Page 13 of My Veteran Biker

He's already moving, crossing to the chair where his shirt is draped. He pulls it on, then his cut, the leather settling across his shoulders with a familiarity that tells me he wears it more than he doesn't.

His movements are efficient, practiced, someone who's done this a thousand times.

I should leave, go back to my house and let him handle whatever crisis is pulling him away.

Instead I stand there watching him lace his boots, watching the way his shoulders are already set for whatever's coming.

"Be careful," I say.

He stops with his hand on the doorknob, looks back at me. For a second something crosses his face, something vulnerable and quickly hidden.

"Lock up when you leave," he says.

Then he's gone and I'm standing alone in his kitchen with the sound of his motorcycle roaring to life outside, fading into the distance until there's nothing left but silence.

I rinse the plates. Dry them. Put them back in the cabinet exactly where I found them.

Then I stand there looking at the rest of his kitchen, at the bare counters and empty walls.

There's a coffee maker but no mugs visible. I open cabinets until I find them. Four identical black mugs, perfectly aligned.

Everything in this kitchen is functional, nothing decorative. No magnets on the fridge, no dish towels hanging, no evidence that anyone cooks here or lives here or does anything beyond exist in the most minimal way possible.

I walk through the rest of the house even though I shouldn't.

The living room has a couch, a coffee table, a TV. No photos, no books except for a motorcycle maintenance manual on the side table. No plants, no art, no personality.

Like a hotel room someone's been living in for eight years.

His bedroom door is open. I stop in the doorway without going in.

The bed is made with military precision, corners tucked tight. There's a dresser with nothing on top of it. A lamp. Blackout curtains.

The room is dark even with the door open, the kind of dark that makes sleep possible during the day if you work strange hours or can't sleep at night.

This is what seventeen years of solitary living looks like. Not messy bachelor neglect but emptiness. Every surface clear because nothing accumulates when you don't let anyone in. No photos because there's no one to photograph. No books because reading is something you do when you want to fill time and his time is already full with the club and maintenance and whatever else keeps him from having to sit still.

I think about my apartment in Harrisburg. How full it was with things Ben and I had bought together.

Furniture that looked good in magazines. Kitchen equipment we never used. Decorative objects that were supposed to make the space feel homey but just made it feel cluttered.

I moved out and took almost nothing with me.

Knox's house is empty but at least it's honestly empty. He's not pretending to have something he doesn't. He's just... not having it.

I lock his door and walk back to my own house in the dusk.

The air is still thick, still hot, cicadas screaming like they're angry about it. My body feels restless in a way that has nothing to do with the temperature.

Inside I take a cold shower that doesn't help. Put on pajama shorts and a tank top. Sit on my couch with the window open because the air conditioning in this rental barely works and try to read a book.

The words don't stick. I keep reading the same paragraph over and over, seeing Knox's face when he said his friend died alone.

At midnight I'm still awake. I can see his house from my bedroom window. The driveway is empty. He's not back yet.

At one I give up on sleep and go to the kitchen for water.

His driveway’s still empty.