Page 313 of Rogue Riders Duet

“But why?”

His eyes burn so quietly and full that it almost hurts to hold his gaze. “Because I can’t do both. I can’t keep one foot in something that’s been dying for years and still give you, us, a real shot. I can’t focus on racing and on making this right with you. My priorities changed.”

I don’t breathe. I can’t.

“I know you have him.” He nods toward the track, where Luc is currently trying to jump the rhythm line sideways. “And him.” Mason yells at Luc for almost flipping the bike.

“I know they make you happy,” Finn continues. “And I love that. I love watching you laugh with them and seeing how they take care of you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be there, too, however you’ll have me. I just want a place. Somewhere I get to make you happy again.”

All I can do is look at him.

Because it’s him. Still. Again.

And maybe always.

The speaker shifts to a new track, and I recognize it in half a beat, “I Miss You” by Blink-182. The slow, aching rhythm hits, and my chest caves inward.

Where are you… and I’m so sorry.

Fuck.

It’s too much. All of it.

The summer air. The tape on my hand, the ruined plans, and lost wins. Finn, right here next to me, close enough to touch but still holding the ghost of every version of us that ever fell apart.

I close my eyes and breathe in deeply through my nose, trying to push it back down before it overwhelms me. The longing. The confusion. The desperate, spiraling need for everything and nothing at once.

I open my eyes just in time to watch Mason nearly eat shit again, while Luc shrieks with laughter and runs after him.

They’re ridiculous. Perfect. Light.

All that I’m not.

Because I can’t seem to get over myself, my pain, my uselessness, and my fucking longing for a guy who hurt me even though I have two who want me and never caused me pain. My throat tightens, and that dull ache rolls through my chest. Before I can stop it, a single tear slips free, tracing hot down my cheek.

Finn’s fingers curl under my chin before he turns my face toward him. He studies me like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my pain for several long, aching moments before his thumb brushes the tear away, soft as breath.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he says, his voice barely louder than the music. “I swear, baby girl, I will never hurt you again.”

The stinging in my eyes worsens, and I have to glance away from his gaze, down to his lap—tiny purple blooms, yellow buds, a few torn stems. The whole time we’ve been sitting here, he’s been quietly picking wildflowers and twisting them together, badly. Lopsided, barely holding. It’s the saddest, ugliest flower crown in the history of flower crowns, and still, it makes my heart swell so big it’s almost unbearable.

Finn tilts my face back up toward him again, his eyes impossibly soft as he gives me that familiar crooked grin. “I see a future in flower crowns and first-place trophies.”

The sound I make isn’t a laugh or a sob but something in between. My throat works around it, and another tear slides down my cheek anyway, carving its way through the mess of emotions I’ve been trying so hard to hold back.

“You remember,” I rasp, shaking my head.

“You’re not so easy to forget, Alaina,” Finn murmurs, setting the crown on my head.

I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t try. I just sit there, breathing him in while my chest quietly aches in all the places he still fits.

After a moment, we both look back toward the track. Luc is riding the BMX backward now, arms flailing dramatically, while Mason trails behind him slowly, looking absolutely done with his life.

Finn chuckles beside me, and I join him.

He shuffles closer to me so our arms brush, his thigh warm against mine, and I think maybe this moment, this messy, aching, imperfect thing is the closest I’ve come to peace in a long, long time.

The flower crown tilts a little on my head, petals brushing my temple, and I don’t fix it.