-1-

The heat reflecting off the sun blisters and boils into unbearable magnitudes. The air coursing past isn't much help to fend off the intensity of the blaze. By now it's become still and dry, impatient for the distant night. I can barely feel it whipping past me anymore, despite the kick of the roaring machinery carrying me with the speed of light. Despite the unfamiliar heat preying on the quiet signs of life, I can feel the designs of a smile working out edges of my lips.
This burning heat sticking to my sweating skin... This is something I've come to miss with all my heart. I can definitely feel it now. Something as simple as the weather, I didn't know I could miss it. I never thought it could be something to become attached to. Could've never guessed it could be associated with such precious emotions and memories that I'm lucky enough to belong to. Feeling it like this all over again, it makes me woefully impatient. Almost enough to bring tears, but I know I don't need liquid pouring from my eyes to make this situation end any faster. For that, all I need is speed.
It only takes a twist or two of the hand to bring me closer to my ending. One twist to transform me into a time controller speeding about this hot land and suddenly time is exhilarated before me though hurried flashes of scenery. I can barely feel the heat or the wind now for the rush of building anticipation.

I creep closer to my destination only by the power of love to guide against the on-coming waves of exhaustion and hysteria. The scorching sun has rose high into the sky, settling for the being something like a painted picturesque sight. It never loses its light despite this, as if to compliment and bring forth the natural beauty of the gentle oranges, fair pinks, and shy blues surrounding it. The air has gone cool, flailing about the world with lighter touch. Gratefulness swells as it becomes less clingy by the hour.
I've gotten to the point of convincing myself that it tastes of strawberries when I think of how much closer I appear to my beloved. I even find myself thinking of how he will taste of that same sugary, stimulating sweetness; that he must for I've never known a heart that was able to produce such love and taste like anything less. It isn't until a growl ripples from deep inside one of my most unsettled of organs that I've take into thought the lack of nourishment for the past few hours. I settle for water, drawing large gulps to shorten the time my eyes break from the outstretched road. It won't quench my hunger I am well aware of that, but I know I won't be able to hold out patiently if I don't reach him by nightfall. My heart beats in my chest restlessly, wild and impatient, as distracting as the loud, abused engine. It frees me in a way, renews a gentle youth I thought had died inside me long ago when I come back to the memory causing it to pound against my chest. It tells me it refuses be persuaded to wait out till the first signs of morning, dares go against my crumbling logic if it has to.
I don't put up much of a fight. I know it would be a losing battle. So, all I can do is ride on. Ride toward the final stamp of approval to my newly awaiting beginning and longing-to-be-finalized end. I have to clench the gears under the weight of my hands, curse them for not being able to get me there any faster.
"I miss you…" the words keep slipping between my now chapping lips, falling between the cracks of my gritting teeth. "…Dammit, Jay, I miss you."
I'm not far now, I have to keep telling myself. With every damned mile, I part with the dark pieces of my past. Thank them for silently falling away and shaking hands with my hopes and dreams on their way. Where good and bad meet, miracles are born.
"You taught me that…only you did and I want to think I could have taught you the same, so I know it's possible you'll still be there waiting for me." I mouth the words so slowly that they take on a whole new taste. One that is bitter from fear and sweet from eagerness. "…Hell, I know you wouldn't be anywhere else. I just hope that you're really waiting for me, my heart, my presence. All of me."
The journey before me becomes so painfully long. I start to curse myself from the prolonged urgency. How could I have drifted so far away?

It is not until I'm whip around the corner of that cramped, grey rectangle of a house that I can finally glance upon his tall, muscled figure turning towards my direction. I skid to stop and our eyes meet before I can even remove myself from the motorcycle. My eyes become wet within instant as I see him trample over to me, sun seeping into his being so much so that he appears as a hallucination before me. I try to navigate within the blur of the forming tears, try to bring my withering, wearied being toward such that giant, beautiful being. I am halted almost instantaneously when he crashes into me, knocking any oxygen I had stored in my lungs right out of me.
I must be shaking in his arms by now, I know because he only tightens his grip around me. I become stable here, trapped so carefully inside of his embrace. I consume his strength to keep standing, clasping so tightly I'm convinced we'll fall. I'm surprised when we don't. Instead we're able to stand like that, collapsing and clashing into each other and I know for sure that this is real. He is real and our beautiful, bright love is so very real.
He separates himself from me all but for a moment and stares into my eyes. I watch breathlessly as he gathers in the sight of this familiarly lost and ungrounded me, so scatter brained and hollow, before he presses his body against me again. I swear not only could I see the depth of his love for me, but feel it too. In his arms and eyes and smile that is only for me.
"Jodie," he breathes, the flesh of his cheek touching my own so accurately for the first time. "I missed you."
And that's all it takes to break me, we both know it very well. I take his handsome, chiseled face between my tiny, white hands, bring the face I long desired to see so much closer to mine. The expectation of our first kiss is something so powerfully sensed through him that it crushes me. I wonder if my own desires for our physical need crush es him as well just before our lips meet, fat against fat turned creation of a miracle. The impact of emotion is overwhelming. I smile weakly to him once we part and he's successfully returned oxygen to my lungs.
"I missed you, too… so much more than Ashkii. Way more than I even missed myself." The words fall from me, sounding so very faint I'm almost not sure if I was able to say them at all. But then he takes me in his strong arms again, holding me until the weariness wears itself down into a calming numbness.
He squeezes his hand into my own, leads me to the others left waiting – the ones who I have forgot in my moment of dramatics. He says to them ever coolly and soft spoken, "Paul…Cory…Look who's home."
I could swear I see tears threatening to fall before Cory flings himself at me, another tight embrace. I rest on his broad shoulder for a moment, take in his new, manlier scent. A hand larger than the two combined finds my back, settles on it before another body comes to wrap me in its warmth. A white arm slips so naturally around a thick, sturdy body.
"I'm home." I report to them, barely audible just like the first few words spoken. My soul becomes overtaken by a lethargic peace before these three men. I am ordered to shower immediately.