Riding My Best Friend's Biker Dad

What He Remembered

I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the rider under the streetlamp, helmet still on, watching the house like he already knew who lived inside. When the first light came through the curtains I gave up and went downstairs.

Cassian was already in the kitchen. He had changed out of the clothes from last night, but the cut on his face looked darker in the morning light. He turned when he heard me and stopped what he was doing.

"You didn't sleep," he said. It was not a question.

I touched my face like I could hide the shadows under my eyes. "I'm fine. Just getting used to a new place."

He kept looking at me. His eyes moved over my face the way they had moved over the engine the day before, checking for damage. Then he turned back to the counter and poured coffee into a mug. He set it in front of me without asking how I took it.

Two sugars. No cream. Exactly the way I had always drunk it when Anastasia and I used to stay over years ago.

I stared at the mug. "How did you know?"

He shrugged like it was nothing. "You used to leave the spoon in the sink the same way every time. Figured it stuck."

I wrapped both hands around the warm ceramic and tried not to think about the fact that he had remembered something that small. The man I had loved for years had never noticed things like that. He was careful and distant and never stayed long enough to learn how I took my coffee. Yet here the mug sat, correct, and he had been the one to make it.

He made eggs while I stood there. Simple, quiet, the way he did everything. When he put the plate in front of me he said, "Eat. You look like you're going to fall over."

I almost told him about the motorcycle then. The words sat on my tongue. Instead I asked carefully, "Has anyone been coming around the house lately? Someone who doesn't belong?"

His whole body changed. The easy morning disappeared. He set the spatula down and faced me fully.

"What did you see?"

I told him about the rider. The different engine sound. The way he had sat there in the dark without moving until he decided to leave. Cassian listened without interrupting. When I finished, his jaw was tight.

"If you see anything like that again, you call me. You don't open the door. You don't go outside to look. You call me."

"I wasn't going to—"

"Aurora." He said my name low. "I mean it."

The way he looked at me made the kitchen feel smaller. It was more than ordinary caution. It felt personal, like the thought of someone watching this house while I was in it sat wrong with him.

I nodded. He held my eyes a second longer, then turned back to the stove as if nothing had shifted.

After breakfast he took me out to the garage. The same black motorcycle sat under the work light. He opened a heavy ledger on the workbench and motioned me closer.

"Anastasia handled the daily orders. You'll need to know what's coming in and what's already paid."

He stood behind me while he pointed at the columns. His arm came over my shoulder so I could see the page. I could feel the heat of him through my shirt. When I reached for the pen our hands brushed. He did not pull away right away. He looked down at where our fingers touched, then stepped back slowly, like he had to decide to do it.

I kept my eyes on the numbers. My pulse did not get the message.

Later he showed me how to check the oil levels on the smaller bikes that belonged to club brothers. I leaned too far over one of them and my foot slipped on a grease patch. His hand shot out and caught my elbow before I could fall. He held on longer than he needed to.

"Careful," he said. His voice was quiet. "These floors don't forgive much."

I straightened. He let go, but the place where his hand had been still felt warm.

A delivery truck pulled up just after noon. Two men got out. They wore cuts I did not recognize, darker and marked with a different patch. Black Ridge. Even I knew the name from things Anastasia had muttered over the years.

Cassian's entire posture changed. He stepped in front of me without looking like he was doing it on purpose.

"Go inside," he said.

I hesitated. Something about the way the men were looking at the garage made my stomach tighten.

He turned his head just enough to meet my eyes. "Now, Aurora."

I went, but I stayed by the open back door where I could still hear.

Their voices stayed low. One of them asked about a delivery that had never been scheduled. The other mentioned a bike that had been seen near the house the night before. Cassian answered in the same calm tone he used when he fixed engines. He did not raise his voice. He did not move closer. He simply stood there and the two men eventually stepped back. Whatever they had come for, they left without it.

When the truck pulled away I stepped outside again. Cassian was already turning toward me, checking me over the way he had that morning.

"You all right?"

"I'm fine."

He reached up and brushed something from my hair. A small bit of dust or maybe nothing at all. His fingers grazed my temple. For a moment we stood too close. I could see the flecks of darker gray in his eyes and the way his breathing had gone careful. Something moved behind that calm expression, something I had never seen directed at me before.

Then he dropped his hand and stepped back like the contact had burned him.

I did not know what to do with the way my chest felt.

Later, while we were closing up the garage, I made the mistake of speaking without thinking.

"Someone I used to know would have walked straight into a situation like that," I said. "He never knew when to stay out of things that didn't concern him."

Cassian's hands stilled on the tool he was putting away.

"Someone you used to know?"

The question was quiet, but it was not casual. I heard the difference immediately.

"Someone I knew a long time ago." I kept my eyes on the workbench. "It doesn't matter."

He did not ask anything else. He just closed the drawer a little harder than necessary and walked over to shut the main garage door. His shoulders stayed tight for the rest of the afternoon.

When the sun started to drop he told me he had club business again. He left me the number I already had and made me promise to lock every door. I watched him ride away and felt the same strange pull I had felt when he brushed the dust from my hair.

I came to this house because of one man. I had carried that quiet, hopeless feeling for years and never expected anything to change it. But tonight, sitting alone in the quiet kitchen with the taste of his coffee still in my mouth, I could not stop seeing the way Cassian had looked at me when those men showed up. The way he had reached for me without thinking. The way his voice had changed when I mentioned someone else.

I did not understand what was happening between us.

I only knew that the man I had loved for so long was the same man who lived in this house, and the feelings I had kept buried for years were becoming harder to ignore with every hour that passed.