Page 80 of Better as It

“I figured you’d want to hear this from someone who knows what the road really means,” he says, voice low.

“Okay.”

He stares out at the tree line for a second. Then he says, “Years ago, before most of these young punks were even prospects, Roundman took Claudia on this ride. First time she went as his ol’ lady. She was nervous as hell. Thought she’d mess it up. Thought she wasn’t enough. You know what he told her?”

“What?”

“That this ride? The Tail of the Dragon? This is where brothers are forged. Where the road makes boys into men. And that the woman on the back of a Hellion’s bike isn’t just decoration. She’s sacred. She’s a treasure held up.”

I swallow hard.

“He told her,” Tripp continues, “that when she rode it, she wouldn’t just be his. She’d be ours. Because to ride that road means you’ve survived enough to belong to something bigger.”

He looks at me.

Long and true.

“And Dia? You’ve survived more than most.”

Tears spill down my cheeks. I don’t wipe them.

“I’ve never seen anyone take more heartbreak and turn it into something stronger,” he says. “You didn’t just survive Clutch’s death. You grew. You loved again. You found your place.”

I nod, barely breathing.

Then he glances past me. “As for you?—”

Toon walks up quietly, like he knows the weight of what’s being said.

Tripp looks at him. His mouth twitches in that almost-smile he rarely gives.

“I’ll never be okay with someone taking my daughter,” he says.

Toon’s shoulders square.

“But,” Tripp goes on, “if I had to let it happen—if it had to be someone—it sure as hell couldn’t be a better man than you.”

Toon doesn’t speak. Just nods.

And Tripp reaches out, claps a hand to his shoulder, and says, “Ride safe, brother.”

Toon replies the only way we do in this life. “Always. Protect her with my life.”

The bikes roar to life.

And my heart goes with them.

Justin helps me on, like he did the first time, back when we were just friends and I was broken and he was trying not to love me yet.

I wrap my arms around him.

And he turns slightly, his voice barely audible over the rumble.

“I was going to wait until the end of the ride.”

I frown. “Wait for what?—?”

But he pulls something from his pocket.

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