Page 10 of Twisted Trails (Rogue Riders Duet #2)

CHAPTER SIX

Mason

I’ve been staring at the same text for the past hour.

Not the one where Luc threatens me, or where he swears he’ll kick my ass, or something else , if I tell anyone about Alaina, and not even the one where he manages to apologize and insult me in the same sentence.

Nope, the one that’s really fucking with me?

Luc

Are you okay?

That’s it. Just those three words, but somehow, that one hits harder than all the rest.

“Anything you need to read out loud?” my dad asks from the driver’s seat, glancing over as he speaks with that annoyingly perceptive dad voice.

I grunt and thumb my screen off just as another text comes in, the vibration loud in the silent cabin. “It’s nothing, just Delacroix being an asshole.”

“Sure it is.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Guy texting you this often either wants to fight you or fuck you. Possibly both. ”

“Jesus, Dad,” I mutter, bringing the screen back up to read Luc’s newest message.

Luc

Don’t leave me on read, Pretty Boy.

I do anyway and scroll back up to Luc’s rapid-fire explosion from last night.

Just in case you didn’t hear me earlier, I’m gonna kick your ass if you tell anybody.

Or maybe I’ll have to kick your dick because your head is already in your ass.

And no, I’m not overreacting, you’re overreacting.

Be mad, be whatever, but don’t tell anyone. Please. I know I fucked up with you, and I’m honestly sorry. But don’t be the asshole you told me you’re not now.

Ghosting me? Bold move, Payne.

Luc Delacroix. The human version of a sugar crash.

Scrolling up farther, I get to the texts from last season before my life went to shit.

Stupid race-day trash talk, Luc’s shirtless selfie with the caption “You spend so much time behind me, figured I’d throw you a mercy shot of the front” and nonstop jabs about my suspension setup.

He called me a sore loser at least a dozen times, and we had a running bet on who’d crash first, and he sent me memes every time I lost. Dumb, relentless, infuriating stuff.

Nothing like this.

I swipe back to that message again. The soft one. The one with no sarcasm.

Luc

Are you okay?

Christ on a bike, why does that one text feel like a gut punch?

Maybe because it’s the first time he’s asked, and the part that kills me is I don’t even know the answer. I’m not sure if I’m pissed at Alaina or just wrecked because she let me in and didn’t trust me with the truth. I’m not sure if I want to fight Luc for everything he did yesterday or kiss him.

I lean my head against the cool glass of the van window, staring out at the blur of Italian countryside, not that I can actually appreciate the scenery. My brain is too busy rewinding that moment outside the hospital. The rain. The heat between us. His hand on my arm.

The way he looked at me.

And yeah, maybe he does want to fight me, or maybe we’re both idiots who can’t say what we mean until someone is halfway bleeding.

Are you okay?

He asked me that. Luc-fucking-Delacroix. The same guy who used to spit chewing gum into my helmet and call it a peace offering. The same guy I thought hated me now.

It should feel like something, but all it does is make everything worse, because I don’t know how I feel. Or maybe I do, and I just don’t want to name it.

My brain keeps circling the same pit, like a wheel stuck in the mud. Luc’s voice, that damn hoodie, the way he looked at me in the rain, and then, right next to it, a shadow stitched to the same thought, her.

Alaina Crews.

Because yeah, Luc is complicated, but she’s the one who cracked something open in me, while lying about who she was the whole damn time .

I think about her eyes, those big, Bambi eyes, and about her skin under my fingertips, and the way she let me trace her forearms. How she smiled when she told me I was allowed, that I was her nobody, and that she was mine.

She let me in.

She chose me.

Except she didn’t, not really, and now I feel like a fool. Again. It seems I’ve got a real talent for trusting the wrong women. First, Isla, with her crocodile tears and poison kiss, and now Alaina.

Is it fair to compare them, though?

It’s not, but I already did it in the hospital and hurt Alaina with it.

“I’m gonna eat so much pizza,” my dad announces, shattering my thoughts. “You can keep your protein shit. I’m going full-on gluten. Pizza, pasta, bam , I’m gonna be five kilos heavier by the time we leave Italy.”

I huff a dry laugh. “You’ll explode.”

“No, son. I will evolve. I’ll be the king of Italy.”

“Italy doesn’t have a king.”

“Well, it will soon. ”

I shake my head and keep staring out at the passing fields, the golden light bleeding off the edges of the hills.

“And that will make you the prince,” he adds after a beat. “Little Prince Payne. Suits you.”

I finally look over, glaring. “Are you trying to be annoying?”

He smirks. “Always.” But then he glances over again, just a flash of something serious in his face. “You said Delacroix is back to his annoying self and that Crews is doing okay, right? So why are you so bloody moody?”

