“Okay.”
“Stop saying okay.”
Cole almost smiled.
“Come inside.”
Rebecca hesitated.
Cole opened the door.
He did not touch her.
Did not take her backpack.
Did not ask where her aunt was.
Rebecca walked in.
The room went quieter.
Not silent.
Just quieter.
Eight bikers.
Two women.
A man playing pool.
A woman pouring coffee.
Mason recognized Rebecca first.
“Bat girl.”
Rebecca frowned.
“What?”
“You're famous.”
“Don't call me that.”
Mason raised both hands.
“Rebecca.”
Better.
Cole pointed toward a hallway.
“Guest room.”
“You have guest rooms?”
“One.”
“It mostly stores jackets.”
Rebecca looked suspicious.
“Why?”
Mason answered.
“Because apparently we're a bed-and-breakfast now.”
Cole told him to shut up.
Rebecca almost smiled.
The room was small.
Single bed.
Clean sheets.
No lock on the outside.
Lock on the inside.
She noticed.
Cole noticed her noticing.
“You can lock it.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Why are you doing this?”
He leaned against the doorway.
“Your father did it for me once.”
“What?”
Cole looked toward the main room.
“I was twenty-two.”
“Drunk.”
“Stupid.”
“My dad threw me out.”
“Evan let me sleep on his couch for six weeks.”
Rebecca stared.
“He was younger than you.”
“Much.”
“You weren't related.”
“No.”
“Why'd he help?”
Cole smiled sadly.
“Same reason I am.”
“What reason?”
“He decided I was his problem.”
Rebecca laughed.
“That sounds terrible.”
“It was.”
Cole stepped away.
“Door locks.”
“Bathroom at end of hall.”
“Breakfast around eight.”
“No one comes in unless you ask.”
Rebecca nodded.
Cole left.
She closed the door.
Locked it.
Sat on the bed.
Then cried for twenty minutes.
Quietly.
Because safe places sometimes made pain worse at first.
When danger stopped demanding attention, everything else had room to arrive.
One night became three.
Cole never asked her to leave.
Rebecca insisted she was temporary.
Everyone agreed loudly.
Nobody believed her.
By Sunday, Mason had bought a toothbrush and left it outside her door without comment.
Denise, Cole’s wife, brought clean clothes.
Rebecca refused.
Denise said:
“Fine.”
Then left them folded on a chair.
Rebecca wore them two hours later.
Nobody mentioned it.
A biker named Tank discovered Rebecca was failing algebra.
Tank was six-foot-five, bald, and looked like he could bend steel.
He also taught high-school mathematics for fourteen years before retirement.
Rebecca stared when she learned.
“You were a teacher?”
Tank looked offended.
“Still am spiritually.”
“You look like you robbed teachers.”
“That is profiling.”
Rebecca laughed so hard she nearly fell off the chair.
By the next week, Tank had her doing equations after dinner.