Page 5 of My Veteran Biker

I grab my purse and my keys and I'm halfway to the front door when I remember the trash.

The kitchen trash is full. I tied the bag this morning and left it by the door. If I leave now I'll come home to a house that smells like garbage in this heat.

I pick up the bag, unlock the front door, and step outside into air that's already thick and heavy despite the early hour.

The walk to the bin at the end of the driveway feels longer than it is, my legs unsteady beneath me.

He's still in the garage. I can hear the clink of metal on metal, the low sound of something being adjusted.

I keep my eyes on the trash bin, on the simple task of lifting the lid and dropping the bag inside.

When I turn around he's standing at the edge of the garage, ten feet away, a wrench in his hand.

We look at each other.

I've practiced this. In my head, late at night when I couldn't sleep, I practiced what I'd say if I ever saw him again.

I had a whole speech prepared. Calm, measured, the kind of thing a woman says when she's moved on and built a life and doesn't need closure because she's already closed.

I don't say any of it.

My heart is pounding hard enough that I can feel it in my throat. My hands are clenched at my sides and there's heat in my stomach that has nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the way he's looking at me.

Not surprised. Not confused.

Just looking with the same steady attention he used to give to everything that mattered.

I feel seen. Completely, entirely seen, in a way I haven't felt in seventeen years. It makes me want to run.

I stand there instead in my denim shorts and tank top that's showing too much of my soft stomach, too much of the body I've made peace with everywhere except here, in front of him.

"Francis," he says.

His voice hasn't changed. Low, rough at the edges, the kind that doesn't waste words.

I should say something. I should say his name. I should say anything.

I turn and walk back to the house without looking at him again, my legs somehow carrying me up the porch steps and through the door that I close and lock behind me.

I stand with my back pressed against it until my breathing slows enough that I can think past the rushing in my ears.

This is manageable. I have a career and a car and my own health insurance. I left him once.

I can stay away from him now.

I came back to Bloomfield for my father.

I didn't come back for Knox or to reopen something that ended for good reasons.

I just need to keep my distance. Keep my focus on why I'm here.

I can do that.

I tell myself I can do that, sitting in the small bedroom of a rental house that shares a driveway with the one man I've never been able to forget, while the heat outside climbs toward another scorching afternoon and the air conditioner hums its failing battle against the temperature.

Chapter 2 — Knox

She's been here two days, and I haven't said more than her name.