Page 238 of Rogue Riders Duet

I glance at my phone again. “Luc. It’s after two in the morning.”

He grins. “Exactly.”

We pull on our shoes and head to the garage, and I watch him grab a duffel bag from the floor. It’s stuffed with what looks like a blanket, maybe some snacks, and who knows what else. He tosses it into the back of the tiniest, rustiest yellow car I’ve ever seen.

I let out a snort. “This is the surprise?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “Hey, I offered to buy Maman a new one, but she told me she’d disown me if I touched her baby.”

I laugh, and for the first time since the nightmare, something inside me releases.

“Mademoiselle.” He opens the passenger door with a dramatic flourish. “Adventure calls.”

I smile and glide into the car because I’d follow that boy anywhere, even in the dark.

Luc slides in as I pull on my seat belt, and he turns the key with a dramatic flourish that does absolutely nothing. Finally, the engine sputters once, coughs like it’s been smoking for forty years, then finally turns over.

“I don’t have a car, okay?” He glances at me with a sheepish grin. “I’m more the two-wheels kind of guy.”

I smirk. “So get a motocross bike like Mason’s.”

“That’d be fun.” He chuckles. “For sure.”

“You’d probably kill yourself.”

As soon as the words are in the air, I freeze, and my stomach drops.

Shit.

Luc goes quiet for a beat, but then he laughs, soft and a little crooked. “Yeah, that possibility is there.” He puts the car in gear and glances at me. “We’ve gotta drive a little, is that okay?”

“Sure.” I clear my throat. “It’s fine.”

The tires crunch quietly as we roll out of the garage and onto the road.

“Maman said she told you about my dad.”

I startle and glance at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know if you wanted me to know.”

Luc turns toward me and smiles. “I want you to know everything about me, Petite. I was just waiting for you to be my friend so I could share my deepest, darkest secrets.”

I huff, looking out the window, trying to bite back the ache in my throat. “You were always my friend. I was… the problem.”

“Yeah,” he says lightly. “I know that now.” There’s a beat of silence before he continues, “My dad, he was a lot like me.”

I glance back at him, and he’s watching the road, but his voice has changed to something more distant.

“Or rather, I’m like him. He was loud, funny, charismatic. Everyone loved him. He did weird shit all the time. Adrenaline junkie, I think I got it from him.”

“You think?” I echo with a raised eyebrow.

Luc smirks. “Okay, fine. I know. I always wanted to be like him so much so, I jumped from roofs when I was a kid, only to show him how fearless I was. I tried so hard, until I realized I was already way too much like him.”

“What do you mean?”

Luc exhales through his nose, fingers tightening slightly on the wheel. “I mean, I get it. What he felt. Why he couldn’t stay.”

My stomach sinks again. He doesn’t say it directly, but the weight of it is heavy enough to fill the whole car.