Avery
Life dealt cards you didn't choose to turn and didn't get to hold.
I'd lost my job. Too much time off. My boss, the guy who drove to work in a Bentley and ate my weekly pay in a lunch hour, didn't give a fuck about anything I had to say.
So I didn't say it. I didn't even look at him when I walked out after collecting my things and a handful of pens he wouldn't miss.
Fuck him.
Now I was chewing on the end of one while I searched online for short-term work, writing down numbers on the pad I'd stolen on my way out the door.
There wasn't much on offer. I was getting tired and despondent, this extra layer of worry settling on top of everything else I was already carrying.
I finally found a job as a bike courier. I could do that.
I applied, and after a short interview with a woman who actually listened… who understood my circumstances without needing the full story, I was on the road. In my bigger backpack I had papers to deliver across town. Simple, honest work, and semi-flexible hours.
If it worked out maybe I'd need to get saddlebags installed. They wouldn't look too bad on my bobber. But I didn't want to think ahead of myself. Thinking ahead had never treated me kindly.
One trip took me right past the Skulls' gate. I slowed, but I had documents to deliver on time. All I could manage was a fleeting look through the chain-link and some sort of ache in my chest for what might have been.
I wondered whether Cade had thought about me.
He hadn't called, but neither had I.
I wanted to call him, every day.
I just couldn't.
Would he become my what if?
Yeah.
What if.
I picked up my phone and looked at it again, as if I could will him to call. To text. To be with me, even for just a little while more.
Then I placed it face-down on my dresser once more.