Chapter Sixteen: The Ride
The next morning, the quiet tide of the Rowon house was broken by a practical concern.
"Amaya needs to get to her college for a review session," Elara announced over breakfast, pouring Amaya more orange juice. "Liam usually takes her on his bike, but…"
"But Liam is absent," Colonel Rowon finished, not looking up from his newspaper. "Aris, you will drive her."
Aris, who had been methodically dissecting a grapefruit, froze. His spoon hovered mid-air. "Father, I have a clinical seminar at the university hospital at nine. The timing is incompatible. She can take the bus."
"The bus is unreliable and adds forty minutes to her commute," Elara countered gently. "Your seminar isn't until nine-thirty, and her college is directly on your route. It's logical."
"My route is calculated for efficiency. An additional stop disrupts the schedule," Aris argued, his voice tightening with the strain of someone defending a carefully constructed system against an irrational variable. That variable being her.
"Discipline also includes adapting to unforeseen responsibilities," the Colonel stated, turning a page. The statement was final. It was an order dressed as a life lesson.
Aris's jaw tightened. He set his spoon down with a precise clink. He did not look at Amaya. "Very well. We leave in twenty-three minutes. Do not be late." He stood and left the kitchen, his posture rigid.
Elara gave Amaya an encouraging smile. "He just hates changes to his routine. Don't take it personally."
Amaya wasn't taking it personally; she was trying very hard not to combust with glee. Aris. Dropping me off. On his bike. The thought was a thrilling, terrifying sequel to the quiet hallway moment of the night before.
Twenty-three minutes later, she was waiting by the front door, backpack secured. Aris emerged from the garage, wheeling not a car, but a sleek, black motorcycle. It was clean, powerful, and utterly him. He held out a spare helmet.
"You will wear this. You will hold on securely. You will not fidget. You will not speak unless it is an emergency. Understood?"
"Understood," Amaya said, taking the helmet. Her fingers trembled slightly as she fastened the strap.
He mounted the bike, the engine rumbling to life with a low, visceral growl. He looked over his shoulder, a silent command. Swallowing her nervous excitement, Amaya climbed on behind him. There was a careful inch of space between them.
"You need to hold on to something," he said, his voice muffled by his own helmet but dripping with impatience.
Tentatively, she placed her hands on his sides. The hard muscle of his torso was unmistakable even through his jacket.
"Not there. You will unbalance us. Here." He reached back, took her wrists, and firmly placed her hands around his waist. The contact was electric. "Now, do not let go."
He pulled out of the driveway, and the world became a rush of wind and vibration. Amaya had been on Liam's bike a hundred times, but this was different. Liam weaved and joked; Aris was a straight line of controlled velocity. He leaned into turns with exacting precision, and she had no choice but to lean with him, to press closer to his back to maintain balance. The careful inch vanished. She was flush against him, her helmet resting against his shoulder blade, her arms locked around his waist. She could feel the shift of his muscles as he controlled the machine, the heat of him seeping through both their layers.
It was the most intimate proximity they had ever had. And he was doing it under duress.
The trip was a paradox—a blur of speed and sound stretched over a lifetime of sensation. Amaya gave up on not thinking. She just held on, her heart hammering a rhythm that had nothing to do with fear of the road.
All too soon, he slowed and turned into the gates of St. Clare's, an all-girls college whose Gothic stone buildings usually felt like a familiar sanctuary. Today, they felt like the backdrop to a very public scene.
Aris brought the bike to a smooth stop near the main steps. As Amaya dismounted, fumbling with her helmet, she became acutely aware of the audience. Girls in groups of two and three were stopping on their way to class. Whispers rippled through the quad. "Who is that?" "Is that Amaya Snow?" "Oh my god, look at him."
Aris removed his helmet, ran a hand through his hopelessly tousled hair, and the whispers gained volume. In his dark riding gear, with his sharp features and an air of intense, unapproachable focus, he looked like a character from an action film who had taken a wrong turn into a girls' school.
He took the helmet from her, his fingers brushing hers. "Your review session is in the Bradbury Hall, correct?"
"Y-yes," Amaya stammered, her cheeks burning.
"Be punctual." He made to leave.
"Aris, wait!" The call came from across the lawn. Chloe was power-walking toward them, two other friends in tow, their eyes wide with incredulous delight.
Aris paused, one foot on the pedal, his expression one of profound suffering.
"Hi!" Chloe breathed, arriving in a fluster. "We just wanted to say… hi. To Amaya's… friend."
"This is Aris," Amaya said, wanting the paving stones to swallow her whole. "My tutor. And neighbor. He was just giving me a ride."
"Oh, a ride," one of the other girls, Sophie, said, drawing out the word. "How… neighborly of you."
Aris's gaze swept over the trio, a quick, clinical assessment that seemed to find them lacking in both urgency and purpose. "I am leaving now. Amaya, do not forget the structural differences in malpighian tubules versus green glands. Your last diagram was speculative at best." He gave a curt, general nod to the staring girls, put his helmet back on, and kicked the bike to life. With a final, throaty roar, he was gone, leaving a vacuum of silence filled only with the sound of Amaya's mortified heartbeat.
The second he was out of sight, Chloe pounced, linking her arm through Amaya's. "Okay. WHAT. WAS. THAT."
"That," Sophie chimed in, fanning herself dramatically, "was not just a tutor. That was a Greek tragedy on a motorcycle."
"He's just… Aris," Amaya mumbled, trying to walk toward Bradbury Hall as if nothing had happened.
"'Just Aris' told you to remember your malpighian tubules as a goodbye! That's the nerdiest, hottest thing I've ever heard!" Chloe squealed. "And the way he looked at us? Like we were stains on a petri dish. I think I'm in love."
"He didn't look at anyone," Amaya protested, though she knew it was futile.
"He looked at you," Sophie corrected. "When he took your helmet. I saw it. It was a look. A 'I-am-forced-to-touch-you-and-it-is-deeply-inconveniencing-my-cardiovascular-system' look."
Amaya burst out laughing, the tension breaking. "You're all insane."
"We're not the one getting a private drop-off from Dr. Brooding and Beautiful," Chloe retorted. "Spill. Now. What is happening? Is he your secret boyfriend? Is this a forbidden academic romance?"
"It's nothing like that!" Amaya said, but her smile was too wide, her face too flushed to be convincing. As her friends teased and prodded her all the way to class, a part of her soared. The morning had been a declaration, albeit an unwilling one on his part. He had been seen. With her. The entire college was now buzzing with the mystery of the intense, handsome man on the motorcycle. And for the first time, the object of her daydreams wasn't just a secret in her journal. He was a rumor in the hallways, a fact in the world.
He had protested. He had called it illogical. But in the end, he had done it. He had let her hold on. And for a few minutes, with the world rushing by and her arms around him, she hadn't been his student or his neighbor's annoying little sister.
She had been the girl on the back of Aris Rowon's bike. And every whispered question from her friends was a brick in the beautiful, precarious castle of her hopes.