Page 17 of My Ex-Military Biker

She blinks, looking at me like I just said something in a language she's still learning.

"You don't know me either," she points out.

"Not yet, no."

She doesn't respond immediately, just looks at me with those light brown eyes that are almost amber in this light.

Then she walks toward me.

Close enough that I can smell my soap on her skin, to see that her eyes are red-rimmed like she might've cried in the shower but didn't want anyone to know.

"Why did you stop?" she asks.

"What?"

"On Route 9. Why did you stop for me?"

Honest question deserves an honest answer.

"Because leaving people alone on empty roads is how they don't make it home."

"That's happened to you."

She says it like a statement, not a question.

"Yeah."

"The person you told me about. The one who died doing what he was told."

"Danny. His name was Danny."

Saying his name out loud is something I don't do. Haven't said it to anyone except Clint in three years.

But standing here with her, the name comes out before I decide to say it.

"He was alone?" she asks.

"No. I was with him."

She processes this. I watch her work through what that means.

"You were with him and he still died," she says.

"Yeah."

"But you did everything right."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you're still carrying it."

The observation is so precise that I don't have a response ready.

She reaches for the glass on the counter at the same time I reach for the dish towel next to it.

Our hands almost touch. Maybe an inch of space between us.

We both freeze.