Page 2

CAL

She flinches.

Not visibly. Not dramatically. Her shoulders pull in, just slightly. Like she’s bracing for something sharper than what I gave her. Like she didn’t expect kindness. Not even something that small.

And when she hesitates, when that flicker of fear or uncertainty ripples through her posture, I want to step forward. I want to say it’s alright, you’re safe here. I’m not going to hurt you.

But all I said was, “You can keep doing that,” and now she’s looking at me like it doesn’t make sense. Like she’s waiting for the catch. Like no one’s ever just… let her be.

That does something to me. I don’t show it, but it does.

The moment she peeled the helmet away hit me like the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

She’s smaller than I expected. Round-cheeked and flushed, dark hair long and damp. Eyes too wide and too bright. Probably almost a foot shorter than me. She looks young—younger than me, anyway. But not untouched.

There’s a softness in her that hasn’t been burned out. Not na?ve. Just unguarded in places that make my chest tighten. Like she still leads with kindness, even if the world’s tried to teach her not to. And that? That undoes something in me I thought was long since dead.

I’m forty years old. Built from the kind of past most men don’t walk away from. The kind that teaches you how to end a threat before it starts. How to keep your back to a wall. How to make a man disappear if you have to.

And this girl steps into my space, into my quiet, without knowing a damn thing about who I was or what I’ve done… and something in me shifts.

Tightens, low and sharp.

It lives deeper than simple desire—older, rooted in instinct. Protective. Territorial. Possessive in a way I haven’t felt in years.

Something that whispers: don’t let anything touch her. Not even the wind unless it’s kind.

I watch her. I listen. The way her voice catches halfway through a sentence, like she’s used to being talked over. Or dismissed.

She’s not dismissible.

I can see that right away.

She smiles. Barely, before her eyes dart away. She’s already thinking about leaving. I can see it in the way her fingers tighten on the grips, in how she shifts her weight forward just a little.

Fight or flight isn’t the right phrase for it. She’s not afraid of me, but she is afraid of being in someone’s space too long. Afraid of wearing out her welcome.

I take one step back. Just enough.

Not retreat. Just space. A quiet offer.

Her gaze flicks back to mine. Her lips part, like she might say something— thank you, maybe. Or sorry again. Either one just as likely to disarm me.

But nothing comes.

The bike is near silent beneath her, that sleek electric hum faded into lingering birdsong and breeze. She doesn’t cut the ignition, doesn’t move. Just sits there like she might take off again the second I shift my weight wrong.

I don’t.

I stay where I am, arms loose at my sides, weight balanced, shoulders easy. Still.

I didn’t learn stillness from peace or books or breathwork. Mine came from fieldwork and shadows, where silence wasn’t calming. It was a tactic. And survival. Waiting for the right second to move and never earlier.

She just nods once more, then the helmet goes back on like armour. Her movements are careful but practiced, and I know she’s done this a thousand times. Chin strap fastened, eyes hidden.

Before she turns the throttle, I speak again. Calm. Softer—not a threat. A boundary.

“But if I see you out here alone again after sundown… we’re going to have a conversation.”

Her fingers hesitate on the grips. Not a full stop. The kind of pause that means my words reached someplace deeper—beneath logic, beneath instinct. A place that listens without sound.

She doesn’t look at me, but I see it anyway; the slight shift in her breathing, the way her knuckles flex lightly on the grips again.

It still isn’t fear exactly, but more like hesitation stretched taut, tangled with the first fragile threads of hope.

“You should stick to the main path when the sun dips,” I add, lower now. “Things get tricky in the dark.”

She tips her head. Not a nod, but not defiance. Something between agreement and challenge, a silent question she’s not sure she wants answered.

And something in me responds to that.

That old, steady instinct to lead. To protect. To show her she’s safe, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

The dirt bike hums to life. Light and fast.

She doesn’t tear away. Doesn’t throttle too hard.

She leaves quiet.

But just before she disappears around the curve, her voice floats back to me. Barely audible above the engine, soft as a breath.

"Thank you."

Those two words still something in me. Not because I needed them, but because she meant them. Because they weren’t easy for her to give, and she gave them anyway.

And maybe because I wanted to hear it more than I realized.

I watch until the curve takes her out of sight, one hand still loose at my side.

Then I look at the empty stretch of trail she left behind.

And I do something I haven’t done in a long, long time.

I hope she comes back.