He grunted, but other than that, he didn't show the strain of holding my body up in the least.

"What're you doing walking back here by yourself?" He growled against my ear.

I straightened my legs, pushing up until I was standing on my own two feet again, before I disentangled myself from his arms.

"This is where I'm parked. What'd you want me to do?" I asked honestly.

"No one else could've walked you to your car?" He asked in outrage.

"The guards were busy doing something, and I didn't want to wait thirty minutes for them to finally come walk me," I explained as I walked to my car.

"That's stupid. Thirty minutes is worth it," he snapped.

My temper, which only came out to play when I was extremely upset, got the best of me. "What's it to you, buddy?"

I emphasized that question with a poke to his chest.

He looked down at his chest, and my finger poking it, then back up to my face. "What's it to me? I'd be pretty f.u.c.king upset if you got raped, that's what I'd be!"

I started walking toward my car with all the speed I could and still manage to look like I wasn't running away.

Stomach clenched, I said, "Well, you lost that right when you left and wouldn't return my calls. Maybe if you had at least returned one call to let me know that you were all right, then you'd have that option; but you didn't, and you don't. Now, I've already missed my appointment. I'll see you later."

I didn't wait to hear his reply. I just got into my car, slammed the door in his stunned face, and backed out of my spot.

I didn't necessarily have an appointment. More like a dedicated time that I went to visit someone every night after my shift.

I arrived at the nursing home within fifteen minutes, unaware that I had a tail until I was swiping my card at the front doors.

"What are you doing here?" I snarled, trying to slam the door in his face.

"If your plans were with your Nonnie, I would've understood and met you here," Cleo said understandingly, as he caught the door that I'd tried to slam in his face.

I ignored him and kept walking.

Although I tried valiantly, I couldn't get the image of him burned out of my brain.

He was wearing black jeans that hugged his thick thighs like they were a second skin.

The belt buckle was still the same one he'd worn a year ago. Although I'd never seen him actually ride a bull, thank G.o.d, I knew he still loved the sport. Based on his stories and his love for talking about his experiences, I knew it was still very important to him.

His red t-shirt showed off his sculpted chest, and I could tell he was just as muscular now as he was then.

Not a drop of fat could be seen on any part of his body, and that still had just as much power to annoy me now as it did back then.

The black leather vest was new, though.

I'd known he'd been a part of a motorcycle club, but he'd never worn that around me, until today.

"I would've told you, if you'd have stayed to listen," I explained as I walked purposefully towards Nonnie's room.

"You could've called me. My cell hasn't changed," he ground out.

The heat of his body at my side felt like I was standing next to a potbelly stove.

The heat emanating off him could keep me warm during the coldest of nights, if my memory served me right.

"Really? And how would I know your number hasn't changed? I don't even have it anymore," I lied.

I could feel his gaze on my face, but I refused to acknowledge the lie that we both knew was just told.

I knew his number by heart. Just like he knew mine.

Funnily enough, what started our whole relationship was our phone number.

One day, Nonnie had given the home health nurse the slip, and gone to visit Papa at the graveyard.

Cleo had been visiting his mother and had found her there.

Nonnie had been lucid enough to give Cleo my number.

Where his ended with a six, mine ended with a seven. It was as if we were meant to be.

We would never forget each other's numbers.

However, he'd already proved he could ignore it.

"And what? Have you not answer the call?" I finally answered his silent rebuff.

He threw his hands up. "How about you give me a chance to explain myself."

I stopped and looked at him.

"Explaining yourself would've been alright a year ago. Not now. I've moved on," I said softly.

We both knew that was a lie, too.

Neither one of us had moved on, nor was I likely to; I didn't want anybody else. I wanted him.

The sad thing was that he knew it.

"How's your Nonnie doing?" He asked softly, letting the subject go even though I could tell that he really didn't want to.

I shrugged. Honestly, I wasn't sure Nonnie was going to be on this earth very much longer.

Her Alzheimer's had gotten so bad that she didn't remember me anymore. She couldn't figure out where she was, and half the time she had to stay sedated because she tried to walk out to 'go back home.'

