Axle Page 3

  Still, I didn’t see any as I drove to Springsville Veterinary. I stopped just outside the door that read, “Employees Only,” waiting for my boss to appear after I knocked on the door once.

  The head vet, Dr. David Clovis, a man in his mid-fifties with curly hair, a goofy smile, and clothes that were way too tight for his dad bod, opened the door. He pretended not to recognize me.

  “I swear you look so familiar,” he said with a gentle smile. “Do I know you from somewhere else?”

  I smiled back politely, willing to endure the brunt of these jokes for a while.

  “It’s been almost a decade since I interned with you,” I said. “Crazy how times flies, huh, Dr. Clovis?”

  “Indeed, Rose, indeed,” he said. “Hey, I’m just happy you came back here. Though, I will admit to being a little surprised. No one comes back here! You must have shot someone to have to come back here.”

  I gave him a polite chuckle. Dr. Clovis always had a flair for not having a mute button or even a subtlety button.

  The chuckle, though, was as much to reassure myself as it was him. Because while I had not literally shot someone—if I had, I’d be behind literal prison bars, not the metaphorical one of a crappy apartment in my old town—I had done enough that it wasn’t that far removed from the truth.

  “I take it you’re familiar with where everything is and how everything functions, not like much has actually changed in the last decade,” he said, though he was already focusing on something else. “I apologize about the pay. I know it’s a bit of a cut from your last position, but things are tight here.”

  “It’s totally fine,” I said, even though that was a bit of a lie. “If I wanted to make money, I wouldn’t have become a vet tech.”

  I would have become a vet. Which I was on the path to doing... until...

  “Well, that’s just as well, because I don’t know how much longer this place will be open.”

  What?

  “Oh, don’t look so flustered, I mean for the next few years.”

  His caveat didn’t exactly reassure me.

  “It’s just that adoption rates in this town are so gosh darn low, I don’t know how to make sense of it. Everyone thinks all the bikers will kill their pets. That’s not true, of course. We have biker clients who love their pets more than their mamas. Heck, we have one dude who looks big enough to be Andre the Giant’s cousin. He treats his little doggie like it’s his wife. It’s so sweet. I mean... ”

  Dr. Clovis continued to ramble, but I only gave the appearance of continuing to listen. I instead turned to the fact the good doctor had just said that the place might not make it another couple of years—which I knew was code for the place was struggling and may not have a place for more than a few more months. No one who was in charge of delivering bad news ever said the full truth, at least not the first time.

  If that happened, if this place closed before six months, what was I going to do? At least once I hit the six-month mark, I could look for other places to work at. I’d have to leave Springsville, but that was no great loss, at least not right now. Yeah, it would be nice to catch up with LeCharles, but that was far, far down on the list of things that mattered relative to “feed Shiloh,” “feed myself,” and “shelter us both.”

  And yet...

  Thinking about LeCharles, as I went about making sure my uniform scrubs fit and my badge worked, even as Dr. Clovis continued to talk about some of the more amusing patients, made me realize that though I didn’t necessarily have the right to call him anything more than an ex-boyfriend, he was the person I needed to make amends with more than anyone else right now. I’d treated him like shit in our relationship. He hadn’t been much better, but I knew I bore responsibility for most of it. And it wasn’t some Stockholm Syndrome thing where I took on unnecessary blame—in retrospect, it really was clear that I was at fault.

  The problem right now was that I was being ignored. He still had not replied to my text messages. Texts felt like one of those things where if it didn’t happen within a twelve-hour window, the chance of getting a reply would fall off precipitously. I had to seek him out some other way.

  Good luck with that. Springsville may be small, but it’s not a one-street town. And even if it was, it’s not like you’ll know where he is all the time. You don’t even know if he still lives here. He could have easily moved someplace else. Fuck, maybe he’s in Texas.

  Maybe he’s in Brazil. Who the hell knows?

  “Anyway, are you ready to go?”

  “Sorry?” I said, realizing I had failed to hear a word that Dr. Clovis had said for the last five minutes. “Sorry, yeah, I will be.”

  “Good, we have our first patient in a little bit, cat named Olivia,” Dr. Clovis said. “Sweet kitty. You know how it works, right?”

  I bit my lip. The problem was in the answer.

  “Yes.”

  If only I didn’t know how it worked. If only I knew how something more… prestigious worked.

  But it was a few years too late to regret that.

  “And Olivia’s diet has been all good?”

  “Well, I’m feeding her this Kibble, but she just doesn’t seem to like it right now, and I don’t know why.”

  I sat at the computer in the patient room, looking at an older woman named Kelly, who was with her gray tabby, Olivia. I couldn’t even begin to describe the amount of restraint that I felt on me right now. I had gone to veterinary school, so I knew how to treat this cat, or at least how to diagnose her. There was nothing Dr. Clovis would do that I didn’t know.

  But I was not the vet here.

  I was the vet tech.

