Page 5 of Rook
Inside, he kicked the door shut behind them. The bakery was dark, dusty, and cold. The air smelled like old flour and forgotten memories. But he didn’t put her down until he reached the counter.
Only then did she feel the weight of the leather cut he shrugged off and wrapped around her shoulders.
It was warm. Heavy. His.
Her gaze dropped to the patches.
BLOODLINE SAINTS MCcurved across the top. A skull with wings—one angelic, one dark—spread across the back. And on the front, over the heart:
VPROOK
Her breath stuttered.
Vice President. Of a motorcycle club. With a road name she’d never heard.
She looked up at him, heart pounding. “Noah… what is this?”
He didn’t answer right away.
He just stood there, rain dripping from his hair, chest rising and falling like he was trying to breathe through something sharp.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he finally said, voice tight.
But she couldn’t look away from the cut. From the life stitched into the leather. From the man he’d become without her.
“You’re in a motorcycle club,” she whispered.
He didn’t deny it.
He didn’t explain it.
He just stared at her like she was the last thing he expected to see and the first thing he’d never stopped wanting.
Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the bakery for a split second, dust motes floating in the air, the faded paint on the walls, the ghost of her childhood lingering in every corner.
And Noah.
Standing in the middle of Sweet Treats like a storm she’d never learned how to weather.
Her voice trembled. “You’re… different.”
His jaw flexed. “So are you.”
She swallowed hard. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
“I didn’t think you’d come back.”
The words hung between them, sharp enough to cut. Avery felt them settle in her chest, heavy and familiar, like the echo of every choice she’d made since the day she left him standing on that curb.
Seven years of pretending she didn’t wonder about him. Seven years of telling herself he’d moved on, grown up, outgrown her. Seven years of trying not to picture him in this town, in this bakery, in any life that didn’t include her.
And now he was standing three feet away, rain dripping from his hair, looking at her like she was a ghost he wasn’t sure he wanted back.
Her fingers curled tighter into the leather of his cut. The weight of it pressed into her palms, warm from his body, smelling like smoke and rain and something she remembered too well. It felt wrong on her shoulders. Too big. Too intimate. Too much like a promise she didn’t deserve.
She wasn’t ready for any of this. Not the town. Not the memories. Not him.
Especially not him.