Sadly, the 'home' she was talking about was a rundown house an hour and a half away.

"She's not the same woman you knew a year ago. She's lost a lot of weight, and she very rarely remembers anything, and when she does, it's only for a very short time," I explained softly as I pushed the door to my Nonnie's room open.

Nonnie was sitting in her chair with her knitting in her lap.

She'd been making a baby blanket for nearly a month now.

At 84, Nonnie's fingers weren't what they used to be, but she could still knit with the best of them when she remembered how.

More of her knitting sat in a wicker basket beside her chair, and by the looks of it, she'd gotten a lot done in the last few days.

"Oh, Bonita. You look lovely today. Is my son being good to you?" Nonnie asked in her frail voice.

I looked over at Cleo who was standing towards my back right side and shrugged.

Bonita was my mom, and the son in question was my father.

They'd been dead for nearly a decade now, and I didn't look a thing like my mother.

Cleo, though, had the dark hair like my father, but that's where the resemblances ended.

My father was fair skinned, as was my mother. I got my mother's curly brown hair, and my father's full lips. Unfortunately, what I did not get, was my mother's slim hips and accentuating curves.

I got full hips, full thighs, small b.o.o.bs, and flabby arms. I did have a toned a.s.s, though.

"Mikhail, how good to see you," Nonnie's quivering voice said. "Where's my Rue? I've made this baby blanket for the little baby that's due in the next couple of months. Do you want to feel it? It's very soft."

It was amazing how quick she could go from one extreme to the next in only a matter of moments.

Cleo looked at me accusingly, and I held up my hands in surrender, shaking my head violently.

No babies for me. Not now, and probably not ever.

It also upset me that Nonnie hadn't seen Cleo in well over a year, but she still remembered him each and every time she saw him. I liked to attribute it to his resemblance to my Papa, her first love who'd died during a work related accident on the railroad.

He was the spitting image; so much so that it was on the verge of creepy.

"Tell me, are you still diddling with airplanes?" Nonnie asked him.

I closed my eyes and scrunched them up tight. Diddling with airplanes.

It never failed.

Nonnie would call them airplanes, and Cleo would correct her.

"They're helicopters," he said dryly.

I opened my eyes to find his on me.

He was trying his hardest not to laugh.

I had no such gumption.

I let the laughter wash through me, happy to have something to laugh at with Nonnie again.

When Cleo's eyes warmed, I sobered.

Must not forgive, I repeated to myself over and over again.

Rue "She didn't look that bad," Cleo observed as we were walking out into the autumn air.

"That's the best I've seen her in nearly a year. When you...when I finally decided I couldn't do it by myself anymore and moved her here, she just seemed to...give up. She likes it here most of the time though. Even if I have to work two overtime shifts a week to pay for it," I explained as I unlocked my car's door.

The manual way, that is. I had to jiggle the key a little bit to get it all the way in, but it worked. My windows, on the other hand, were a different story. My old Jetta was on its last leg for sure.

"Why are you still driving this?" Cleo asked as he pressed his hand down on the hood where it was dented up. "What'd you do? Try to slam this closed with the stick still holding it open?"

In fact, that was exactly what I'd done.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said as I collapsed into my seat. "I'll see you later."

I slammed the door before he could answer.

It didn't matter what he had to say. I didn't really want to talk to him.

My heart was already aching as it was. If I had to stay in his presence and be put underneath his tantalizing gaze a moment longer, I didn't know what I'd do.

He walked towards his bike shaking his head, and straddled it before starting it up.

The loud rumble brought back the old feelings.

The times he'd take me for a ride and I'd bury my face into his back. Rubbing my face against his neck. Feeling the wind in my hair, and smelling the musky scent rolling off his body.

Slamming my hand down into the steering wheel, hard, to get all things Cleo out of my head, I started the car.

Or would've if it'd actually started.

Cleo watched me from his perch on the bike, knowing d.a.m.n well that something was wrong with my car, and just waiting for me to come ask him for a ride.

I narrowed my eyes at him as I pulled out my phone.