Page 57 of Redline Baby

Then he goes back to his eggs. The conversation keeps finding new channels after that. What he watches when he can't sleep: documentaries, gravel-voiced narrators, sweeping footage of places he's never been. What I fall asleep to: old MotoGP seasons, replayed so many times I can recite the commentary half a second before it happens. Whether either of us actually finishes the books we start. Neither of us does. He feels guilty about it. I absolutely do not. He finds this hilarious. It's crazy easy talking to him. It always has been.

At some point, I lean back against the counter, plate empty, and he takes it from me without asking, rinsing it in the little sink. While his back is turned, I work up the nerve to say the thing that's been sitting under my ribs since I walked in.

"Hey."

"Hm?"

"About that night... the one when I fell…"

He doesn't turn around right away.

"What about it?"

"I was an ass."

The water keeps running.

"About the bike. About—everything, actually. You told me not to ride, and I did it anyway, and I nearly wrapped myself around a guardrail, and you and the guys had to come get me off the side of the road, and I haven't actually said sorry for any of that yet."

He shuts off the water.

Dries his hands slowly.

Then turns to face me, leaning back against the counter and mirroring my posture, arms loosely crossed. He looks so good. As always. His beard is freshly groomed, and he looks even more put together than usual. Unlike me. I'm the same mess as always.

"You scared me," he says, no drama in it. Which somehow makes it land harder than if he'd raised his voice. "I told you not to get on that bike. I meant it. And you looked me dead in the eye and did it anyway."

"I know."

"If you were mine—" He stops. Something in my stomach drops. Soren considers the sentence before he finishes it, something in his face shifting. "If you were mine, properly mine, and you drank and rode after I told you not to, there'd be consequences. Very serious consequences."

My face starts getting hot before he even finishes.

"Real ones. Not a lecture. You'd be over my knee before you finished taking your boots off."

Oh.

"And that would only be part one."

Oh.

My whole face is hot now.

And not from embarrassment. Or not only from embarrassment. Something lower and warmer than that twists through me, catching my breath for half a second before I manage to answer.

"Yeah?"

My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to.

"Yeah."

He watches me carefully, gauging my reaction. Whatever he sees seems to confirm something for him.

"You don't seem particularly deterred by that information."

"I mean." I clear my throat. "I... really like spankings." His eyebrows rise barely a fraction. "And being held accountable for my actions." I look down at my hands instead of at him, because it's easier to say the true thing that way. "Yeah. I think I'd like that. More than I probably should admit out loud in your kitchen at noon."

Soren doesn't say anything for a second. When I finally glance up, he's watching me with an expression I haven't seen on him before. Something that looks almost like relief.