Axle Read online

  And yet, I couldn’t help but think that something may be different here. I didn’t have a rational reason, just a gut reaction.

  And in any case, it had been a while since I’d had some meaningful relationships. Sex was far too easy to come by. In fact, in some ways, it was accurate to say it had lost its value because of the pussy around the club. But something meaningful?

  Do you hear yourself right now? Do you realize what you’re doing? You’re falling into the same traps as before.

  I don’t care how good or how promising it seems, you cannot allow yourself to go down this path.

  “It’s too late to do that, Rose,” I said. “Because of how shitty you treated me and how awful you were, it’s too late. You were the worst girlfriend I ever had. It would have been one thing if we just drifted apart, or we had different goals. But you actively sought to hurt me and ruin me. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “Just give me one chance,” she said, grabbing my arm—a gesture I did not fight. “Just one lunch or even one discussion over coffee. I swear, I’m not playing any games—no romance, no sex, not even a kiss. I know what I did. I just want a chance to explain.”

  It was a nice idea. It would have made for a great story of redemption and forgiveness. But no, doing so would, at best, rekindle bad memories, and at worst, leave me vulnerable to new scars.

  “Sorry, Rose,” I said. “But this is your chance right now. You talking to me here is your chance. And now, you’ve used it up.”

  “LeCharles!”

  But I had already walked out. I hadn’t even gotten any of the grocery items I’d intended to buy. I knew how it would work if I tried to check out—Rose would follow me all the way, leading to some awkward glances from the store staff and other shoppers. I’d get on my bike as she tugged on my arm, begging for a chance. I’d have to ride off, all the while being cautious that she didn’t jump in front of my bike or do something equally suicidal or dangerous.

  There was still a chance that she would do that now, but at least this way, I could maximize the chance I had of getting away.

  Surprisingly, though, when I hopped on my bike, I saw that Rose had not followed me. In fact, she had not even come outside. It was like...

  Like she recognized that I needed my space.

  No, that was giving her too much credit. She was still the worst thing to ever happen to me, and her being back in Springsville was only going to bring more trouble. Even if she was a changed person, even if we could... not have a relationship, but be amicable, that was going to take weeks, if not months, to build to. We couldn’t build trust between us because there was nothing to build and grow right now. She had utterly annihilated it.

  So, of course, even with that absolute certainty in my head that nothing like this could work, I still thought about Rose the entire ride home.

  I thought of how she looked. She had the same eyes. She was still just as fit as when we had dated. If she had gained any weight, it was so minimal that I would not have been able to tell without a scale. She still had the same seductive curves, but unlike before, when she basically blasted them out for the world to see with low-cut clothing, she now hid them with professional outfits, a choice that somehow made her more beautiful. She hadn’t smiled, but I had to imagine that her smile could still work its charm on some unsuspecting men.

  I thought of how she acted. I didn’t get a single hint of her being manipulative at the store. Granted, the most manipulative people could most easily hide that aspect of them, but I was older and wiser than our last relationship, more easily able to pick up on when, say, a club bunny might have wanted to get pregnant with me so that she’d be attached to me. I didn’t sense anything like that from her.

  I thought of what she must have gone through in the last decade. I knew that she had spoken about going to medical school when we were dating, which was a huge source of trouble for us, given I wanted to stay in the military, and she wanted a single place she could settle in. But the hospital didn’t need more doctors, and I didn’t think it needed any more nurses.

  Briefly, I laughed at the idea of her filling the role that Kaitlyn, Patriot’s new girlfriend, had refused to take on. Wouldn’t life have been just so damn ironic if, after all of the work I’d done to get someone at the club, I wound up getting my ex? That would have been a real fucking bitch.

  By the time I got home, my mind was a muddled mess, far more muddled than it should have been for making a mere grocery store visit. I needed something to take my mind off seeing Rose. I didn’t want to drink, not with it being a Monday and with no guarantees about the Fallen Saints or Hovas avoiding us.

  So, I decided to do the thing that Rose used to provide in spades but that I now had an overflow of.

  I texted one of the club bunnies to come to my house.

  To put it frankly, we had so many women who were so eager to sleep with us that even if I acted in the vilest and most disgusting manner, I would still get laid.

  Different men in the club handled the women differently. Lane actually didn’t take many women. Come to think of it, I couldn’t recall him ever taking anyone. For a while, it was a darkly funny reflection of his distance from the club, but now, it better reflected his commitment and loyalty to his girlfriend, Angela. Patriot would sometimes take them, but his recent hitching also prevented him from taking someone.

  For someone like me, though? Or like Butch? Or the prospects and club members who maybe wouldn’t be accepted by the outside world?

  Oh, we were ravenous and unapologetic.

  Some of us did it because we loved having a lot of sex. Some of us did it because we had pasts we were trying to fuck our way past. Some of us did because we were just bored.

  If someone asked me, I just said it was the first. The truth, I believed, was probably some blend of all three, with the middle reason being the primary one.

