Page 9 of Wrecked By Rev

Three days later, I realize I’m in trouble.

Not the kind of trouble I expected—not Niall trouble, not danger trouble. That part feels like it’s actually working. His white truck has crawled past the café twice since Rev started showing up, but he hasn’t come inside. Hasn’t left any notes. Hasn’t done anything except look, and even that feels different now. Less confident. More wary.

He sees Rev. He sees the cut, the size, the ink. And for the first time in four months, he’s keeping his distance.

It’s working. The plan is working.

The problem is everything else.

I’m starting to look forward to Rev showing up. Starting to listen for the rumble of his bike, the creak of the door, the low scrape of the stool as he settles onto it. Starting to notice things I have no business noticing—the way his hands wrap around the coffee cup, the scar across his knuckles, the way his jaw tightens when someone raises their voice on the street outside.

The way he says thank you when I refill his cup. Quiet, genuine, like he means it. The way he notices when I’m stressed and doesn’t try to fix it, just stays. The way he remembers how I take my own coffee—cream, no sugar—even though I only mentioned it once.

He doesn’t talk much. That should make it easier to keep my distance, but it doesn’t. The silence between us feels full somehow. Charged. Like there’s a conversation happening underneath the surface that neither of us is willing to have out loud.

And then there’s the touching.

It started small. His hand on my elbow when I walked past. A brush of fingers when I handed him his coffee. Little things, easy to dismiss, easy to chalk up to performance.

But yesterday, he put his hand on the small of my back when a customer got too loud and too close. Just rested it there and a somehow comforting, possessive way, warm and heavy, while I handled the situation. And I felt it for hours afterward. The phantom weight of his palm. The heat of him seeping through my shirt.

I’m falling for him. That’s the truth I don’t want to look at.

I’m falling for a man who wears the same cut my brother wore when he died.

Jonah’s face flashes through my mind. The funeral. The closed casket because there wasn’t enough left of him to show. The way I couldn’t breathe for weeks afterward, couldn’t hear a motorcycle without wanting to scream. The sound of Harleys still makes my chest tight—that low rumble that used to mean Jonah was coming home and now just means he’s never coming home again.

I swore I’d never do this. Never let myself care about someone who rides. The risk is too high. The loss would break me. I’ve seen what this life does to people. The wives who waitup wondering if tonight’s the night. The girlfriends who learn to sleep alone because club business doesn’t keep regular hours. The sisters who get a phone call in the middle of the night and their whole world collapses.

I was that sister. I buried that brother. And I promised myself I would never put myself in a position to feel that kind of pain again.

And yet here I am, counting down the minutes until Rev shows up, feeling my chest get tight when he looks at me, wanting things I have no right to want.

It’s not real, I tell myself. He’s doing you a favor. He thinks of you as family. Wheels’ sister. That’s all.

The reminder should help. It doesn’t.

Friday night, I close up late.

There was a rush around two—some church group renting out the back room for a meeting—and by the time I’ve cleaned up after them, it’s almost seven. Rev left around noon, said he had a job to finish, but he’d be back to walk me to my car.

I told him that wasn’t necessary.

He showed up anyway.

He’s leaning against his bike when I lock the front door, arms crossed, watching the street. The sun is starting to dip, throwing long shadows across the parking lot, and he looks?—

I stop that thought before it can finish. I shouldn’t be noticing him like that.

“You didn’t have to come back,” I say, walking toward him.

“Didn’t ask your permission.”

“Rev—”

“It’s not up for debate, Angel.” His voice is flat. Final. “I walk you to your car. Every night. Until this is over.”

I should argue. I should tell him I’ve been walking to my own car up until now and I don’t need a babysitter. But the truth is, I feel safer with him here. And I’m tired of pretending I don’t.