Chapter 4 Emily
Emily
The Humane Society parking lot had been poured in the sixties and never resurfaced.
Decades of sun and freeze had cracked it into hexagons and puzzle pieces, like the earth had tried to shrug it off and couldn’t quite finish the job.
The afternoon heat shimmered above the blacktop, throwing wavy lines around my ankles as I stood by the exit, the leash in my hand gone slack.
Sergeant sat beside me with the resigned patience of a prisoner up for parole, her tongue lolling pink against blue jaws.
Dean was there, too. He and Sergeant had gotten out to walk me to the door.
He stood a step away, the sun lighting up the sharp cut of his cheekbone and the matte black helmet perched on the Night Train’s handlebars.
His leather jacket looked soft from wear, and the patches—the Bloody Scythes insignia, a faded “Los Alamos Original,” a stitched compass rose—were scabbed over with road dust and sun bleach.
He was silent for a long time, just the faint clink of his dog tags against the zipper when he shifted. I didn’t trust silence from men like him, so I filled it. “You grew up around here?” I asked, voice half-strangled by nerves.
He didn’t look away, but his gaze went unfocused, like he was reading something on the horizon.
“Born and raised. The Labs, the mesa, that old nuke museum—they all feel smaller when you’ve seen them a few thousand times.
” He squinted into the sun, eyes pale and restless.
“I do my best to stay out of the ‘nice’ neighborhoods, though. The HOA types tend to call the cops when they see a motorcycle parked after dark.”
I smirked, running my thumb along Sergeant’s collar. “I’ve lived here three years, and the only place I know is the stretch from home to work to the discount grocery.”
He looked at me then, direct. “You ought to see the overlook off Omega Road, north side of town. Sunset hits the valley and turns the whole sky into fire. Nobody’s ever there—too far from the breweries and not enough parking for the tourists.”
His tone was flat, matter-of-fact, but I caught a flicker of something behind the words: hope, or at least the wish for a reaction. I tried to give him one. “Sounds nice. Is it, like, a date spot, or more ‘teenagers go there to smoke up’ kind of thing?”
He grinned, for real this time. “Depends who you bring.”
Dean’s presence had a gravity to it. He didn’t fill space so much as bend it around himself, so that even a mundane errand—like picking up a dog for his mother—turned into something dangerous and weirdly charged.
Sergeant stood and stretched, her head nudging my thigh. “She’s already attached to you,” I said, mostly to fill air.
“She’s always liked women better,” Dean said, rolling his voice softer, almost sheepish. “Figures.”
I almost laughed. “You mean dogs or—?”
He cut me off with a single shake of his head, but he was smiling, eyes crinkled at the corners. “Both, probably.”
I wanted to ask about the patches, about the history mapped out in the thread and blood, and whatever stories he wasn’t telling. Instead, I said, “If you walk her at the same time every day, she’ll chill out after a week or two.”
“I’ll make sure of it.” He reached down and scratched Sergeant behind the ear, slow and deliberate. She leaned into his hand, exhaling a rattly sigh.
It should have been an ending. Instead, he hovered, not quite leaving, one hand on the leash and the other fidgeting with the dog tags at his neck.
I watched the light glint off the steel and wondered how many times they’d been rolled between his fingers, a private Morse code for whatever he couldn’t say out loud.
The shelter behind us was closed for the night, the air thick with the residual smell of ammonia and hot rubber. My shirt clung to my back, sweat stippling my hairline despite the breeze.
Dean finally spoke, low and sudden. “Have dinner with me tonight.”
He said it as if reading it off a form, no inflection, no demand. Just a flat proposition, the kind that could be accepted or denied without consequence.
I blinked, the question catching me mid-breath. “Tonight?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, glancing at the ground like he wanted to spit and was holding it back for my benefit. “If you’re off. I could show you the overlook. Not on a date, unless you want to call it that.”
I wanted to say something clever, or at least self-protective, but the words lined up in my mouth and refused to be sorted. “I… don’t usually go out during the week. Work eats up my social battery.”
He waited. Didn’t push. The silence this time was easier, almost gentle.
Sergeant circled his boots and sat again, this time facing me. She cocked her head, and for a second, I felt like she was judging the situation, too.
Dean looked up, one eyebrow raised. “You can say no.”
I shook my head, half-laughing. “It’s not that. It’s just—” I gestured at myself, at my utility jeans and the Humane Society polo that was now streaked with dog hair and bleach. “This is who I am, pretty much all the time.”
He stepped forward, closing the distance to a conversational intimacy, but not enough to crowd me. “That’s fine. I don’t want the version that puts on a dress and pretends she’s not thinking about work.”
The words knocked something loose in my chest. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and Dean’s gaze flicked there, tracking the motion.
I remembered too late that the paw print tattoo was visible, a tiny black parade behind my right lobe.
He smiled—not mocking, but like he understood the need to mark your own story on your skin.
I found myself nodding before I could form a proper answer. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll go.”
He didn’t gloat, didn’t even smile wider. He just nodded, like we’d agreed on a trade route or a ceasefire. “Pick you up at seven?”
“I can meet you,” I said, instinctively resisting the full-court press of old-school chivalry.
He shrugged, a smooth roll of shoulders. “Dealer’s choice. But I’ve got a second helmet and the sidecar’s rigged for dogs, if you’re feeling brave.”
I snorted. “You built a sidecar for your mother’s dog?”
“Started it when I thought she’d want to ride again. Finished it when I realized I’d have to do the walking for her.” His face didn’t change, but I heard the undertow in the words.
I reached down and gave Sergeant a scratch between the eyes. “She’s gonna like it,” I said, meaning both the dog and, maybe, Dean’s mother.
Dean nodded, kneeling to secure the leash. Sergeant wagged once, then went rigid, the lines of his body alert but not anxious. Dean straightened and looked at me, serious again. “Seven?”
“Seven,” I echoed.
He and Sergeant climbed back into the car. I watched them pull out of the lot, the day swallowing both man and dog as they merged into the fading gold of Trinity Drive. I stood there a while, the scent of leather and dog fur filling the hollow in my chest.
I should have felt victorious, or at least validated.
Instead, I felt stripped raw, like someone had flayed the usual layers of caution, leaving the nerves exposed.
I wanted to call Taryn and tell her about the ride, about the invitation, about the way Dean watched me like he was mapping my coordinates for the first and last time.
But I didn’t call. I stood in the parking lot, letting the heat bake the doubts out of me, and watched the sun slide down behind the ridge.
For the first time in a long time, the world felt bigger than the box I’d built for myself.
Maybe girls like me did deserve to be happy.
And maybe outlaw bikers were just the right men to make that happen.