Juice didn’t remember getting on his bike. One minute he was standing in the dark behind the clubhouse, hands shaking so hard he couldn’t light a cigarette, the next he was speeding through empty streets with his vision blurring at the edges. He didn’t know where he was going until he was already there—parked crooked in front of her place, engine still rumbling under him like a heartbeat he couldn’t steady.

He knocked once, soft and quick, then again harder when his breath hitched. When she opened the door, her expression shifted instantly—surprise, concern, then that quiet warmth he’d been desperate for without realizing it. He stood there on her porch, trembling in a way he couldn’t hide, eyes red, jaw clenched like he was holding the pieces of himself together with his teeth.