Page 73 of Rogue Riders Duet

This can’t be happening.

I slam the water off and stumble out, the silence crashing down louder than the spray ever was.

The mirror is fogged, but that’s a mercy. I don’t want to see the look on my face right now. I grab a towel and scrub myself roughly, then wrap it around my hips.

My entire body shakes, not from the cold, but from the sheer velocity of panic ripping through my chest.

This isn’t just a racing fuckup.

This is everything else cracking all at once.

Toulouse is still in his hammock when I walk out, licking his paws, completely oblivious to my bi panic under the spray nozzle.

“I’m going to figure this out,” I tell him like a vow. My voice sounds steadier than I feel. “We’re doing research.”

He looks utterly unconcerned.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” I grab my towel from where I’d slung it, eye the cage, and toss it over the top like a curtain. “You don’t need to see this. I’m not paying your therapy bills, mon fils.”

I sit on the bed and flip open my laptop, my legs splayed like I’m not seconds from falling apart. My fingers feel numb as they hit the keys.

Gay porn.

The words look wrong on my screen, a dare I didn’t mean to accept, but I hit search anyway.

Thumbnails blur past—twinks, jocks, leather, sweet, rough, different bodies, positions, and dynamics. Some of it even looks good. I can see why people would like it. Hell, I can even imagine myself in some of those scenes. Bent over a couch with a body beneath me. Knees spread on a hotel mattress. Pushing him up against a wall.

But only if it’s him.

I click. A video loads. Another. Then another. I try to settle into one, to let it happen, to feel something, and find whatever it is that’s tearing through my chest and name it, but it’s all just noise, like I’m watching through glass. Nothing stirs, not really. There’s just this hollow ache and a strange, creeping sense of distance from my skin.

Then one thumbnail flashes by. On it is a tanned, broody, pretty boy with tousled hair and that same quiet, coiled fire Payne carries around. The kind that sits in his shoulders, his eyes, the way he never lets himself soften.

I hesitate.

What the hell was that?

I shake my head, try to move on, but my stomach twists. Maybe it’s not just Petit. Maybe there’s something else in me I’ve never looked at too closely, something that twitches around certain types. It’s the fire, the tension, and that heavy silence that makes you want to break it with your mouth.

Merde!

I swallow hard as my pulse kicks. No. That’s not what this is. I’m not thinking about Payne right now. Fuck, no. I scroll faster. Dismiss it. Bury it.

I’m about to slam the laptop shut when a video catches my eye. It’s a bigger guy, muscled and tattooed, pushing a smaller, wiry one against the wall, kissing him like he’s the only thing that exists. The smaller guy has wild hair and wide brown eyes.

They almost look like us, Petit and me.

“Okay,” I mutter, nodding. “It’s just a test. For science. I’m a biologist now.”

And yeah, I know it’s bullshit to treat it like a lab test, but right now, I’m grasping at anything that makes this less real.

I click.

I stroke.

But the movement feels empty, like someone else’s hand on someone else’s body. Like I’m not even here. I slam the lid shut and toss the laptop aside, not sure whether I’m relieved or disappointed.

Maybe I’m not bi after all.