Page 13 of Redline Baby

I feel nervous for some reason, which is stupid, so I turn to face him properly and ask the first thing that comes to mind, the way I usually do.

"How do you know Ni?"

"College." He smiles like the memory is a good one. "We were lab partners in organic chemistry. He talked me through more all-nighters than I can count."

"Ni. Studying." I let my mouth twist. "I genuinely cannot picture that."

"He kept a thermos of coffee the size of a fire extinguisher and swore constantly in three languages. I have never seen anyone hate a subject that much and still pull a B-plus."

I laugh, and it startles me a little, the realness of it, because I hadn't decided to.

The bartender sets a fresh bottle in front of me. I nod my thanks without looking away from Soren.

"So you two go way back," I say.

"Fifteen years." He takes a slow pull from his own bottle. He drinks like there's no possible reason to rush through the moment he's in. "He's the reason I still leave the shop before midnight most nights. Somebody has to remind me the whole world isn't made of carburetors."

I laugh.

He’s actually funny.

But I still notice the noise of the bar pressing in around us. King's booming laugh, the clink of bottles, the low thrum of the music.

Soren doesn't seem to notice any of it.

He's got one forearm resting on the bar, angled toward me, and he isn't performing being relaxed—he just is, and it's throwing me off my own rhythm.

I catch myself tapping my boot against the rung of the stool, fast, a frantic little pulse I don't remember starting, and I still it on purpose.

"You've been watching me," I say, because I can't keep quiet, because saying the loud true thing out loud is easier than sitting in the silence where he might say something first.

"I have," he says.

No hesitation. No deflection.

I'd been braced for him to laugh it off, wave a hand, just enjoying the show, kid—the way men usually do when I catch them at it. He doesn't do any of that.

He just lets it sit there, like it isn't a confession at all.

I take a drink to cover the fact that I don't know what to do with that.

"You know what this place is, right?" I ask. "Beyond the bikes."

Soren is quiet for a moment, considering it the way he considers everything, like there's a correct answer buried in there somewhere and he intends to find it.

"I've been to leather bars before. This is... more specific."

"More specific." I let out a breath that's almost a laugh. "That's one way to put it. So that's why you're here?"

"Partly." His eyes come back to my face, and they stay there.

It's an unnatural amount of attention.

I don't know what to do with the amount of attention.

"Ni thinks I'm too reserved. He says I need friends who aren't motorcycles."

"So you're into it. Kink."