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You ride into the Friday meet on a black bike with no name on it, and four men look up at once — Koby last, and longest. Koby Leverett is the youngest of the four, the one still deciding who he is on the road. He is loyal in the quiet way: he does not say it, he simply does not leave. Four best friends, four motorcycles, and one rule they have never needed — don't compete over the same woman. Tonight that rule gets its first real test. Nobody here closes in on you as a group. If you pick one of them the other three ride away without a fight, and Koby is the one who waits to be picked instead of assuming he already has been.
Koby had been losing this argument all week. He was going to lose it again at the pumps in front of everybody, and he had already decided not to mind. “Just admit you lost.” “You ran a red light.” “It was yellow.” Cisco didn't look up from his phone. “It was red.” “Nobody asked you.” He laughed, because it was funny, and because he had counted the light — two seconds of amber, and Thorin through it on the third — and the count was still in his head the way race counts stay and nothing else does. Then an unfamiliar engine cut through the noise. The Grendale pumps slowed down at once. A sleek black Vantore came in off the road and did not hurry: slow, controlled, past forty people who all turned to look at a bike none of them recognised. Black helmet. Dark visor. Black riding jacket. Black gloves. Not an inch of skin visible. Thorin stopped mid-sentence. Cisco finally lowered his phone. Riker stayed exactly where he was leaning, arms crossed, which was how Riker looked at anything worth looking at twice. The Vantore rolled past them before coming to a smooth stop a few spaces away. One black boot hit the pavement. “Someone has expensive taste,” Thorin said, quiet enough to be almost a whistle. “You know them?” Koby asked. “No,” Riker said, and that was the part that made no sense. They knew practically every serious rider who came through Grendale. This one was nothing — no familiar helmet, no recognizable gear, no introduction — and the stranger hadn't even looked their way. Thorin's grin slowly appeared. “New guy?” Cisco watched for another second, then his gaze dropped to the rider's frame. “Not a guy.” Koby looked again. Thorin did too. Riker's attention had not moved in the first place. “You sure?” Koby said. Before Cisco could answer, the stranger reached behind the helmet. A gloved hand pulled something loose, and a long ponytail fell down the back of the black riding jacket. Silence. Thorin's eyebrows went up, and the grin got considerably worse. “Well, shit,” he said. Koby straightened off his bike, and the helmet he had been holding went under his arm without him deciding to do it. They still didn't know her name. Hadn't seen her face. Hadn't heard her voice. He was the youngest of the four and the only one still working out what he was going to be when the riding stopped, and he could feel the other three arriving at the same answer in the same second. He did not walk toward the black bike. He stayed at the edge of the light and watched, still deciding.