The biker smiled as the little girl rang the tiny bell.<\/p>\n
Its cheerful sound echoed across the quiet road.<\/p>\n
He turned toward his motorcycle.<\/p>\n
Ready to leave.<\/p>\n
Then\u2014<\/p>\n
a woman hurried out of a nearby house.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmily!\u201d<\/p>\n
The little girl ran to her mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook! He fixed my bike!\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman looked toward the biker.<\/p>\n
Then froze.<\/p>\n
Her eyes locked onto the red cloth still hanging from his back pocket.<\/p>\n
Her breath caught.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere… did you get that?\u201d<\/p>\n
The biker glanced at the cloth.<\/p>\n
Confused.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve carried it for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy best friend gave it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman’s hands began to tremble.<\/p>\n
Slowly, she reached into her purse.<\/p>\n
And pulled out an old photograph.<\/p>\n
It showed two young men laughing beside their motorcycles.<\/p>\n
One of them held the exact same red cloth.<\/p>\n
The other…<\/p>\n
Was her late husband.<\/p>\n
The biker stared at the picture.<\/p>\n
His face went pale.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom…\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman nodded through tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always said his best friend disappeared after the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biker closed his eyes.<\/p>\n
A tear rolled down his weathered cheek.<\/p>\n
\u201cI searched for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The little girl looked between them.<\/p>\n
Confused.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew my daddy?\u201d<\/p>\n
The biker knelt beside her.<\/p>\n
His voice shook.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn’t just my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was my brother in every way that mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n
The little girl stepped forward.<\/p>\n
And wrapped her arms around him.<\/p>\n
Then she smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Daddy would’ve wanted you to stay for dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biker laughed softly through his tears.<\/p>\n
For the first time in years\u2014<\/p>\n
the road ahead didn’t feel so lonely anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The biker smiled as the little girl rang the tiny bell. Its cheerful sound echoed across the quiet road. He turned toward his motorcycle. Ready to leave. Then\u2014 a woman hurried out of a nearby house. \u201cEmily!\u201d The little girl ran to her mother. \u201cMom!\u201d \u201cLook! He fixed my bike!\u201d The woman looked toward the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}