  And that meant, for the most part, I was reduced to asking some basic questions, weighing the cat, and taking notes. It was mundane, boring, and way below my knowledge—and it was my own damn fault I was here.

  The feeling, I realized, must have been what musicians felt when they lost their voice or when athletes aged and lost the ability to have their bodies keep up with their instincts. They had the talent, and they knew how to make it happen, but they no longer had the capability of doing it. There was something quite sad about it, really.

  At least I hopefully had the chance to become a vet again, but I had a lot of explaining to do for why I’d dropped out of vet school the last go around. Actually, having to explain the dropout was the least of my concern.

  “Okay, great, well, I will have Dr. Clovis come in here, and he will do an exam on Olivia for you, okay?”

  “You can’t tell me what’s wrong with her?”

  I hesitated for just half a second. Would it really be so wrong to tell Kelly what was wrong with Olivia? Would it really be so bad to provide advice that I knew would be accurate?

  Yes, yes, it would be. Because unfortunately, it wasn’t just a matter of upsetting Dr. Clovis and imperiling my position in the vet clinic. It was also a legal matter of providing unsanctioned advice, and the last thing I needed was even more trouble.

  “I can’t, but Dr. Clovis is an expert and would be happy to help you.”

  At least that much was true.

  For now, I told myself, I just had to humble myself and save money.

  But boy, was it going to suck.

  My shift lasted ten hours.

  In a way, I hated it. I hated that I was leaving Shiloh at the house for so long. I hated that I had to pretend to just be a pretty face for the vet clinic when I knew so much already. I hated that I had put myself here.

  But in another way...

  Well, unfortunately, the way I enjoyed it was far, far less than the way I hated it. I didn’t know how long I would be able to tolerate this, but I had a feeling it would get much easier as time went by. I’d eventually adapt, I’d get into a groove, and maybe I’d even start to enjoy the job. After all, I still got to work with animals. I still got to interact with patients and play my part in making animals healthier.

  I just wasn’t quite where I had been, but I could get back there.

>   As the day came to a close, Dr. Clovis met me in the back in between patient visits.

  “How was the first day?” he said with an enthusiasm I could not match.

  “It was good!” I said, exaggerating how I felt. “It was good to be back in Springsville working for you.”

  “Good, good,” he said, letting the words trail off for a bit. “Rose.”

  I paused. He said my name like he was going to say something ominous.

  “I don’t know why you’re back here, and frankly, it’s none of my concern,” he said. “What I’m happy about is to have a competent vet tech here. Like, goodness, in a town this small, you can imagine how hard it is to find someone who is good at what they do. For the most part, I’ve had stretches where I’ve just had interns. Which, you can guess... ”

  He was back to rambling again. But the gesture was still very much appreciated. Feeling appreciated went a long way to making me feel like I could get through the next six months. It would still be tough, but having the vet’s support would go a long way to making things easier.

  Eventually, I managed to excuse myself and headed out to my car, which still carried the stench of Shiloh and old possessions, even though I had managed to clear out most of it last night. I still had a couple of heavier boxes in the trunk I had hoped to find help for, but the sight of the rundown apartment complex, combined with the nighttime hours, made me rethink that decision. As it was, I wouldn’t get home until after the sun had set, so I was probably looking at not unloading anything until my next day off, Friday.

  My stomach gurgled, all but demanding I eat. There were a couple of nearby fast food joints, but I was determined to make sure that even if my bank account was in bad shape, my body would not be. I decided to take a drive over to the nearest grocery store.

  When I got there, I saw a motorcycle parked near the front. I grimaced but told myself it was probably nothing. It wasn’t like whoever had been driving bikes by my place was also going to host their meetings in the grocery store. And there was no real way to say whose bike it was for certain; the old joke about Springsville was there were more bikes than pets.

  I headed inside to find a grocery store pretty empty. Then again, we were in a small town—Salt Lake City, this was not. I headed for the produce aisle, deciding maybe I could whip up something vegetarian or vegan tonight. I swore by neither diet, but it was probably a lot cheaper than buying some steak or even some pre-made meals.

  I looked up and down the different aisles. I plucked off some kale, some broccoli, and some mushrooms. But this wouldn’t be enough calorie-wise. I needed something like beans.

  I headed over to the canned goods section. I turned the corner.

  And there he stood.

  My ex-boyfriend, the one I’d wanted to see more than anyone else.

  LeCharles Williamson.

  Axle

  I’d gone into the grocery store needing to stock my pantry for the week. I had a feeling it was going to be a long week with the Hovas, and whatever else the Fallen Saints might have thrown our way, and I didn’t want to buy anything that could expire in case I suddenly wound up having to stay at the clubhouse for extended hours.

  But there was something… off about being there.

  I couldn’t quite describe it, but as I was looking at the various types of beans, I had a feeling that someone was watching me. When I looked at the rear of the aisle, there wasn’t anyone there, but I’d been in enough bad situations to know when I needed to trust my gut, and this was most certainly one of them.

  I looked the other way. There was no one, but that didn’t shut up the concerned voice in my head.

