Page 30 of My Veteran Biker

I eat because she's watching me and because my body needs fuel even if I don't feel hungry.

She eats standing at the counter, leaning against it in my shirt that hits her mid-thigh.

"What time do we need to leave?" she asks.

"Seven."

"That's seven hours away."

"Yeah."

"What do we do until then?"

I set down my spoon and look at her. She's not really asking about how to fill time. She's asking if we're going to spend the next seven hours tangled in my bed or if we're going to try being normal people who exist outside of sex and confessions.

"I need to shower," I say. "Then check in with Tate."

"Okay."

"You could go to your dad's. Spend some time with him. Come back here around six."

She nods but doesn't move. Just stands there holding her soup bowl, looking at me like she's trying to figure something out.

"What?" I ask.

"Just processing. Yesterday morning I thought I'd never speak to you again. Now I'm eating soup in your kitchen wearing your shirt and agreeing to be claimed by a motorcycle club."

"You can change your mind."

"I don't want to."

"Okay."

She finishes her soup and rinses the bowl, sets it in the sink.

When she turns back to me there's something softer in her face, something that looks like relief.

"I should get dressed," she says. "Go see Dad before he starts calling to make sure I'm still alive."

She goes to my bedroom and I hear her moving around, getting her clothes from where they ended up scattered on the floor.

When she comes back she's dressed in yesterday's jeans and her own shirt, hair pulled into a ponytail.

She kisses me before she leaves. Quick, casual, like it's something we've done a thousand times.

The house feels empty after the door closes behind her.

I shower carefully, keeping the gauze dry. The wound looks better than it did this morning but it still needs proper stitches, probably antibiotics.

I'll deal with it tomorrow. Today I have other priorities.

I change the gauze myself, tape it in place, pull on clean jeans and a black T-shirt. My cut goes on last, the weight of it settling across my shoulders like always. Vigil MC embroidered on the back, the patch worn smooth in places from years of wear.

Wearing it used to feel like armor. Now it feels like declaration.

I call Tate.

"You alive?" he asks instead of hello.