The Biker's Regret: The Enemy I Became.

Not just a stranger

(Reese)

I stopped at the supermarket on the way home.

It was not something I had planned but the fridge was empty and I had been running on coffee since five thirty and I needed to eat something that was not bought from a vending machine. I spent twenty minutes moving through the aisles putting things in the cart without thinking too hard about any of it. Bread. Eggs. Something for dinner that would not require more than thirty minutes to put together. The ordinary business of a life that was supposed to be simple and organized and twelve minutes from the office.

By the time I got back in the car I felt closer to normal than I had all day.

The drive back to the building took eight minutes. I parked in the lot beside the building, gathered the bags from the back seat and headed inside. The lobby was quiet the way it usually was in the middle of the afternoon, cool air and marble floors and the low sound of the city coming through the glass doors behind me. The doorman nodded and moved to help me with the bags but I shook my head and kept going. I had it.

The elevator was already on the ground floor when I got there. The doors were open and waiting. I stepped in with my bags and pressed four and stood back and let out a breath I had been holding since I pulled out of the office parking lot.

The morning had gone well. The presentation had landed exactly the way I needed it to. The investors were interested and Simone had that look she got when she knew something was going to work. I had done what I came to Atlanta to do and I had done it well and that was what mattered. Not the man who had shown up on a motorcycle outside my building like the last five years had not happened. Not the way he had looked at me when I told him to leave me alone. Not the fact that he had watched me drive away without moving from that spot.

None of that mattered.

A hand came through the closing doors just before they shut.

A woman stepped in. She was around my age, pretty in a way she clearly knew about, with her hair done and her clothes chosen carefully. Not overdone. Just right. The kind of put together that took effort but was not supposed to look like it. She was holding a coffee cup in one hand and her phone in the other and she smiled at me the way people smiled at strangers in small spaces when they had just made them wait.

"Sorry," she said. "Almost missed it."

"It's fine," I said.

She looked at the panel and pressed four without looking at the numbers. Her finger went straight to the button without hesitation, the automatic movement of someone who had done it enough times that it no longer required any thought.

Same floor as me.

I looked at the bags in my hands and said nothing.

We rode up in silence for a moment. She scrolled through something on her phone then put it away and looked at the doors. She had the kind of energy that filled a space without trying, not loud, just present in a way that made you aware of her whether you wanted to be or not. I was aware of her. I was aware of the fact that she had pressed four without looking and I was aware of the fact that she was standing close enough that I could smell her perfume and it was the kind of perfume that cost what it cost and was chosen carefully.

Everything about her was chosen carefully.

"Long day?" she said.

I glanced at her. "Something like that."

She smiled. It was a good smile, warm and easy, the kind that made you feel like you were already friends. There was nothing wrong with it on the surface. Nothing I could point to and name directly. It was just a smile from a stranger in an elevator on a Tuesday afternoon.

But her eyes were doing something her smile was not.

"I hate Tuesdays," she said pleasantly. "They have all the stress of a Monday with none of the sympathy."

I almost smiled at that. Almost.

The doors opened on four.

We both stepped out into the hallway at the same time. She turned left toward 4A without checking the number on the door, without slowing down, without any of the small hesitations a person had when they were going somewhere unfamiliar. She walked to Noah's door the way you walked to your own front door, certain and direct, and knocked twice.

Then she turned and looked back at me.

"Sorry, I didn't catch your name," she said.

"Reese," I said.

"Brianna." She smiled again. "Brianna Ford." Her eyes moved to the bags in my hands. "Just moved in?"

"A couple of days ago," I said.

She nodded like that was interesting information. "Welcome to the building. It's a good floor." She said it lightly, easily, the way you said something that was meant to sound like nothing. "Quiet mostly. Good neighbors."

It was a perfectly normal thing to say. Friendly, harmless, the kind of thing any person would say to a new neighbor in a hallway. There was nothing wrong with any of it.

But she had pressed four without looking at the panel. She had walked to 4A without checking the number on the door. She was standing in front of Noah's apartment with the comfortable ease of someone who had stood there many times before and she was looking at me with eyes that were taking in considerably more than her smile was giving away. She had said good neighbors the way someone said something they knew had more than one meaning.

Noah's door opened.

I did not wait to see his face. I turned to my own door, unlocked it with one hand, the bags hanging from the other and went inside.

I set everything down on the kitchen counter and stood there.

I had known girls like Brianna Ford in high school. The kind who smiled at you in a way that felt like a warning dressed up as friendliness. The kind who said perfectly normal things in a perfectly normal tone while their eyes did something completely different. In high school I had not always known how to read it in time. I had learned.

She had pressed four without looking. She had walked straight to 4A like she owned the route. She had stood in front of his door with the ease of someone who had done it so many times it required no thought at all. And she had looked at me in that hallway with a smile that was friendly on the surface and something else entirely underneath. The good neighbors line had not been accidental. Nothing about Brianna Ford felt accidental.

I did not know who she was to Noah. I did not know what their history was or how long she had been coming to this floor or what she was to him now. I had no claim on any of that and I was not going to pretend otherwise.

But I knew what I had seen.

I put the kettle on and started unpacking the groceries, putting things away in the order that made sense, keeping my hands busy and my head where it needed to be. It was nothing. A woman visiting a neighbor. It happened in buildings every day and it had nothing to do with me.

I poured the water over the tea bag and carried the cup to the window and looked down at the street without meaning to.

Noah's bike was parked outside.

I moved away from the window and took my tea to my desk and opened my laptop.

Brianna Ford had smiled at me like we were going to be friends.

Her eyes had said something else entirely.

I filed it away and got back to work.