Axle Read online

  “I know buddy, I know, but it’s still early, I still need time to wake up!”

  But if I was feeling more energetic, Shiloh must have picked up on it, because he was pawing at me with more enthusiasm than he ever had.

  “Dang, buddy, did I put coffee into your water bowl last night?” I joked. “Okay, okay, I’m up, I’m up. Let’s go outside.”

  At the magic word of “outside,” Shiloh leaped off the bed and headed to the closet with the doggie leash. I stretched, went to the bathroom, put some clothes on—much to the annoyance of Shiloh, who insisted on walking right at this moment—and then finally leashed him up. We stepped outside, and the high heat from the day before had faded in favor of a light cool morning air.

  “What a day, buddy,” I said as he leaned into his leash, insisting I walk him faster than I was. “You know what today’s going to involve?”

  He half-looked back at me with a panting grin, as if to say, “I don’t care, just walk me, human!”

  “First, I’m going to come home on my lunch break,” I said. “You know why? So I can look for a second job! That way, I’ll have more money to buy you more treats and better food! Isn’t that exciting?”

  It, apparently, wasn’t quite as exciting as finding a bush to mark his territory on. But when he finished, Shiloh looked very happy for me, coming up to me and leaning his head into mine.

  “Thinking of maybe going into bartending or waiting tables,” I said. “Gotta be something flexible. You know?”

  Something that would allow me to be more social. Like if I get the chance to be with... him.

  I was trying my hardest not to think about LeCharles like that. And I felt I could sincerely say that if, when it was all said and done, I realized I had to move on and find someone else, I would be able to.

  But there was also the truth that had settled in a little bit since Saturday morning that even if I kept my distance and even if I had the strength to build myself back up, not having to rely on him, I still cared about him. That hadn’t gone out the window. In fact, in some ways, it felt like the more strength I had myself, the more easily I’d be able to show my affection for him. It was like I could take the risk knowing I could pick myself back up if I fell down.

  I just had to make sure I approached things in a mature fashion, not in the kind that got me hurt or did a disservice to one of us.

  “However it turns out, buddy,” I said to Shiloh. “I’m sure it’ll be great.”

  When I got back from my walk, I put Shiloh in my bedroom and planted a kiss on his forehead.

  “I’ll be back around one, okay?” I said. “You be a good boy until then. I know it’ll be a pleasant surprise to see me, so try not to get too excited.”

  Shiloh just rubbed his head on mine. I kissed him one more time before I walked out.

  While en route to the vet clinic, I had the sneaking suspicion I was being followed. Every time I looked in my rearview mirror or even just turned around, I didn’t see anyone, but the rumble of a motorcycle was never that far away from me, and it never changed in pitch or volume to suggest it was just a coincidence. It wasn’t at all like with the Fallen Saints, where they could sound close one second and then be very distant the next.

  But when I looked around at the area before I walked into the clinic, I couldn’t see anyone, and so I just went about my workday. It went well enough—none of the pets acted too crazily, I applied to three different jobs on my lunch break, and I got to the end of the day with a smile on my face and had not lost any of my morning energy or excitement. Considering how low Friday afternoon had gotten, to be back up to this spot in about seventy-two hours was nothing short of miraculous.

  When I headed to the car and drove home, though, I again had the sensation that I was being followed. This time, though, the feeling didn’t last all the way home. It was like someone had been waiting for me outside the vet clinic, and as soon as they saw me leave, they had sped off... toward... my apartment, maybe?

  I gulped. If this was a Fallen Saint trying to get some revenge for Friday night, there was no way I had the skill or strength to defend myself from him. I’d need some help when it came to physical safety.

  At one of the traffic lights, I pulled out my phone and texted LeCharles quickly, asking him to swing by my apartment for fear of being stalked. With the light turning green right after, I didn’t have the chance to see if he’d read my message. I just had to hope that he had.

  I got home and, sure enough, saw a bike parked next to the spot where my car would be. But...

  Wasn’t that LeCharles’ bike?

  Curious and a little nervous, I stepped out of the car and came up the stairs slowly. I kept my keys between my fingers just in case I needed to defend myself in any fashion.

  I turned the last staircase.

  There was a large man waiting for me.

  LeCharles.

  “Christ, you scared me,” I said.

  “You wanted me to be here, didn’t you?” he said, a slight smirk on his face. “I had to see it for myself.”

  “See what?”

  He swallowed.

  “I had to see that you really were a vet now,” he said. “No, not just. Like a vet assistant or something.”

  “A vet tech. But yeah, same idea.”

  “I didn’t think that things had gotten to this point for you,” he said. “I knew that something must have happened to take you back to this part of California, but I didn’t think... I figured you’d gotten a job and had just wanted to be near family or something.”

  I shook my head.

  “My father died shortly after we broke up,” I said. “Not like immediately after, but shortly after. I came here because this was the only place to offer me a job. And, as you point out, not a job as a doctor or a vet. A vet tech.”

  “Jesus,” LeCharles muttered. “I was wrong about you, Rose. I was wrong to assume that you were the same as you were when we last left. I saw the first glimpse of that Friday and Saturday, but now I’m really seeing it. I’m sorry.”

