Page 12 of Nitro
Totally fine.
Even if every cell in my body still hummed like he’d hotwired me and left the current running.
The farther I walked into The Pit, the steadier I tried to make my breathing. I latched onto the clang of tools and thrum of an engine like lifelines. Hoping that if I focused hard enough, maybe I could drown out the memory of Torin’s mouth on my skin.
It worked. For about three seconds.
Then I saw the bike.
The ZX he’d ripped into me for touching sat gleaming in its bay like it had been waiting for me. Freshly wiped down, chain oiled, tank full.
And draped across the seat was a folded scrap of paper, scrawled in messy block letters.
My heart thudded as I picked it up.
Try not to make me jealous.
Just one line, but there was no mistaking who’d written it. The note dripped with his crooked-smile arrogance, the one that always made me want to slap him and kiss him in the same breath.
I swallowed hard, reading it again, as though maybe the words would shift if I stared long enough.
Torin assigned the ZX to me. The bike I’d already fallen half in love with, the one I’d mapped until my wrists ached from working the throttle. The one he told me wasn’t mine to tinker with.
And now it was.
The note crumpled slightly in my grip before I forced my fingers to smooth the paper flat again. No one else needed to know how it made me feel—like he’d been paying attention. Thathe saw me in a way that went deeper than lap times and clean cornering.
I tried to rationalize Torin’s decision.
He probably just wanted me focused. To stop bouncing between bikes and channel all that stubborn energy into this one. It was practical, that was all. A strategic move. Nothing personal.
Except the note said differently.
I closed my eyes and inhaled as I swung a leg over the seat. My palms wrapped around the grips, and for a split second, it felt like his hands were there, bracketing mine.
Heat shot through me. Impossible to ignore.
I sagged forward, my elbows resting on the tank, and the note balanced between my fingers. Every wall I’d rebuilt since last night cracked under the weight of his thoughtful gesture.
Torin was patient. And he paid attention.
He’d noticed the bike I connected with. Remembered it. Gave it to me.
It had been too long since anyone other than my mom had done something like that.
My dad didn’t even bother making promises he never intended to keep, and my brother had let me down in a way I’d never forgive. I’d cut them out of my life after learning the hard way that men couldn’t be trusted.
But as I stared at the note again, my chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with racing.
As I shoved it in my pocket, I wasn’t sure what to think. Gratitude tangled with suspicion and desire with self-preservation. Every instinct screamed not to trust this. To be wary of Torin.
But the truth pressed in all the same.
This gesture meant something.
The grip of the ZX’s handlebars was familiar, but it sent me spiraling somewhere I hadn’t gone in years.
Back to a clunky old Honda dirt bike my dad had brought home. I’d been nine, barely tall enough to swing a leg over it, and he’d laughed when I tipped sideways in the grass. But then he’d crouched beside me, steadying the handlebars and showing me where to rest my boots. His voice had been sharp most days, but that afternoon it had been patient.
