I shrugged on my biker jacket like I had a million times before. Something in the way it settled over my shoulders, gently surrounded my arms and hugged my waist and chest were different this time. This time it was you in that hug. You in that pliable, protective armor that let me know I'm safe and at the same time I am free.
I closed my eyes.
My chin rested gently on your shoulder, arms holding you less like a passenger and more like a lover. Your hand occasionally caressing, then resting gently on my thigh beside you. My eyes were closed then, too.
Feeling the cool air eat through my thick jeans, and the way you caressed the bike were to go. We parked a while and walked around the rich part of town with its boutiques and bistros, and we fit. Just then. Just there, we fit in beyond those jeans and jackets. Destiny provided a park bench where we sat. Your arm around my shoulders, my head on your chest.
You always smelled so good. Thirty years down and you still smell so good. We talked of kids and chaos. Life, love, hope, plans, dreams. You always believed in me, no matter how wacky I thought I sounded. I always believed in you; ever the cool pragmatist. Our love was never for rings and ceremony, but for time and an impossible eternity and distance. Our love is that Harley startling the urban gentry out of their polite conversations. It is sitting on that bench, feeling as though time had stopped just for us. Our love was always home.
I drew in the scent of leather and the faintest hint of lingering cologne and for a few seconds, I was at home on that park bench, emerged from a darkness that had been clinging to me so tight.
