone, at the photo still visible on the screen—Aiden and me on the Harley, fitting together like we'd been designed that way. The evidence of what I felt for him, what I'd been too afraid to name.

"He asked if it was just sex," I said finally, the words scraping my throat raw. "And I couldn't—I didn't know how to—" I broke off, frustrated at my own inability to express what was trapped inside me.

"Couldn't say it was more?" Silas finished for me. His voice softened fractionally. "Even though it obviously is."

I nodded once, sharp and jerky, the closest I could come to admission.

Silas sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"If it’s more, maybe you need to find a way to say that.

Maybe there’s another way than talking to him.

Maybe you can write him a fucking love letter.

I don’t give a shit what you do, just fix this.

And that’s me as your boss talking. I won’t be happy if I lose my snacks.

And clearly that boy needs someone to look out for him.

He told me the other day he’d just learned that you could replace windshield wiper blades when you did it for him.

Apparently, his window has never been so clean. ”

I choked on a laugh, rubbing my hand over my eyes. “That tracks.”

The thought of Aiden gone—his truck missing from the lot, his laugh no longer echoing through the shop when he brought me coffee, his body no longer pressed against mine on the Harley—created a hollowness in my chest I couldn't name.

I’d probably still show up at his place and replace his windshield wiper blades, though, because fuck.

But I knew I wanted more than that. And it wasn't just about the sex.

Wasn't about the convenience of having him near.

It was about the way he made the shop brighter just by being in it.

The way he made me feel like a better version of myself, someone who could laugh, who could touch without hesitation, who could dream of something beyond engines and chrome.

"Fuck," I breathed, the word inadequate to encompass the storm building inside me.

"Eloquent as always," Silas said dryly.

I stood abruptly, the stool scraping against concrete with an ugly screech. My mind raced, replaying every moment with Aiden—the tent, the mornings in his bed, the rides through the mountains. His face in that bathroom mirror, hope draining from his eyes when I couldn't answer his simple question.

Is this just sex?

No. It wasn't. Had never been. Not from that first ride to the campground, maybe not even from that first day when he'd shown up with his truck, all sunshine smile and terrible egg puns.

"Where are you going?" Silas called as I strode toward the door.

I didn't answer. Couldn't spare the breath for words when every second was driving Aiden further away, when he might be signing a new agreement right now, making plans that didn't include me or FRMC or mornings on the back of my bike.

The Harley waited in its usual spot, chrome gleaming in the afternoon sun.

I swung my leg over it, keys already in hand, my body moving with the focused precision I usually reserved for high-pressure mechanical work.

The engine roared to life beneath me, the vibration familiar and steadying.

I pulled my helmet on, adjusted the mirror, and saw my own eyes staring back at me—determined in a way they hadn't been before.

Aiden had asked for words. I didn't know if I could give him that. But I could show him—had been showing him all along, if the photos were any evidence. Now I just needed to make him see it too, make him understand that whatever was happening between us, it was anything but "just sex."

I threw the bike into gear and tore out of the lot, heart hammering against my ribs, mind already searching for the words I'd need when I found him.

They wouldn't come easily. Maybe wouldn't come at all.

But I had to try. Had to find some way to tell him what the photos had shown me—that he'd cracked something open inside me, something I'd kept sealed shut for so long I'd forgotten it existed.

Because the thought of him gone—of that empty space in the parking lot becoming permanent—was a weight heavier than anything I'd carried before.

And if there was one thing I'd learned from motorcycles, it was this: sometimes the only way to fix what's broken is to tear it all the way down and rebuild from scratch.