I tense. “Why would it be about Crews?”

I haven’t mentioned her to him at all today.

“I don’t know, maybe because you saw the crash, ran off like a maniac after him, even forgot about the podium, and then came back looking like someone spat in your cereal.”

“It’s not about Crews. It doesn’t fucking matter.”

He shrugs, unconvinced. “You said he had two broken fingers, right? The pinky and ring on the left?”

“Yeah.”

“Then he’ll race.”

I blink. “What?”

“He’ll race,” he repeats like it’s obvious. “That boy’s so stubborn he’d tape his hand to the handlebars and go anyway. You’ll see him again, so stop worrying about it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

The point is that the ‘boy’ is a woman.

“I can’t tell you.”

He glances at me, mouth twitching. “Did he reject you?”

I jerk back like he slapped me. “What?”

“You told him you’re into him, and he rejected you? Is it that?”

“I’m not into Mini Crews!” I yell so loudly that even I flinch at the volume.

“Okay, okay, Jesus ,” Dad mutters before huffing a laugh. “Then what’s the big deal? I thought you could tell me everything.”

“I do.”

But do I really?

Can I tell him a secret that isn’t mine to share?

One that still stings like betrayal every time I think about it?

We fall into silence, thick with everything I don’t say, until the van slows and pulls off the highway into a rest area somewhere just past Milan, while the sun is dropping fast.

I sit up straighter, confused. “What are we doing? ”

He doesn’t answer as he parks, hops out, and walks around the van. I stare after him like he’s lost his mind. Then my door swings open, and he crouches down just enough to bring his eyes level with mine.

“Mase.” His voice is low now. Serious. “What’s going on?” I don’t look at him, making him sigh and curl his hand around the edge of the doorframe. “You’re starting to worry me, kid.”

Something in me stutters, so I meet his eyes, and they’re just open. No judgment. No pressure. Just there , waiting, like he’s been doing my whole damn life.

I stare at him for a long second, then say, “You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

He scoffs. “Who would I tell? It’s just you and me. Only people I talk to are you, that cranky tire tech, and the cat behind the petrol station back home.”

I blow out a shaky breath and glance past him, like the words might come easier if I’m not looking at him.

“Allen Crews is not Allen Crews.”

He’s quiet for a beat. “Okay, what does that mean?”

I look back at him, jaw tight. “Do you remember what happened with Dane?”

“Course I do. His little sister had that crash, and they both dropped out.”

I nod slowly. “Yeah. You remember what she looked like?”

Dad’s brow furrows. I can practically see him flipping through old race footage in his head, and then he stills, and his eyes snap to mine. “Wait.”

I don’t have to say anything. Just meet his gaze and give a slow, confirming nod.

He leans back like I hit him, dragging a hand down his face. “No way.”

“Yeah. ”

“ Fucking hell. ” He shakes his head. “Why haven’t I seen this?”

“I know, right?” I let out a dry, bitter laugh. “I’m thinking the same thing. How the hell didn’t I notice? The way she rides or how Dane acted around her.” The ache pushes higher in my throat. “I had her right there in front of me, touched her, held her, and I still didn’t see it.”

Because it was easier to believe she was just some oddball kid, riding like a demon, than Alaina Crews back from the dead.

He’s still reeling, eyes wide. “I… that’s insane.”

“Yeah.”

“Crazy…” he says again, then, with a crooked smile, “… but damn, she’s bloody good.”

“What?”

“She outrides you and the others. You guys crush the women’s times by at least a minute, not seconds, and she’s at the front of your pack? That makes her the best female downhill racer in history.”

Shite, he’s right.

And he’s not done. “She’d tear the women’s category apart. It’d be a bloodbath.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Honestly, it’s embarrassing for you guys, and I love it.”

I clench my jaw. “Dad, that’s not the fucking point.”

“No?” He cocks his head. “Then why is she racing the men’s elite?”

“I…” I pause. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You found out something like that and didn’t ask why ?”

And there it is, the thing that’s been clawing at my ribs since we left France.

I didn’t ask.

I didn’t stay to find out, even though Luc asked me to .

I ran away from her and the truth because the second I saw her lying in that bed, bruised and small and real, I didn’t want to be mad anymore, and I hated that I didn’t know how to forgive her either. So I left.

Because I don’t know how to ask why when I’m still stuck on how could you ?

“I mean,” I mutter. “I did ask why she lied to me, and she didn’t have a real answer.”

Dad is still crouched beside the open door, arms braced on his knees. “But she didn’t lie to you , did she? She lied to everybody .”