  I turned my back to the rear of the store and pulled out my phone, ostentatiously to text, in reality to turn on the camera to see if someone was following me. I saw someone walking by and looking down the aisle—a woman whom I swore… I swore it might have been… her, but it was too quick to tell—but it was too casual a thing to tell for real.

  So I decided to turn the tables.

  Instead of going one aisle down, where the girl—again, I had my strong suspicions as to who it was—would be waiting, I went to the front and looped around to two aisles, toward the frozen food section. I pressed myself right against the first fridge door and patiently waited.

  And then Rose Wright turned the corner.

  “Surprised?” I said as she jumped in surprise.

  But in the moment between when I taunted her and when she responded, I got a glimpse of the woman that had utterly ravaged my life and made things a living hell for me nearly a decade ago.

  And as much as I did not want to admit it, as much as everything in me told me not to acknowledge this as fact, there was no getting around the fact she looked stunningly beautiful now. In our youth, she had defined “hot.” She wore low-cut tops, jeans that conformed to her ass, and the kind of makeup that screamed, “wild, fun, and free.”

  Now, though she was dressed in what looked like nurse’s scrubs, though she was clearly older than when I last saw her, there was something profoundly more beautiful about her. It wasn’t as easy as saying that she had great eyes or a great body, though both were still true. It was...

  The best I could come up with was that I could see life had hit her in some ways, but she was still here, still walking, still with her body. That was a little silly of a description, but I couldn’t come up with anything better.

  “I... hi, LeCharles,” she said gulping.

  She tried to smile. As much as I was feeling good about how she looked, as much as I had to admire her beauty, I could also say that hearing her say my name brought back a lot of shitty memories, ones that I wasn’t particularly eager to relieve.

  And it pissed me the fuck off.

  “Why the hell are you stalking me?” I said. “First, you text me, which, okay, fine, but you should have gotten the hint I wasn’t interested by my lack of response. And now you’re following me around town? What the hell?”

  “Please, LeCharles, seeing you here is just a coincidence, I swear,” she said.

  Honestly, I knew she was telling the truth. She was speaking too desperately and pleadingly for it to be a lie. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t put a little heat on to make sure that she didn’t get any ideas.

  “Sure it is,” I said. “In a town this small, where you know everyone, and you know where everyone is, it’s just a wild coincidence that you saw my bike out front and decided to come and find me.”

  “I don’t even know what your bike looks like!” she said. “At least, compared to all the other motorcyclists out here.”

  Like the Fallen Saints.

  Does she know about them?

  “Even still, as soon as you saw me in the canned food aisle, you decided to try and sneak some looks at me,” I said. “True stalker behavior. Impressive, really. Too bad for you, I’ve got a world of experience at knowing when people are following me and making sure that they don’t do anything to me.”

  “LeCharles, please,” she said.

  She was one step away from getting on her knees to beg. It was, truthfully, a shame to see her this way.

  Actually, that was more true than I think I wanted to acknowledge. The Rose I had dated may have made my life a living hell before, but she was a ferocious kind of spirit, the kind that stood up to any and all threats and laughed at them in the face. There wasn’t much that could faze Rose Wright, and yet here she was, practically crying for my forgiveness.

  I wasn’t about to ask her and give her the satisfaction of thinking I cared about her, but I had to wonder what the hell had happened to her in the last decade or so that had made her this way. No one went from that confident to this supplicant without some heavy shit happening along the way.

  “Please, what?” I said.

  It was as much as I was willing to give her. I still said it with an attitude and with a stern voice, but it gave her the chance to say whatever she needed to if she so desired.

  “I know
you hate me after what happened last time and how we ended, and you have every right to.”

  Wait, what? Of all the things I expected to hear from Rose, an acceptance of what had happened was about the last thing. Even months after we had broken up, she kept lashing out at me, telling me I was a fool to leave her, and I would never be happy without her.

  Seriously, what the hell happened to you?

  “I just want to make amends for what happened, LeCharles,” she continued. “I recognize that I made a lot of mistakes. I don’t have any expectations for the future, I really don’t. I just want to... just sit down and make things right.”

  I was so stunned that for a good half-minute, I couldn’t find the words to say anything. I was so used to being yelled at, gaslighted, and mocked that to be apologized to...

  This was Rose Wright, correct? This wasn’t someone that had assumed her identity and was trolling me, right? This wasn’t some other ex I had confused for Rose, right?

  No, it was Rose. I knew it from looking in her eyes. There was no mistaking it. I would never forget that face, even when it wrinkled and aged another fifty years.

  But...

  I’d played this game with her before. I’d gotten burned by believing her, only to then get yelled at a week later for something that was completely inane and completely bullshit. Hell, sometimes, it didn’t even last a week. We could have great sex where we said we loved each other in the morning and be back to fighting before the end of the day. And what made it worse was there was no telling what would trigger her. I may have been dating her, but no matter how hard I tried, I felt like I barely knew her.