Page 36 of Egg Me On

Cash froze, water still running over his hands. I watched his reflection, saw the subtle stiffening of his spine, the slight widening of his eyes, the way his jaw clenched and unclenched as if physically chewing on my question. For one heart-stopping moment, I thought he might actually answer, might give me something real to hold on to.

But the moment stretched, seconds turning to eternity as he stood there, unmoving, silent. The only sound was the steady rush of water over his motionless hands, washing away nothing, just running and running as the silence between us deepened into something painful and raw.

My throat tightened, eyes burning with the threat of tears I refused to shed. His silence was becoming its own kind of answer, one that hollowed out my chest and left a cold ache where warmth had been. I'd handed him my vulnerability on a silver platter, and he couldn't even look at me.

"Right," I said finally, the word catching on the edge of a laugh that held no humor. "Stupid question."

Cash's eyes flicked to mine in the mirror for one brief, unreadable moment before dropping away again.

I felt myself shrinking, folding inward around the wound his silence was carving into me. This man who had held me through the night, who had shared his tent, his bike, his body with such unexpected tenderness couldn't—or wouldn't—tell me if I meant anything to him beyond a convenient fuck.

And I turned and walked out of the room, not looking back.

Chapter 14

Cash

I stared at theparts 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.

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