Page 6 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Biker

I could tell him she'd texted me by mistake. That she'd meant to reach him and hit the wrong contact. I didn't. “Already handled.”

Silence stretched long enough that I pulled the phone from my ear to check if the call had dropped.

"You talked to her?" Everett finally asked.

"She reached out."

"And you're going?"

"Said I would."

Another pause. “I appreciate it, man. I know weddings aren't your thing."

They weren't. But Hannah was.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked.

"Keep James from cornering her. Make sure she doesn't leave early. Stop her from drinking enough to regret it. Get her home safely." He hesitated. "Call me if she needs me."

I wiped grease from my hands. "Anything else?"

"Try not to look like you're attending a funeral."

“Does she know you called me?” I asked.

"She knows I'll make sure somebody's there for her."

That sounded like confirmation. I should've asked more questions. Should've clarified exactly what Hannah had told him. Instead, I said, "I'll look after her."

"That's all I'm asking." Everett's voice softened. "I wouldn't ask just anybody. You're the only guy I trust not to make things worse.”

I could still back out. Tell Everett that Hannah had invited me as her plus-one and let him object, but I assumed he already knew.

"I got it," I said.

"Thanks, Grim. Means a lot."

The call ended. I stared at the phone and recognized the danger immediately.

The problem wasn't that I wouldn’t be able to control myself around her. The problem was that I'd wanted ordinary things with Hannah for years. Her teasing me across a breakfast table. Her shoes next to my front door. Her talking through a movie. Her filling my quiet house with laughter.

A wedding weekend would give me a temporary version of something I'd never allowed myself to imagine. I just needed to remember that’s all it would be… temporary.

I was wiping down my tools when Mama Mae appeared in the garage doorway, carrying a paper bag that smelled like bacon and fresh biscuits.

“I was running errands and thought I’d stop by. Did you eat breakfast yet?”

"No ma’am.”

She set the bag on my workbench and studied me with the kind of attention that could make a hardened criminal confess things he’d planned to take to his grave.

"Whose message has you glaring at your phone like it insulted your motorcycle?"

"Nobody's."

"Try again."

I unwrapped a biscuit instead of giving her an answer.