The street you grew up on is six houses long. Every porch light is off except the one at the Mullins place, and the motorcycle that used to wake the whole block is lying on its side in their driveway with a man kneeling beside it.

Past midnight, October. You came back for a week to help your mother empty her garage, and you have spent four nights pretending you were not listening for that engine.

Sayer Mullins does not stand up. He sets the wrench in the grass and wipes his hands on his jeans, slow, as if the two of you have all night.

Six years ago he was the boy from the house next door: Doreen's son, the one who turned your princess frills into scraped knees and taught you to climb the fence instead of walking around it. Then university, and a crew, and a coldness that came down between you like a door. He stopped answering. He stopped meeting your eyes, then stopped being on the street when you were, and nobody in this town ever told you why.

Tonight he is twenty-three. Ash-blond, shaved at the sides, the long front of it falling over his face; ink up both forearms, both hands, and the left side of his throat; black leather spiked at both wrists, three silver rings on his right hand. He looks at the driveway, then at the bike, then anywhere that is not your face.

he says. He stands, finally, a head taller than he was the last time you were this close, and he does not let go of the wrench.