“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
He tilts his head and studies me. “For what?”
“For showing up.”
His jaw works once before he answers. “Always.”
The word settles deep, warm, and solid, and I want to believe it. I want to believe someone could mean it and not disappear later.
For a moment, we stand there, staring at each other. The space between us feels like it’s tightening. His scent of leather, soap, and smoke envelops me. My heart races too fast, too close to the surface.
Tiny breaks the moment first, like he always does. “Get some sleep, Syv.”
“Night, Tiny.”
He hesitates, like he wants to say more, then turns and walks down the hall. The sound of his boots fades, but the echo remains.
I step inside and shut the door.
The room is small but clean. I have a bed, a dresser, and an old lamp I found at a thrift store. Peanut’s dish sits against the wall, her paw prints still dusty on the tile from the last time Tiny brought her by.
I sink onto the bed, the quiet pressing in. The ride, the diner, his voice, all of it flashes behind my eyes in quick succession.
The way he looked at me when I admitted how close I was to falling apart.
The way his hand hovered over mine, not quite touching, as if he knew that if he touched, I wouldn’t let go. The way my pulse jumped when he said,Let ’em talk.
I should be sleeping. Instead, I close my eyes and see his. Brown, steady, endless.
My body still remembers how it felt pressed against his back on the ride home. The warmth of him beneath my palms. The rhythm of his breathing. The heat between us neither of us dares to name.
An ache settles low in my chest, steady and insistent, and I don’t trust what it could become if I let it grow.
Wanting him would be simple if it were reckless, if it burned fast and disappeared just as quickly. But this feels slower than that. It lingers.
And that kind of wanting carries weight.
I’m too broken, I think. He deserves someone clean, someone who won’t drag him into the wreckage I’m still crawling out of. But when I shift under the thin sheet, I can still smell him on my skin.
I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling. The cracks resemble roads. Some are broken, some still lead somewhere.
If I sleep, I’ll dream of him. If I stay awake, I’ll remember why I shouldn’t.
I pull the blanket higher and let the silence stretch instead of finishing the thought. Tiny said,“Always.”The word felt solid when he said it. Warm. Certain.
But I’ve believed in solid things before.
I turn onto my side and stare at the thin strip of light under the door, listening as his engine starts outside and then fades into the distance. The sound lingers longer than it should, settling somewhere between comfort and warning.
Maybe always means something different with him. Maybe it doesn’t.
I close my eyes, holding onto the memory of breathing in time with him on the bike, the way it felt to share the same rhythm for a few quiet miles.
I don’t yet know if I’m strong enough to find out.
3