Page 30 of My Older Biker

I don't answer immediately. Can't. Because she's right and I don't know how to say it.

She waits. Patient. The refrigerator hums in the corner, and outside a car drives past on the main road. The sound fades.

"Yeah," I finally say. "That's what scares me."

"Why?"

"Because I've seen it happen too many times. Brothers who don't have anyone waiting for them. Who live alone and die alone and the only reason anyone knows they're gone is because they miss church or don't show up for a run. And I've spent seventeen years making sure I don't have anyone to miss me because that's safer. Simpler. You can't lose what you don't have."

"But now you do have someone."

"Yeah. Now I do." I look at her sitting on my kitchen floor in my shirt with her knees pulled up. "And that's—" I stop. Try again. "That terrifies me."

"Because you might die?"

"Because if I lose you, it'll destroy me. And that's a kind of vulnerability I've never let myself feel before."

"Then we'll both be careful," she says quietly. "Both of us. I'll wait for you to come home, and you'll fight to get back to me. That's the deal."

"You don't know that. You can't promise that."

"Yes I can." Her voice is steady. Certain. "I can promise that I'm choosing this. That I'm choosing you. That I know what I'm getting into and I'm doing it anyway."

"You're choosing to love someone who might not come home one night. Who might end up like Perry. Who might—" I can't finish the sentence.

"I know what I'm choosing."

"Do you?" The words come out harder than I mean them. "Because knowing it abstractly and living it are completely different things. You've been with me for five days. Five. That's nothing. You haven't lived through months of me coming home bleeding. You haven't sat through me leaving for a run and not knowing if I'm coming back. You haven't—"

"I was kidnapped eight months ago." Her voice cuts through mine. Calm but firm. "I know exactly what this world is. What it costs. I'm not walking into this blind."

"That's not the same as—"

"You're right. It's not. But I'm not naive. I'm not some civilian who wandered into this thinking it's romantic and dangerous in a fun way. I know people die. I know you might die. I know that every time you walk out that door I might not see you again."

She stands. Doesn't step away but creates space between us.

"But here's what you need to understand," she continues. "I'm more afraid of not having you than I am of losing you. I'd rather have three years with you than fifty years safe and alone. I'd rather be terrified and yours than comfortable and empty."

The words sit in my chest like weight.

"Perry didn't have anyone," I say. "He died alone. And I keep thinking—" I have to stop. My voice is breaking. "I keep thinking about how I went into that warehouse on Saturday knowing I might not come back. And for the first time in my life I wanted to survive not because I had shit to do but because someone was waiting for me. Because you were sitting on my couch scared and I wanted to come back to you."

Zoe's eyes are wet now but she doesn't look away.

"And that's new," I say. "That's different. For seventeen years I've ridden out knowing that if I died it wouldn't matter beyond the club losing a member. But now—" I reach for her hand. She gives it to me. "Now I have something to lose. Now there's someone who'll grieve me. Someone who'll sit at my funeral and not know what to say because all the words are inadequate."

"So don't die."

"I'm trying not to."

"Try harder." She squeezes my hand. "Fight to come home. Every single time. Not for the club. For me."

I pull her closer. She comes. Lets me wrap my arms around her waist and press my face against her stomach. The shirt smells like my detergent and her skin underneath.

"I don't know how to do this," I say against the fabric. "I don't know how to want something this much and still do my job."

"What do you mean?"