  It wasn’t as pleading or yearning an apology as I had given, though that wasn’t exactly a criticism. Quite the opposite, in fact. The stoicism of his apology made me believe it was sincere and not trying to get something out of me, romantically or otherwise.

  “I want to get to know you better, just like you’d mentioned Friday night,” he said. “I wasn’t ready for it Saturday morning, but I want to now. Would you like to... ”

  He took a breath and, I swore, smiled slightly.

  “Would you like to go on a date sometime between now and Wednesday night?”

  This was the moment I’d wanted to have since I knew I would be moving back to Springsville, even if I hadn’t admitted it to myself before. Those were the words I fantasized about hearing. And now that I had...

  It felt good but in the right way. I was saying yes because I wanted to, not because I had some extreme anxiety preventing me from genuinely enjoying it. I had the courage to know I could do fine without him, but I had the desire all the same.

  So maybe I didn’t react as strongly as I thought I would have before, but I liked to think I reacted as healthily as I hoped I would have.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s do tomorrow night. Bit late for tonight, and I have off Wednesday.”

  “Great,” he said, taking a second to catch his breath. He was probably more nervous than I was! That’s something I would never have guessed would’ve happened. “Let’s go to Joe’s Java. And this time, I promise I won’t be late on purpose or accidentally.”

  “Or accidentally,” I chuckled. “You’re fine, LeCharles.”

  But I had to make one thing clear.

  “Just don’t think that we’re going to end by finishing what we started Friday night,” I said. “I don’t want you thinking I’m saying yes to jumping in bed with you. I’m saying yes to going on a date with you. I need to get to know you a lot more before I say yes to anything else.”

 
“Oh, believe me, I didn’t think about that in the slightest.”

  I don’t know that I quite believe that. But I believe that you intend to hold yourself to that standard.

  “And in any case,” he continued. “If I’m being totally honest, I’m not trying to finish what we started three nights ago. I’m trying to see if we want to finish what we started ten years ago.”

  Holy shit! He’s serious.

  It almost felt like a little too much from LeCharles, but truth be told, it just gave me a surge of excitement and happiness. I told myself not to get carried away, but if he was speaking like this...

  “Good,” I said with a smile. “Then let’s do Tuesday night. Seven p.m. See if you can make it on time.”

  “Hah,” Axle said. “Sounds good.”

  With that, he brushed by me, placing a hand on my shoulder and squeezing as he went down the stairs. I watched him go all the way down to his bike, this time being the one to watch the other from a distance.

  I had to admit, even with all the strength I felt I had, even with the changes that had come from that near disaster of a Friday night, it still felt genuinely exciting to know I had a date lined up with LeCharles.

  I guess there were second chances in life.

  I just had to see if this was a second chance that I wanted to capitalize on.

  Tuesday Evening

  I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.

  My makeup was on point. It was more than I had on at work, but not nearly as much as I had put on the last time we’d planned to meet at Joe’s Java. I didn’t want to make myself out like I had then. That was a desperate Rose trying to be whatever LeCharles wanted her to be. I was now a well-grounded Rose, happy with myself. He knew what my body looked like, so he didn’t need any more hints about that.

  He just didn’t know what my mind and my life looked like since. I was sure that would come up in conversation at some point, but I was prepared to face up to that. I had done plenty of embracing and accepting of my own past, so sharing it with LeCharles wouldn’t be hard.

  I emerged from the bathroom at Joe’s Java about two minutes to seven, only to see that he had already arrived. He was wearing his club cut, but beneath that, instead of a casual t-shirt, he had on a button-down white shirt. He looked so damn handsome in that, and he even had trimmed some of his facial hair. It was a good thing he hadn’t shaved it all, though. That would have looked a little ridiculous.

  “Hey,” I said, going up and embracing him in a hug.

  The hug lasted quite a few seconds as we continued our dialogue.

  “You look great.”

  “You look better,” I shot back. “Look at you, wearing a button-down shirt.”

  “I have been known to dress nicely from time to time,” he cracked. “Let’s have a seat.”

  Finally, we pulled back from each other. I didn’t want to speak on LeCharles’ behalf, but I swore that the predominant emotion that described him right now was “nervous.” I didn’t think a man who had served overseas and who ran in a motorcycle club would get nervous, but the way that he hugged me and the vibe that he gave was nervousness. It was definitely more than a little surprising.

  If I was being honest, it was a little alarming, but it was early in the date, and I was sure he would settle down at some point. If he didn’t, then maybe LeCharles had changed, but not for the better.

  “So, if you don’t mind me getting right to the meat of things,” he said. “Why did things just utterly fall apart at the end of our relationship?”

  I knew I’d told LeCharles this the last time we had met at Joe’s Java, but I decided to let it slide. It wasn’t really fair for me to hold him accountable for that time when neither one of us had really been in the right state of mind.

  “Life was just beating me down from every possible angle,” I said. “Dad got sick. MCAT stress was getting to me. I took it out on you. You took it out on me. And then, well, we broke up.”

