When we hit the main drag, I took the long way home.
Let the world slip past us, let the sun burn off the stink of everything we’d survived. Let her breathe, and maybe, just maybe, let myself breathe, too.
She started to loosen up a mile or so past the high school. Her arms slackened, her body fell into sync with mine, so that when I leaned into the long right turn near the water tower, she followed, the two of us dipping low as a single unit. The wind picked up, sharp and dry, peeling the sweat off my neck and slapping it down the front of my shirt. I could feel her hair whipping across my shoulders, and every time it caught on my chin or cheek, I got a whiff of something clean, like lemon shampoo and hope.
We climbed the long hill past the nuclear museum, the only sound the steady roar of the engine and the occasional slap of wind in my ears. I let the bike drift toward the double yellow, keeping a buffer between us and the line of pickups crawling in the other direction. Every car we passed, I checked the drivers out of habit, not paranoia, though today the distinction was blurry. I caught myself tilting the left mirror to keep an eye on the road behind, but nothing followed us. No Sultans, no club, not even a loose cop with time to kill.
Emily pressed her cheek to the leather between my shoulders. It was soft from a decade of use, and I wondered if she could feel my heart beating through it, or if shejust liked the shelter of it—the way it blocked the wind and maybe a little bit of the world. She didn’t say a word, but I could tell from the way her hands moved that the terror was starting to ebb, replaced by something closer to curiosity. The way her palms explored the surface, the tips of her fingers tracing the Bloody Scythes patch, the slow realization that no one was going to yank her off this bike and put her down for being too fragile to fight back.
We crested the next rise, and the town fell away behind us. To the left, the desert dropped off into scrub and red dirt, all the way to the line of mountains that ringed the horizon. The right side was a mix of tumbled rock and the odd cluster of stunted piñon. The air up here smelled different—less engine exhaust, more sun-baked sage and whatever was left after years of wildfires. I slowed the bike, just a little, to let her see the view.
She didn’t let go, but she did lift her head. I felt her inhale, her ribs pressing into my back, as if she needed proof the world was still out here and still hers for the taking. She started to move with the bike, not against it, so when I banked into the hairpin above White Rock, she leaned with me, her chin bumping my shoulder, her hands splayed over my stomach now instead of locked tight.
“You good?” I shouted, voice nearly lost in the rush.
I felt the rumble of her laughter, or maybe it was just a shiver. “Better than good.” She didn’t let go, but now it was for her own reasons.
At the overlook, I swung off the road and killed the engine. The sudden silence was so complete, I could hear the heat clicking in the metal. Emily’s hands lingered at my waist, then fell away like she was letting go of a life raft.
She slid off the bike and landed on wobbly legs. She shook out her arms and hands, then wiped sweat from her upper lip, eyes wide and alive in a way I hadn’t seen before. Her hair was a disaster, the ends wild from the helmet and the wind, but she looked less like someone who’d survived a trauma and more like someone who wanted to see what else was out there.
I let her catch her breath before I said anything. She walked to the edge of the pullout and looked down at the valley, the flat bowl of Los Alamos spread out below, the city blocks shrinking into colored Lego pieces. She turned back to me, and for the first time all day, she smiled without forcing it.
“Did you do this for me?” she asked, voice a little raw.
“Did what?” I played dumb, but she saw right through it.
“Pick this spot. This view.”
I snorted, hands busy with the bungee on my saddlebag. “You’re the first.” It was true, and I let her see it. “Bikers are supposed to be secretive. Vulnerability is just another way to get shot.”
She considered that, eyes narrowing. “So why bring me?”
I unzipped the bag and pulled out the battered old thermos. “Because you saw me. Last night, in the kennel. Not just the blood, or the rage, or the mess. You looked me in the eye after, and you didn’t flinch. I can’t say that about anyone else. I know what people see when they look at me. I don’t fucking blame them for thinking what they do.”
She went quiet, a subtle tension rolling off her, but she took the thermos when I offered it. We found a flat spot on the big rock that jutted out like a throne for two, legs dangling over the drop. The stone still held the warmth of the sun, but the air had already begun to chill, the kind of desert cold that snaps into place as soon as the light starts to die.
We sat, side by side, passing the thermos back and forth. The coffee inside was bitter, gone lukewarm, but she drank it like she was dying of thirst.
I traced a line in the dirt with my boot, the words coming slowly. “After my dad died, I came up here a lot. Not sure why. Guess it was the only place that felt honest.” Ithumbed the dog tags at my throat, the metal cool against my skin. “Everything down there felt like a movie set. But up here—” I swept a hand at the world, the vast, empty space. “Up here, I remembered how small my problems really were. How easy it is to disappear if you stop trying.”
She pulled her knees up, hugging them to her chest, the coffee cradled between. “I get that. When things got rough at home, I’d stay after hours at the shelter. Scrub floors, organize meds, anything to not be alone in my head.” She drew a pattern on the knee of her jeans, a nervous tic. “It’s easier to care for animals than people. Animals don’t betray you or change their minds. Even when they bite, you see it coming.”
I looked at her, the cut on her cheek healing already, the eyes sharper and brighter than when I’d met her. “You’re not alone, you know. Not unless you want to be.”
She made a sound, soft and dismissive, but she didn’t move away. “I’ve always been alone. Even when I’m not.”
We sat like that a long while, letting the silence fill up with sky. The sunset hit its stride, casting everything in shades of blood and honey, the kind of light that makes even ugly places look holy. I wanted to reach for her hand, to break the distance, but I waited.
Eventually, the wind picked up, and she shivered. I shrugged out of my jacket and draped it around her shoulders.The leather was too big for her, the sleeves dangling past her hands, but she pulled it tight and closed her eyes, inhaling deep. I could see her shoulders relax, the shiver replaced by a slow exhale, a visible settling.
“Smells like you,” she said, voice half-muffled.
“Better than smelling like dog piss,” I replied.
She laughed, the sound sharp and sudden, then looked at me sidelong. “I think you’re trying to be romantic.”
I shrugged, a little embarrassed. “Maybe I am. Maybe it’s not as hard as I thought.”
