Page 4 of My Veteran Biker

At some point I must sleep because the next thing I know the sun is coming through the thin curtains, bright and already hot.

My body is damp with sweat, the tank top I slept in clinging to my skin.

I get up and take a shower that does nothing to cool me down, then pull on denim shorts and a gray tank top that clings to my stomach and my breasts and my hips.

I pause in front of the bathroom mirror.

I've made peace with my body. Mostly. I'm fat and I've stopped apologizing for it. My thighs are thick, my hips are wide, my stomach is soft and rounds out beneath the tank top's hem. I take up space.

I pull the tank top down over the waistband of my shorts and go to make coffee.

The coffee maker is ancient and takes ten minutes to brew a pot that tastes like rust and old grounds. I drink it anyway, standing at the kitchen window with the mug in both hands when I see movement next door.

The garage door is open. There's a motorcycle inside and a man crouched beside it with his back to me.

I can see the breadth of his shoulders under a gray t-shirt, the way his forearms flex when he adjusts something on the engine.

His hair is dark with threads of gray visible even from this distance.

I don't recognize him immediately.

Then he stands and turns to reach for a tool on the workbench. My chest goes tight, my breath catching somewhere between my lungs and my throat.

Knox.

I haven't said his name out loud in over a decade. Haven't let myself think it more than I had to.

But I know the shape of him, the way he moves.

He doesn't see me. He's focused on the bike, turning back to it with the tool in his hand, crouching again.

His t-shirt pulls tight across his back when he leans forward and I can see the muscle there, the way his body has thickened since I knew him.

He was thirty when I left. Lean, hard, all edges.

Now he's solid in a way that makes my throat go dry.

I watch him work and tell myself I'm just surprised. Just processing the fact that of all the places in Bloomfield I could've rented, I'm next door to the one person I've spent seventeen years trying not to think about.

My hands start shaking.

He shifts his weight and I see the line of his jaw, the gray in his hair catching the morning light.

Seventeen years. I left him when we were young enough to believe time didn't matter.

I set the coffee mug on the counter and press my palms flat against the edge, grounding myself in the solidity of it.

I built a life. A life that was entirely mine, where I didn't have to shape myself around someone else's choices, someone else's timeline.

I was competent and alone and fine.

Seeing him standing twenty feet away makes me feel like the girl who waited for him to come home. Who made herself small enough to fit into the spaces he left open. Who loved him so much she forgot to ask if she was allowed to want things too.

I step away from the window and go to the bathroom, turning on the cold water and splashing it on my face, my neck, and my wrists.

My pulse is fast and my skin is hot and I can still see the shape of him crouched beside that bike like it's burned into my vision.

I need to move.