The heavy metal gates of Alabama State Penitentiary groaned open with a sound like dying machinery. Freedom tasted like engine exhaust and cheap cigarettes. The air was heavy, hazy, and oppressive, and the light bent and curled along the edges of the pavement. The asphalt felt sticky under his boots, the mix of tackiness and grit calling to mind Rice Krispies Treats, crunchy yet gooey at the same time. Freedom felt fake. Surreal. Like a fever dream, like he'd wake up back inside any minute now. But it was real.

Three years. One thousand and ninety-five days of concrete walls and iron bars and fucking longing all melted away at the sight of chrome gleaming under the merciless summer sun.

The Hellhounds waited in formation, whooping and hollering like gods of war welcoming him home. Dale King, the man he'd caught a charge to protect, stood front and center, holding out a familiar leather kutte.

"Welcome back, son."

The weight of sun-warmed leather settled onto broad shoulders. Home. Power. Purpose.

Bobby Bottrell, a leathery-skinned man of indeterminate age and obvious power spat tobacco juice onto the asphalt. "Your bike's tuned up nice. Been keepin' her warm for ya." Chase said nothing, running a hand lovingly over the gleaming machine as though soothing a spooked horse, and climbed on. It roared to life between his powerful thighs; it sounded to him like the sound his heart made every day since he'd gone inside. It was the desperate cry of a wild beast, like the hawk Robinson Jeffers wrote of: He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.

"Got some business needs handling," Dale's voice carried over the rumble. "Club's been—"

"Tomorrow, old man." Chase replied, tossing a smile over his shoulder for his father, already gone. Tires screamed against pavement as he peeled out of the prison parking lot.

The road, which he had always loved for its expansiveness and for its freedom, felt too free, too open after years of confinement and routine. Or maybe it just seemed to mock him, stretching out endlessly between him and her when it was meant to carry him toward her.

God, he'd barely said her name aloud these past three years for fear of what it might pry loose in his chest, but he said it now, whispered into the wind over and over and over like a mantra as he made his way back toward her, back to where he belonged. The name burned in his blood like wildfire. Three years of writing letters. Three years of dreams. Three years of knowing exactly where he'd go the moment these gates opened.

Main Street stretched out ahead, sun-baked and shimmering. The Waffle House's sign (or 'The Wafle house', one of the Fs had been shot out years ago by drunk teenagers and never replaced) flickered like a beacon calling him home. And there she was. Once again the universe had provided for him, for them.

She stood with her back to him, sunlight crowning her silhouette beside a dumpster that had no damn business being the backdrop to her life. His pulse roared louder than the engine as he killed the bike, closing the distance.

One hand found her waist, the other oh-so-gently resting on her throat with the kind of confidence that came from knowing she was his. She barely had time to react before he pulled her against him, her back flush to his chest. "Been thinking about this moment every single day." His grip tightened possessively. "Every hour. Every minute. Writing you letters, poems, fuck, prayers about it. About us."

Her name was fire on his tongue, an invocation whispered between kisses along the curve of her neck. He kissed the soft skin behind her earlobe and then down her neck, right along the edges of his fingertips, pausing only to inhale the scent of her hair. "You stopped writing back, baby, did you get my letters?" He didn't wait for an answer; the truth didn't matter. She'd stopped writing back after she told him it was over, but he knew she didn't mean it. Maybe she was just overwhelmed by the enormity of being separated from her soulmate; maybe she was joking. None of that was important now, he forgave her already, she didn't even have to ask.

"You feel that?" he whispered, his voice a dangerous mix of tenderness and obsession, pulling her further into the heat of him, the insistent presence of his body. "That's the universe pullin' us back together."

The alley held its breath, time bending around them like the moment had been destined to happen. Chase's grip on her tightened, his lips pressing a searing kiss to the curve of her neck. But then—the sound of the restaurant's back door creaking open shattered the moment. A busboy stepped out, a trash bag slung over his shoulder. He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide as they took in the scene.

Chase's head snapped up, his predatory glare locking onto the unfortunate young man. Without releasing her, he growled, "Mind your fuckin' business."

The busboy flinched, muttering a hasty apology before scurrying back inside. Chase could hardly even believe they'd been interrupted by something so mundane. This wasn't just a reunion. This was cosmic forces realigning. This was destiny fulfilling itself. This was two pieces of the same soul finding their way back together.

"God I fuckin' missed you baby" He said with a sharp inhale against her cheek, and that old Brautigan poem came back to him, the one he always thought of when he thought of her.

It seemed like years before I picked a bouquet of kisses off her mouth and put them into a dawn-colored vase in my heart.

But the wait was worth it.

Because I was in love.