One~Cold Roads
Jaxon
THe Cold Hits Differently On A Motorcycle.It snakes into your gloves, your boots, even under your jacket, no matter how many layers you wear. The wind doesn’t just sting your face. It whispers in your ears, reminds you how alone you are out here on the road. Some people ride to feel free. I ride to feel real.
It’s December. Christmas lights string across porches and blink like tired eyes in the distance, but out here, on this back highway cutting through the hills, there’s just me, my bike, and a whole lot of white silence.
The world always gets loud this time of year. Shops blasting the same ten songs on repeat, people crushing into each other at malls, fake cheer sprayed over everything like cheap perfume. But out here, you don’t hear any of that. Just the engine, thewind, the occasional howl of something wild in the trees. I like it better this way. Less lies.
The sky’s that low, heavy gray that promises snow and keeps its word. Frost clings to the edges of the road, catching my headlight and throwing it back in shards of silver. I keep my speed steady. I know these roads. They’ve known me longer than most people have.
I roll my shoulders underneath my jacket, leather creaking. I should probably invest in something more insulated, something with thermal lining like the catalogs in the gas stations keep trying to sell me. But the chill serves a purpose. It reminds me I have nerves left to feel, that I didn’t leave everything behind in all the places I’ve already burned through.
I lean into a curve, the bike responding like it’s reading my thoughts. Marla’s an old girl, older than some of the kids I see revving shiny plastic rockets down the highway, but she’s solid, dependable. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t lie. I twist the throttle, and she gives me exactly what I ask for. Can’t say that about many things in my life.
The town’s not much. A cluster of houses huddled together against the flat, open fields. A church with a steeple that needs paint. A tiny strip of stores, hardware, thrift, and some new craft place with a chalkboard sign out front and fairy lights around the door. This time of night, most of its dark, just shapes pressed against the snow.
I pass a yard where a plastic Santa leans at a weird angle, half-deflated, like he’s had one too many eggnogs and took a spill. Someone’s gone overboard with those blinking icicle lights, the whole roof dripping in timed colors. They’re flashing red and green in a pattern that’s probably meant to be festive, but from the road, it just looks like an ambulance in slow motion. I drag in a breath so cold it burns.
I used to like Christmas. Before. I can still see it if I let myself, my kid brother, Cody, bouncing around the living room in pajamas with little reindeer on them, pretending not to shake the presents under the tree. My old man trying to string lights outside and swearing under his breath the whole time. My mom humming along to some old carol while she burned the first batch of cookies and declared them“taste testing material.”
It was messy and loud and imperfect. But it was ours. Then one year, it wasn’t. I don’t like thinking about that part. So, I don’t. I focus on the road, on the snow slicking down in slow, fat flakes. My fingers ache around the grips. I shift my weight, flex my hands to get blood moving again, and that’s when I see it, a faint glow through the trees up ahead, warm, and yellow against all that gray.
A diner. The kind of place I’d usually ride past. But the cold’s got teeth tonight, and my knuckles don’t stop throbbing anymore, they just trade places with the rest of me. I’m not heading anywhere in particular. I wasn't planning on stopping either, until I saw the lights of a diner glowing through the snow-covered pines. The kind of place that smells like bacon grease and burnt coffee. The kind of place where you can sit in the corner, and nobody asks questions.
I signal out of habit even though there’s no one behind me, turn off the main road, and follow the cracked side lane that leads to the lot. Tires crunch against frostbitten gravel. The diner's sign flickers—RUBY’S—one of those old neon numbers with a couple of letters burned out so it readsR BY’Shalf the time. Good enough.
I park near the side, away from the main window. Old instinct. I like seeing who comes and goes before they see me. I kill the engine and let the sudden quiet wrap around me. The ticking of hot metal meets the dull hush of falling snow. My breath ghosts out in front of me when I exhale.
The cold sneaks under my collar despite the scarf. I rub my hands together, flex my fingers, and climb off the bike. My boots crunch through the thin layer of white as I head for the door, the smell of frying oil and coffee already threading through the air.
Inside, Ruby’s is exactly what I expected. Vinyl booths patched with duct tape. A long counter lined with spinning stools whose padding had given up some time back in the early nineties. A jukebox in the corner, lights dim, screen dark, collecting dust more than quarters. A Christmas tree sits by the window, decorated with mismatched ornaments and tinsel that’s seen better decades.
The heater’s working overtime, a low rumble in the background. Somewhere in the kitchen, someone’s banging pans around like they’re mad at them. The TV mounted in the corner plays some old holiday movie with the sound off, subtitles crawling along the bottom of the screen.
There are only three other customers, a pair of old guys in work jackets playing cards in the far booth, and a trucker nursing what’s left of a burger, eyes half-closed like he might fall asleep sitting up.
The waitress behind the counter glances up when the bell over the door jingles. She gives me a once-over, the jacket, the helmet in my hand, the visible scar running from my temple down to my cheekbone, and I catch that familiar split-second pause.Assessing. Calculating.
Threat or not?
Apparently, I fall on the right side of the line tonight because she just jerks her chin toward the counter.
“Sit wherever,” she says, voice bored and raspy from too many late nights and cigarettes.
I slide onto a stool at the far end, where I can see the whole room reflected in the metal strip along the back of the counter. Old habit. Old life. I set my helmet on the floor between myboots and brace my forearms on the counter, trying to work some feeling back into my fingers.
“Coffee?” she asks, already reaching for the pot.
“Yeah. Black.”
“No food?”
“Maybe in a bit.” I shrug. “Just drove in. I need to remember how to feel my hands first.”
She snorts, something like a ghost of amusement flashing over her face. “You bikers always pick the worst nights.”
I tilt my head. “Best ones are taken.”