  Granted, this could make things a little messy if one of the club members started to develop feelings for one of the girls. It was sort of an unwritten rule that unless someone was an old lady—that was, a serious girlfriend or a wife—anyone was fair game at any time to anyone. It was admittedly a little bit crass, but from time to time, some of the officers or senior members would take a girl a prospect was hitting on to remind him of his place.

  Tonight’s girl, though, was just coming to my house, so there wasn’t anyone to compete with or anyone to publicly embarrass.

  It was a girl named Thea, a taller, athletic blonde girl, in many ways, the opposite of Rose. Rose was short and curvy, Thea, athletic and lean. Rose was brunette and light-skinned, Thea was blonde and tanned. Rose was...

  Why the hell was I comparing Thea to Rose?

  A knock came at my door. I opened it to see Thea in a low-cut, midriff-exposed top, jean shorts, and heels. She really looked every bit the part of a hooker. It was, yes, in sharp contrast to what Rose wore.

  “I guess you wore the minimum amount of clothing knowing it would get torn off, huh?” I said.

  “Oh, you’re so funny,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes and pulled her in for a kiss. I didn’t want to waste time with “pleasantries” when they would be anything but to me. I gradually helped her reach the bedroom, and we tumbled onto the bed, what few clothes we had coming off.

  It was a shame she couldn’t have dressed a little like...

  What the actual fuck.

  Rose was like a worm that had slithered her way deep into my brain. And sure enough, even as we got completely naked, even as I went deep inside of Thea, even as she sucked me off to climax, I could never really get Rose out of my head. I had hoped that having sex would make me forget about her, but instead, it seemed to have made me remember her even more than before.

  “How did that feel?” Thea said, sitting back on her heels, showing off her amazing body, her voice carrying a hint of desperation.

  “Fucking awesome,” I said, even though I was not focused on her in the slightest.
>
  “Maybe next time, you’d like to know what it’s like to come inside me,” she said, a sort of sad smile on her face. “I know you want—”

  “Maybe next time,” I said, standing up and getting my clothes on quickly. “For now, time to go.”

  “You don’t want to do a second—”

  “Long day,” I said. “I’ll see you on Friday.”

  Thea looked at me with more than a little disgust, perhaps annoyed that she felt treated like a whore. But what was I supposed to do, pretend to care or like her when neither was true? I at least gave her twenty bucks to buy herself dinner, but it was only when she angrily swiped it from my hand that I realized it probably looked like I was paying her for sex.

  In any case, I forgot about it shortly after. Instead, I was thinking about how sex with Rose had gone.

  Which was to say, back in the day, ridiculously good.

  This, however, also told me if I started going down that path with Rose, even if I so much as merely hugged her and did nothing else, I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself. I would do something incredibly stupid with her. And then I’d wind up exactly where I started.

  So, perhaps I would never have sex with anyone as good as I’d had it with Rose. Perhaps I would never have a relationship as passionate and meaningful as anyone as I’d had with Rose. But if that was what it took to stay sane in the face of utter chaos, then it was something I was more than willing to do.

  And it makes you wonder, though, what would happen if you could have it all.

  Too bad that’ll never fucking happen.

  Rose

  I opened the door to my apartment, feeling dejected. My shoulders slumped, I could barely carry the bag of groceries, and I didn’t even know what I was going to make. I hadn’t bought anything else after LeCharles had embarrassed me so badly in the grocery store. I’d felt too hurt, too rejected to think clearly.

  It would have been one thing for him to say no. But for him to say no so cruelly and so harshly? For him to reject me in such a public and humiliating manner?

  That wasn’t the LeCharles I knew.

  But, then again, maybe I wasn’t the Rose he knew anymore. Maybe we’d both changed—or maybe we both were wearing masks to hide our fear of each other. What would happen if we removed those masks?

  I wasn’t exactly confident I’d get an answer to that ever. Nor was I confident it was in my best interests to get an answer.

  But as soon as I heard the jingling sound of Shiloh’s collar, much of my concern dissipated. I let my bag gently drop to the ground, kicked the door behind me closed, and hugged my dog as he licked my face and broke out into heavy panting.

  “Oh, I know, buddy, I know!” I said as he barked his disapproval at me being gone all day. “I know! I’ve been a very bad owner!”

  Then he sat in front of me without me saying a word, knowing that that was the next step toward going on a walk. It was nice to have something in my life go according to order. Not everything I experienced was complete chaos.

  I went to my bedroom, grabbed a leash, and attached it to Shiloh, whose panting made it look like he was smiling like a kid who got an extra bar of candy on Halloween.

  “I’m happy you’re happy!” I said in a high-pitched tone. “I’m happy... I’m happy someone’s happy.”

  Poor Shiloh didn’t know it, but he was about to be a therapy dog of a different kind for me.

  “You know, Shiloh, I get why LeCharles rejected me,” I said as I opened the door.

  The German Shepherd yanked on the leash, desperate to get to a spot where he could relieve himself. That was something I was going to have to figure out for later—I couldn’t afford a sitter, so I either had to make the very tight squeeze home to take care of him, or I’d have to pray that he wouldn’t relieve himself in the middle of the day in my apartment.

