This feels all wrong. I'm stalling for time, like I'm waiting for him to ask me to stay or something. I'm about to make an excuse to go back upstairs just so I can say goodbye to Ninja again when it dawns on me I need to pay him for the gas.

I don't know why I'm surprised that he won't let me. I don't know why I'm blushing when he adds sex to the list of things I've used him for this week.

In all fairness, he used me too. I'd say we're about even.

And that's about the end of it, isn't it? Just two lonely people using each other for a little while. Neither of us is worse off for it and now it's time to get back on the road.

Stryker has his store to run, just the way he likes it, out here in the boonies and all alone. I've got a few weeks left of clocking in and out while I pack up the apartment and figure out what to do next.

Neither of us are looking for anything serious in our lives and even if we were, it sure as hell wouldn't be each other. Not with a thousand miles between us. There'd be no point in even pretending that keeping in touch would be worth it for us.

Once I get my mind wrapped around that truth again, I feel better. It's easier to follow him out of the store and back out to where I left my bike running.

It's easy to stand on my tip toes and wrap my arms around his neck and brush my lips softly against his without giving in to the urge to linger and let my tongue tangle with his until we end up back inside again.

"Thanks for being a chick," Stryker whispers against my ear as he bends to follow me when I start to let go of him.

"Thanks for getting over being a total ass," I whisper back.

"I wouldn't say I'm over it."

His hands find my ass and squeeze gently, making it harder to bring myself to take the step away from him and pull my helmet over my head.

"You got my digits?" Stryker asks as he steps back while I swing my leg over the saddle and settle back on the bike.

I nod and give him a thumbs up with my left hand while I twist the throttle with my right just for practice.

"Let me know you're safe, K?"

It's the last thing I hear as I kick the bike into gear. Then I'm rolling out of the Fell's Valley Store parking lot and back onto the last leg of endless blacktop that's going to take me home.

I try not to spend the next 900 some miles thinking about how much it feels like I'm leaving home behind me.

It took me a long time to figure out who I was after Bryan left. I'd been with him so long, I never really got to be me. This little bike sat in the garage under a tarp for a year after he left. It took that long for me to adjust to my new lifestyle.

Living alone was an adjustment in so many ways, but once I got used to it I decided I really liked it. I love not having to ask someone's opinion before I rearrange the furniture or buy a new lamp or hang a picture. I love that I get to decide what I want to eat and when and where and, speaking of when and where! I love that I don't have to "run it by" anyone before I make plans with friends. Or take off on a 4 thousand mile, epic motorcycle journey by myself.

Fuck Bryan.

These are the thoughts that occupy my mind for the first couple hundred miles today.

I cross the border back into California and seriously consider kissing the gas pump when I stop to refuel. Without having to go inside and have someone come out and unlock the pump for me.

I slide my credit card into the slot and enter my zip code according the prompts on the screen, lift the handle and fill my tank, careful not to over fill it.

Fuck relationships, I think as I watch the liquid flowing from the nozzle. I've been single for almost 2 years now and I'm good at it, dammit. I don't need a boyfriend, another man in my life holding me back, making me feel like I'm never enough.

I just traveled 3500 hundred miles by myself on a motorcycle! A motorcycle that most people think of as a dirt bike. I am a bad ass.

The thought keeps me smiling for almost another hundred miles, singing Born to be Wild at the top of my lungs in my helmet as I cruise down some forgotten back road toward Reno.

I'm about to cross back into California from my brief detour through Nevada, the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada mountain jutting up in front of me, still ticking off the list of reasons I'm better off single. That's when it starts.

I have a queen size bed that I don't have to share. I can sleep spread eagle in the middle if I want.

Stryker's bed was a queen size too. And I slept in the middle of it. With Stryker's warm body wrapped around mine.

The last few nights have been the best sleep I ever remember.

I don't have to share my bed with anyone, but that also means I've spent a lot of lonely nights in it with nothing but my own fingers to keep me company. And my own fingers never brought me breakfast in bed or kissed me good morning.

The road I'm traveling on winds up into the mountains and soon I'm rolling by a handful of alpine lakes and through beautiful pine forests. The afternoon air is cool and cedar scented but I can't help thinking that the trees must block a lot of the view of the sky at night.

Fell's Valley was the epitome of nowhere, but I've never seen more stars at night anywhere I've ever been.

I remember the wide space that was mowed and cleared behind Stryker's store. There was a big fire pit dug out, away from the building. We never got around to spending an evening out there, but we talked about it.

Stryker said he'd build a fire early one afternoon so the coals would be deep by evening and he'd show me how to cook a roast in them.

We're never going to do that.

Come to think of it, we talked about doing a lot of stuff while I was there that we're never going to do now.

I stop along the road side now and then and snap pictures of the scenery. I can't help but think I'll send them to Stryker when I get home. He really enjoyed hearing about my trip and I think he'd like to see where I am right now.

Somewhere around Sonora, as I drop in elevation and the summer heat starts to penetrate my riding gear, I start missing Ninja and maybe, just a little bit, that damn man of hers.