Page 21 of Raiden

I don’t know why. I want to thump the ache behind my ribs hard enough to leave real, physical pain that I can understand.

Raiden heads directly to his saddlebags and pulls out granola bars, trail mix, an extra metal bottle of water that is probably still cold because ice is supposed to last in those things for days. My stomach cramps with hunger on instinct, but it’s not the food that my mouth waters for.

I wanted Raiden physically before.

Now, I want something more.

It feels dangerously close to a match next to the iced over parts of me. Parts that have never thawed for anyone, other areas that have iced over because of my past. My stomach tightens and roils with more than just the pangs of hunger.

“Here.” Raiden holds out the trail mix bag. “It hasn’t been that long but go slow.” He takes the water bottle in his other hand. “This too. Slow sips.”

I make myself walk normally, past all the uncomfortable shit going on in my body and in my head. This marriage wasnever going to be easy. Giving my body if it was required? I could do that. I’ve been doing it since I was sixteen. Sex isn’t hard. Sometimes, it’s not even that bad. That opening up and the kiss after? It was dangerous.

I grab the bag from him and methodically chew nuts and raisins, chunks of chocolate, pieces of coconut and other seeds, without looking his way.

Raiden fishes for something else in his bag, his body bending and moving in lyrical waves. I look away and keep my gaze trained on the woods we just walked out of, until I smell the sweet scent of cloves and licorice, an underlying sweetness mixed in. It’s unmistakably pipe tobacco.

My mouth falls open at Raiden leaning casually against his bike, puffing hard on a pipe. Who the fuck still smokes one of those? I love the smell. Cigarettes and weed are pretty much a biker’s second cologne, but this smell? It’s like stepping back in time, into a darkened library, a dim lit study with ancient, old books.

Once he gets it started, he smokes it casually, the delicious scent burning from the bowl drifting through the clearing. The pose and the smoke doesn’t quite blind me to the fact that there’s an obvious tension radiating from Raiden. He should be relieved that we’re back at our bikes. He was just laughing. There’s nothing carefree about him now. The set of his shoulders is too tight. His huge body looks painfully stiff. There’s an intensity about him as thick as the smoke he’s masking it with.

I seal up the bag and pass it back. “We’re going to roll out?”

“Soon as I finish this.”

I sip a bit of water and leave it on the ground beside Raiden’s boot. I don’t want to reach past him to tuck it away in the saddlebag. There’s no more taunting him, no teasing him, no more games. The woods stripped us bare and neither of us want to be without clothes. We need to carefully dress again, put ourselves back in order, and remember who we are.

A few minutes later, we pack up and roll out. We head down the small corduroy dirt road back to the gravel and then to the main road.

It’s the first time in a long time that I haven’t enjoyed a ride. I love the road, the air, the open sky, the freedom. It’s never failed to clear my head before. The wind is cold. It’s still early and it’s fall. The air has a new chill that summer lacks.

I follow behind Raiden a safe distance until we reach his house. He doesn’t park on the street in front. He circles around back. There’s no garage, but he does have a gravel parking spot in front of a white wooden fence.

The house is nothing special. A bungalow that blends in with all the others, probably sixties, beige stucco with a few dark navy-blue bands that wrap from the back, around the side, and to the front. There’s a narrow sidewalk that takes us to the front yard. The fence drops off, lowering to waist high with a gate in the middle. An overhang shadows the doorstep complete with three concrete stairs, and an ornate, wrought iron black railing that connects them. The gold mailbox on by the large front window and the door angled to the side looks new.

Raiden sticks a key into the deadbolt on the wooden door with the three diamond pattern glass inserts.

I manage not to grunt at the complete lack of security. Does he think nothing will happen to him? Or does he just not care?

“Wizard has cameras set up in the front and back, he would have gotten an alert the second we rolled into the alley. I come here once a week to physically check that everything is fine. It might not look like it’s secure, and that’s what I want, I don’t want to live in a prison.”

He hits the light switch on the wall right by the door. The house is definitely sixties, a virtual time capsule from the floral green wallpaper to the shag green carpet.

“Whoa!”

The furniture is correct too. A large green sectional curved into an L with a round coffee table built in, pole lamps, side tables with lamps that have the weird yellow and green squiggly glass, a heavy amber swag lamp in the corner. There’s no TV. The far side of the room is taken up with a large and ornate wood fireplace. The wood is fake, the white and red marble behind it cheesy. I love it and immediately walk over to run my fingertips over the surface.

I pull down one shelf and find the bar I knew would be there and then open the other side, expecting the record player, but it’s gone.

“My mom had one of these in one of the houses we rented. It was in the basement, but we both were obsessed. I was little, like nine, I think. Or ten. Way too young to drink, obviously, but we’d have tea parties down there and listen to old music.”

“I have a record player.” He points to the other side that I haven’t even looked at yet. The built in shelves look custom to the house. They’re filled with books and on the lowest one, a chrome record player with speakers on the floor beside the shelves, the other components underneath.

“I’m so shit with technology that I don’t even know if that’s an amp or a receiver.”

He ignores me, runs his fingers over the spines of a few of the books, then slides open the bottom part of the built-in to reveal a storage compartment with hundreds of records.

“Did this stuff come with the place or did you buy it?”

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