  I sighed.

  “It actually carried through a lot longer than that. I’m not blaming you for this, but you wanted to know more about me? Well, I got into med school, but it was some small, no-name med school that I immediately regretted going to. I dropped out after the first semester, not wanting to spend another dime there, but I knew the very act of dropping out was incredibly deleterious to my future. I tried to get back into it, but I was so ashamed of myself and so embarrassed that the next round of med school applications went just as poorly. I didn’t improve my MCAT score, didn’t write better essays, nothing.

  “Maybe a couple years after, I gave up on the idea of being a doctor. I had just screwed myself up too much to do it. It sucked, but I still wanted to get involved in healing others. At first, I bounced around a couple jobs, but eventually, I settled on veterinary school in Salt Lake City.”

  But...

  “But I didn’t have a good head on my shoulders, because I was still processing my father’s death. Vet school was so hard, and I felt so alone. I drank too much. I partied too much. I had to drop out because of poor grades. And what’s awful is Shiloh, my dog, was there right around that time. I should have at least kept it together for him, if for no one else. But... ”

  I sighed.

  “The only place I could get vet work of any kind was back here because I had interned one summer while trying to figure out if I wanted to go into the vet field.”

  “How come you didn’t reach out then?”

  I smiled.

  “Truth be told, I was kind of seeing someone else then. It never led to anything serious, and... ”

  I chuckled.

  “I thought about it. I really did. But I felt like if I spoke to you and met up with you, that would somehow be hurting the relationship I was in at the time.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “But yeah, that’s why I am where I am today.”

  LeCharles took a few seconds to process everything I had said. Hell, I needed a few seconds to process everything that I had said. I hadn’t told the full story to anyone before, and even that had only been a very quick cliff note worth of a story. It wasn’t the kind of thing where I held him in rapt attention for hours on end.

  That wasn’t what I wanted to do, anyway. I just wanted to get the story out so we could move forward.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back,” he said.

  I smiled.

  And just like that, the past had been told, and I felt we could move forward. Conversation shifted from the heavy topics to lighter things, like Shiloh’s favorite parts of town, the last vacation we’d each taken, and when we’d next go to the beach.

  It became quickly apparent that Joe’s Java wasn’t going to be our last stop for the night. With the coffee shop set to close at the top of the hour and conversation going great, I was in no rush to end it. The problem was figuring out where next.

  “I don’t suppose it would be in great taste for me to suggest we go to Brewskis,” I cracked with a smile.

  “Funny you should say that, because on weekdays, it’s usually very tame,” he said. “On the weekdays I’ve gone, there’s never more than two Saints in there, sometimes none. I think we could go by at least if you wanted to. If there’s no one there, we can hang out.”

  What was the harm? I’d be walking in with LeCharles. I’d play some pool. I’d be able to hang out as late as two in the evening.

  “Sure.”

  At first, I just assumed that we would drive separately. But when we started to naturally space apart to go to our vehicles, LeCharles called my name.

  “Don’t you want to ride on the back of the bike?” he said. “It’ll be more fun now that you’re not hammered drunk or hungover.”

  He had a point. I used to love riding that bike of his whenever I got the chance. It was a way to be really close to him and a way to, well, feel pretty good from the vibration.

  “Sure,” I said with a smile. “Why not?”

  The ride on the bike went as pleasant
ly as one could expect. It wasn’t a particularly long ride, as, again, Springsville was not some populated metropolis with traffic that slowed highways down to neighborhood speeds, but it was still nice to squeeze LeCharles’ tight body and feel the vibration between my legs.

  But when Brewskis came into view, I saw something that I had not expected at all. I didn’t think LeCharles expected it, either.

  The entire place was filled to the brim with Fallen Saints motorcycles. There must have been at least a dozen of them. LeCharles didn’t stop, wisely choosing instead to pull over at a gas station about half a mile away, but the sight was unmistakable for both of us.

  “Shit,” he said. “I guess they’re hammering the point that they’re going to take over the bar.”

  “Probably best not to go there tonight, huh?”

  He shook his head in frustration.

  “I almost wonder if they’re just doing it for show, but I doubt that means we should just walk in and play some pool,” he said. “Sorry. I had no idea.”

  “You got nothing to apologize for, dear.”

  Dear? Giving him pet names already? Slow it down, Rose.

  “Why don’t we go to my place?” I said. “We can have some drinks and be low-key. You’ll have to drive me back so I can drive my car home, though.”

  Strangely, I didn’t feel that that suggestion was moving too fast by any means. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep with him tonight, and that was doubly true because of the lack of alcohol. I just thought taking him home would keep things quiet, and we could chill.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea for me personally.”

  Wait, what?

  “If we’re trying to get to know each other, and we go back to your place... things might get hot really fast.”

  Was this actually LeCharles I was hearing say this?

  Or... what in the world was going on?

  He was serious about wanting to get to know me. He wasn’t desperate to fuck me. He wasn’t desperate in any way, actually. Maybe I had just read into his perceived nervousness before, thinking it somehow meant something when it really didn’t.