Cassie shook her head.
Maria’s eyes moved toward the motorcycles.
“My husband, Ray, joined in ’74.”
“We married in ’76.”
“He died in ’78.”
Cassie stopped drinking.
“I’m sorry.”
“Forty-five years ago.”
Maria flicked ash.
“Doesn’t mean I stopped being sorry.”
She looked down the highway.
“Drunk driver crossed the median.”
“Ray didn’t make it.”
“I was twenty-six.”
Cassie waited.
“I showed up to his memorial ride wearing his cut.”
Maria smiled faintly.
“You should’ve seen their faces.”
“What happened?”
“They told me women didn’t wear member colors.”
“What did you do?”
“Told them they could take it off me.”
Cassie blinked.
Maria laughed.
“Nobody volunteered.”
“How long before they accepted you?”
“Depends who you ask.”
“Two years before most stopped treating me like Ray’s widow.”
“Five before they treated me like Maria.”
She looked directly at Cassie.
“You don’t change rooms like that by winning an argument.”
“You keep showing up.”
Cassie thought of Derek.
Maria noticed.
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“He acts like he does.”
“No.”
“He doesn’t trust what you represent.”
“What do I represent?”
“Someone coming in from outside and deciding what the club means.”
Cassie frowned.
“I’m not deciding.”
“You will when you edit your project.”
That landed.
Maria continued.
“Every story cuts something out.”
“Remember that.”
Derek appeared from behind them, fastening his gloves.
“Maria giving philosophy lessons?”
“She needs them.”
“I need ibuprofen.”
“You need both.”
The ride continued.
By noon, Cassie had stopped romanticizing motorcycles.
Riding required attention.
Trust.
Discipline.
Formation mattered.
Distance mattered.
Road debris mattered.
Weather mattered.
The group did not move as a pack of reckless people.
They moved like people responsible for the rider beside them.
Cassie began noticing hand signals.
The way Hank pointed toward gravel.
How the road captain slowed the entire group before a blind corner.
How Graham checked his mirror more often because Cassie was behind him.
Nobody spoke about it.
They simply did it.
Lunch was at a diner outside Millbrook.
The Iron Wolves occupied three booths.
Cassie sat across from Hank.
He was one of the founding members.
He had been twenty-two in 1971.
Now seventy-six.
Hands swollen with arthritis.
Eyes still sharp.
Cassie opened her notebook.
Hank looked at it.
“You’re actually doing this.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?”
“Whatever you’re willing to tell me.”
He wrapped both hands around his coffee.
“My brother Jimmy.”
Cassie waited.
“We bought motorcycles together in 1969.”
“Matching Triumphs.”
“Thought we were the coolest bastards in Tennessee.”
A smile appeared.
Then faded.
“Three months later, his front tire failed on Interstate 40.”
Cassie stopped writing.
Hank stared into his coffee.
“He was twenty.”
“I was twenty-two.”
“What happened after?”
“I drank.”
He shrugged.
“Everybody drank then.”
“But I drank like I was trying to erase a room.”
He looked toward Graham across the diner.
“Your father found me two days after the funeral.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing useful.”
Graham called from across the room:
“I can hear you.”
Hank raised his voice.
“You were terrible at comfort.”
Graham answered:
“Still am.”
A few people laughed.
Hank looked back at Cassie.
“He sat in my garage.”
“That’s what he did.”
“Next day he came back.”
“Then the next.”