None of my business
1049 Words
(Noah)
I should have gone back inside my apartment and minded my business.
That was what a man with any sense would have done. Close the door, move on, and treat it as a coincidence that meant nothing. People ran into their past all the time. You nodded, you moved forward, and the day stayed intact.
I went back inside, but I did not close the door all the way.
I stood in my kitchen and poured a glass of water I did not drink. The sounds from across the hall carried clearly in the quiet. The low roll of suitcase wheels. A box touching down. Her voice once, calm and certain, giving instructions to one of the movers. She sounded exactly the way I remembered. Direct, composed, used to being listened to.
Some things had not changed.
I set the glass down and moved to the window.
Down on the street my guys were waiting beside the bikes. Ryder, Kane, and Dex stood in a loose group, talking without really talking. Ryder had his arms crossed and was looking up at the building. I knew that look. He was watching the time and trying not to make it obvious.
Black Venom had a meeting across town in an hour. As president it was my job to be early, not walking in after everyone else. The men we were meeting paid attention to details. Showing up distracted was not something I allowed.
I needed to pull it together.
Seeing her had already thrown the morning off balance. Five years and she walked out of that elevator into my hallway like no time had passed. Everything I had packed away came back without warning. She looked familiar and different at the same time. More polished. More controlled. Like she had shaped her world exactly the way she wanted it.
She had looked at me like I meant nothing.
I had tried to return it. I did not fully succeed.
But that was not what stayed with me.
The man who stepped off the elevator behind her was.
He moved toward her without hesitation. No pause, no question. He handed her bag over like it was routine. Then he reached up and pushed her hair back from her face.
She let him.
They stood close without thinking about distance. His body angled toward hers like he belonged there. Her posture stayed relaxed. Nothing about it looked new or uncertain.
It should not have mattered.
It did.
I had learned to keep my face neutral in front of my men. They believed nothing got to me, and I made sure that stayed true. A president who reacted at the wrong time gave people the wrong ideas. But inside my own place I did not pretend.
The second his hand touched her face something in me locked in place. I had done that before. In school hallways, outside class, beside my bike. I had touched her like she was mine because back then she had been. She used to look at me like I was the only thing she trusted. I had believed that would last.
Then I ended it with four words and walked away.
I picked up my jacket from the back of the chair. The leather felt familiar. The Black Venom patch sat across the back, worn from years on the road. My father handed it to me after graduation and told me the club was mine. I took it and never put it down.
Some of the guys lived at the compound on the east side. They slept there, handled business there, and rarely left. For them the club was home. I understood that. I felt it in the early years.
But I made a different choice. A president needed quiet. The apartment gave me that. No late night noise, no constant demands. Just space to think and reset.
It worked for eight months.
It stopped working the moment she stepped into the hallway.
I shrugged the jacket on and looked at myself in the mirror. I had been carrying the club since I was barely out of high school. Most decisions I made in that time I would make again, including the one where I ended things with her.
The road ahead had not been clean. The club came with risk. She had a future that deserved distance from that. Ending it felt like the only option that protected her from what followed me.
I had believed that.
I still did.
But I had not thought about what it would feel like to see her again like this. I had not pictured another man already comfortable beside her. I had not considered how controlled she would look standing across from me like five years meant nothing.
And I had not accounted for the word fiancé.
She said it clearly. Her voice carried across the hallway. Her eyes stayed on mine long enough to make sure I heard it. She wanted it to land.
It did.
I grabbed my keys and stepped into the hallway.
Ethan came out of 4B before I reached the elevator.
He adjusted the front of his jacket, relaxed and composed. He looked like a man used to things going his way. He noticed me and gave a polite nod. I returned it.
He walked to the elevator without another word. I watched him until the doors closed and the hallway went quiet again.
I looked at the door to 4B.
The meeting across town sat in the back of my mind. Ryder was still downstairs watching the clock. I had every reason to walk to the elevator and leave this building.
She had a fiancé. She had a life built on her own terms. That was what I had wanted when I ended things. That was the outcome I told myself made the decision right.
I stood there longer than I should have.
The hallway stayed still. No movement from inside. Just the closed door and the silence around it.
I thought about her expression when she said the word. Calm. Controlled. Intentional. She wanted me to hear it. She wanted me to understand what had changed.
I crossed the hallway.
My hand lifted before I gave myself time to reconsider.
Then I knocked.
- Writer
