“What do you want, Spencer?” she answers curtly.

I swallow down the feelings her words evoke. Because it’s crystal clear that she’s really done with me.

“Hey, uh…” I clear my throat. “I’ve been thinking, ya know. How you work so hard and everything.” I pause to see if she’ll say anything. But all I hear is her soft breath. “And I was just talking to Ford. You know how he has that assistant who’s been working for him in LA?”

“Spencer, get to the point, OK? I’m tired.”

“Pam, right? You remember me talking about Pam? She works for Ford long-distance. You know, she does everything virtually. They almost never see each other.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Bombshell, please.” I hear a smile on the other end, I know it. “Just calm the f**k down for a minute, OK? I’m trying to tell you something.”

She walks past the window again, then pulls the sheer curtains aside and peeks out. The moonlight hits her face and illuminates her blue eyes for a second before she drops the curtain and walks away. “Just tell me then, Spencer. I’m tired.”

“Pam works as Ford’s personal assistant. She runs his email and shit. Schedules things and, well, shit like that. You get it?”

She huffs. “Spencer, I know what a PA does, just f**king spit it out. What’s Pam got to do with this conversation?”

“Ford and Pam go way back. Since college. But the Biker Channel has a budget for a PA, so she got a raise when he started working for them. They have a small budget for each of us. Rook included. And they’ve been on me for a while to hire someone since I ignore them most of the time. And I was wondering if you’d like the job?”

She laughs. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“It’s not a huge deal, my budget is only forty grand a year—”

“No, thank you.”

“—and benefits—”

“No.”

“—and paid holidays.”

“I said no, Spencer. I’m not interested.”

“It starts next Monday. Hours are variable—”

“What f**king part of ‘no’ do you not understand?”

“I’d need you on call almost all the time, but I wouldn’t be unreasonable, ya know?”

“I’m really hanging up now.”

“I’d let you do your thing. Work the tattoo shop. Or—” I stop to wait and see if she’s gonna hang up. But I hear her breathing. “Or whatever else you’d like to do. You could quit the shop, Ronnie.”

Silence.

“You could do something else. Date someone else. Start a new life, if that’s what you want. I won’t interfere.”

I get the three quick beeps that says the call is dead and I look up at her window. She paces back and forth a few times, and then her shadow disappears. There’s no more movement, but the TV stays on.

I sit out there for more than an hour, leaning back against the wall. Watching her get up and occasionally grace me with a shadow. And at two thirty the place finally goes dark and I walk back to my shop. I open the side door, go inside, and flip on the lights.

This place is my dream realized. Everything in this shop is all I’ve ever wanted in a bike business. There’s six bays with bike lifts, custom tool kits with more than a hundred thousand dollars in equipment. The cinder block walls are painted red and black and there are reproductions of my tattoos covering every inch. Blackbirds, rooks, crows, and ravens. Everywhere.

Ronnie says she traces line drawings on skin. Fuck, she could not be more wrong. To me, the art on my body is just as beautiful as any classical piece hanging in a museum. Veronica Vaughn is the Renoir of the tattoo world.

I walk past Rook’s reception area. She’s gonna run the showroom and the desk this season and she won’t be answering calls. The showroom is open to the public, but bike appointments won’t be made over the phone. In fact, we’ve got the entire year scheduled. Everyone had to put up a fifty grand deposit to get a Shrike bike this year and Season Two will tape on and off for almost six months instead of the three months we’ve been doing. We’ll deliver a new bike to one high-profile customer each episode, and we’ll do that twelve times.

This is it. This is what it looks like.

Success.

My eyes sweep to my office door and I walk past the reception area towards it. My name is on the door, done up in the fancy Shrike Bikes font. Yeah, I have my own font. People will be able to download it for free from the website. I open the heavy maple door and wave my hand in front of the light sensor so I can take a good long look at my future. I turn back to my bay, which is even more tricked out with a custom-airbrushed tool chest that has the Shrike Raven painted on the front.

I turn back to the office and walk around the massive stainless steel table that’s been custom-fabricated and welded into my throne. This is where I’m going. This is where I’ve been headed since I turned eighteen and decided I would take this business over. This is the pinnacle of my dream.

And for some reason, it’s just not that sweet.

I drop down into the soft black leather chair. It’s so f**king luxurious I actually feel myself relax.

But none of this means anything to me right now. Because the only reason I was working so hard towards this future was so I could share it with Ronnie.

And she wants out. She’s done. I see it. I’m not delusional. I’m not one of those guys who wants to force himself on a woman and make her submit to his advances. Trick her into telling him how she feels, how she can’t live without him.