  “Our last relationship was filled with so much trouble,” I said as I found a patch of grass to the side of one of the apartment buildings. “I knew things were bad, but I didn’t have the courage to tell the truth, so rather than do that, I just chose to fight him. Terrible decision on my part. Lied to him some, too.”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re lucky, Shiloh,” I said as we began our actual walk. “A dog’s life is a simple one. Wake up, use the bathroom, play with your owner, go for a walk, eat, go for another walk—it’s all just casual and fun. I wish I had a dog’s life. I wouldn’t have had the work, school, and family issues I had when I was dating LeCharles. I guess ignorance is bliss, huh, Shiloh?”

  At the mention of his name, he turned around and jumped up on me. I knew it was bad practice to let a dog jump on you, but I didn’t mind. I thought it was cute the way he did it, and I just kissed him and scratched his face whenever he did that.

  “I didn’t know how to handle it,” I said. “And so I never did. And it exploded on me.”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t just that I was in a worst spot now—it was that the descent into this spot had been so gradual, there were very few explosive moments of failure. It wasn’t like I had woken up one day and had changed from a would-be doctor into someone who took the only place that hired her.

  I had started out wanting to become a doctor of humans, just a normal doctor who people would go and visit for annual checkups or colds. But when my father fell ill, I realized I didn’t have the stomach for chronic, fatal human suffering. So, thinking I could continue to give back with my knowledge of medicine, just not to people, I went to vet school. I chose Utah thinking it would get me away. And then...

  It was all too much to think about. To think of how, after six months of dating LeCharles, I was sure we would marry, I would go to a medical school in the Los Angeles area, and my father would walk me down the aisle...

  And now, I could only say that one of those would definitely never happen, and two of those were only likely to happen in the most outlandish, most improbable, most ridiculous of scenarios.

  “But I still want to make things right,” I said. “And, if I’m being totally honest, Shiloh, he looked very handsome today.”

  My dog literally stopped in his tracks, squatted down, and pawed at its head with its rear left leg, scratching himself. I suspected, though, that that was merely an excuse, a gesture meant to cover up the fact he was staring at me, thinking I was beyond crazy.

  “I know, I know, but just hear me out, would ya?” I said with a smile. “I never thought he was unattractive. That was never the issue for me.”

  Shiloh got up and kept walking forward as if expressing his disdain. But I knew he was still listening. It was what a good boy always did, and Shiloh was the best boy that there was.

  “But when I saw him today, just saw him, Shiloh, not even heard him... it was like he was even more attractive,” I said. “He’s more rugged. Before, he was just hot. But now he’s got some years on him. Some experience. It makes him handsome.”

  Shiloh started to whimper, and I almost believed it was his way of saying I was being an idiot. But then I saw it was just another dog across the street, and Shiloh stopped whimpering when the dog walked out of sight.

  “It’s just sad he said all those things,” I said. “I don’t think he really wants to push me away. At least, I want to believe that that’s not the case. I don’t think the fire ever dies out between two people. Do you, Shiloh?”

  Shiloh’s response was to keep walking forward. Call me crazy, call me an animal-obsessed person, but I thought that was just his way of saying what I thought didn’t matter as much as what happened. I could sit there and think of a million reasons why LeCharles and I could still have something, but unless I saw it play out in person, it was nothing more than an ungrounded fantasy.

  “I’ve got to see him,” I said. “I know I’m better. I know I need to apologize.”

  And then I got an idea.

  Just Google the man. See what he’s up to.

  I pulled out my phone as I let Shiloh decide which roads to take
us down. I typed LeCharles Williamson into my phone and waited for responses to come back.

  As it turned out, he was now a mechanic at Carter’s Auto Repairs and a member of a motorcycle club, the Black Reapers. I didn’t really have a reaction to those, other than to wonder if the Black Reapers were a group that would threaten me or welcome me if I tried to make a move on LeCharles.

  But then I tried to get some sense into myself. They were probably the motorcycles that were parading around late at night. Did I really want to associate myself with such a crazy group?

  Probably not.

  But that didn’t mean that my desire to make things right—and maybe, honestly, a little bit more—had faded.

  I just felt a little annoyed at how it seemed like all of the obstacles that could be piling up, were piling up.

  I turned Shiloh around with the ever-darkening sky, making it to my door just as the sun had completely set, and the eastern part of the sky had turned a navy blue. I unlocked the door, let him run inside, and laid on my air mattress, petting the one boy I hadn’t seemingly ruined things with.

  “I just hope I get my chance.”

  When the alarm clock went off the next morning, it did not get any easier waking up at the crack of dawn.

  Despite this, I actually felt weirdly positive about how the day would go. I knew from experience that the second day of trying something was always the hardest and most awkward. The first go, whether it was a day at the job or a promising first date, carried with it excitement, hope, and anticipation.

  But the second day invariably wiped away those feelings, thrust reality onto a person, and gave them no choice but to take it or leave it. I usually chose to take it, but today, I’d have no choice but to take it. Knowing that made it easier to accept that it would suck being up so early, it would suck not being able to provide the kind of knowledge I knew I could provide, and it would suck not having any positive interactions with LeCharles.

  But it was still easier just having that awareness.