"Harper," I say to the ceiling. "First day of work. Focus."
I get up.
Ridgeline Physical Therapy Clinic is a low, cheerful building two blocks from Main Street, between a bookshop that looks unchanged since 2003 and a small post office with a hand-painted flag above the door. There’s a new ramp out front—someone cared about the details. I like that immediately.
Dr. Sandra Meyers is exactly what Patty promised—fair, sharp, runs a tight ship. Early fifties, silver-streaked hair pulled back, reading glasses on a chain she keeps losing. She shakes my hand, gives me a quick tour, and has me looking at my first patient file before I’ve even found the coffee machine.
"We get a lot of post-surgical referrals," she tells me, flipping through a folder with the efficiency of someone who has zero patience for wasted motion. "Knee replacements, rotator cuffs, the usual. But we also get referrals from the MC—the Iron Havocmen. Old combat injuries that were never properly rehabilitated, occupational stuff." She pauses, glances at me over her glasses. "Any issue with that?"
"Not at all."
"Good." She moves on, and I follow, and that's apparently the entire vetting process.
My other colleague is a woman named Rosa, twenty-six, recently graduated, and genuinely thrilled to have someone new to talk to. She finds me at the coffee machine within minutes, which is already telling me we're going to get along fine.
"Where are you from? Why Copper Ridge? Have you been to the Iron Havoc Tavernyet?" All three questions in one breath.
"Portland, long story, and yes… last night actually," I say.
Her eyes go wide. "On your first night?"
"I don't believe in waiting until I feel ready."
She stares at me for a beat like she's deciding if that's brave or reckless. Then she grins. "Okay, I like you. So… how was it?"
"Pretty good," I say. "Very solid gin and tonic."
Rosa hums like that's only half the answer. "And?"
"There was an incident with a drunk local. Someone stepped in." I keep my voice casual. "Big guy, dark hair, patch on his jacket—"
"Oh God." Rosa's expression shifts into something between recognition and alarm. "Scar stepped in?"
"Scar?"
"Ronan Ryder. That's his road name, well, everyone just calls him Scar, though not always to his face." She wraps both hands around her mug. "He's one of the Iron Havoc guys. Ex-Army. Keeps to himself mostly, works in the club garage." Shelowers her voice, even though we're the only two people in the break room. "He's not dangerous, not to normal people, but he's intense.Like, the-room-gets-quieter-when-he-walks-in intense."
I know exactly what she means.
"He just told me I shouldn't come to the bar alone," I say.
Rosa points at me. "He's right."
"I know. I’m still going anyway."
She stares at me again. Then she laughs, shakes her head, and goes to check on her first patient.
By late afternoon I’ve seen three patients: Harold, post-knee replacement, who treats therapy like an insult; a teenager recovering from a soccer injury who mostly talks about her team, and a woman in her forties with chronic shoulder tension she’s been carrying so long she thinks it's just part of who she is now.
I understand her more than she knows.
I walk home the long way. Mountain September can’t decide if it’s still summer—cool in the shade, warm in the sun, aspens just starting to turn gold. I’m looking up when I almost miss the garage.
Then I hear it—an engine, worked on by someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.
The building sits at the corner of Birch and Mill. Wide roll-up doors open to the afternoon air, the Iron Havoc skull-and-wings logo on a sign above the entrance. Inside I can see two bikes in various states of disassembly, a third up on a lift, tools organized along the back wall with a precision that looks less like a mechanic's habit and more like a military one.
Beneath a lifted bike, a pair of legs in worn jeans and work boots.
