Axle Read online

  I made it to the clinic about ten minutes earlier than last time, and with an actual badge to use, I let myself lounge a bit in the back office, sipping on some coffee before my shift started.

  “You didn’t run off!”

  I looked up to see a very cheery and excited Dr. Clovis.

  “Why would I?” I asked.

  “Oh, heavens, dear, you have no idea how many people claim they want to work in a vet hospital, thinking they’ll take care of animals and save the world. And then they learn that they might have to put animals down, or at the very least, a lot of the animals they have love for don’t love them back, and on and on and on and next thing you know... ”

  Back to his rambling ways, I see. He must not really realize how little choice I have being here.

  “In any case, now that I’ve gotten that all out of the way, can you get Bay C ready for me? We got a little King Charles Cavalier Spaniel coming in. Cute little thing with fluffy ears. Lucky, I believe his name is.”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, and before I forget,” Dr. Clovis said. More like before you say something else that prevents you from saying this. “When you see Lucky’s owner, don’t be alarmed. The man looks like Mr. Olympia, but I assure you he’s a very docile and friendly man.”

  “Okay,” I said, starting to wonder if LeCharles had somehow gotten himself a small dog in the time that I had left. It would have been out of character, but then again, it sure seemed like we did not have a read on each other’s character as well as we thought we might have. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Dr. Clovis thanked me, and I rushed out before he had a chance to talk my ear off some more. I got the room sanitized and prepared and went to the front lobby about twenty minutes later.

  “Brian Young?” I said.

  “That’s me.”

  He spoke from around the corner, and when he rose from the seat, I could see two things.

  One, the man who I thought might have Lucky was not LeCharles. My ex was not in here.

  And two, Dr. Clovis might have actually underestimated the man’s size. I conservatively put the bald man at about six and a half feet tall, weighing at least two hundred and fifty pounds, and with a beard of equal size.

  “Hi, I’m Rose, I’ll be your puppy’s vet tech,” I said. “Follow me, please.”

  “Of course.”

  He sounded friendly enough. I certainly didn’t think I was about to get dragged into something violent. But still, a man of that size was a man that one would’ve been wise to keep some distance from, if for no other reason than that someone like him probably didn’t know his own strength.

  I didn’t even see the dog at first, so massive was the man before me. It wasn’t until we got into the room, and Brian unfolded his arms that I realized he had the dog cradled in them all along.

  “Well, hello, Lucky,” I said in a sweet voice.

  The dog was nervous about being there, panting and wide-eyed, but his anxiety and nervousness did not manifest themselves in biting or other aggressive behavior.

  “Good old Lucky here, I think she’s suffering from a cold,” Brian said. “The sweet little thing has trouble breathing and keeping up on walks now, and I just want to make sure things are fine.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  I started to ask my questions, but because curiosity also got the best of me, I looked at the man’s jacket. It had many insignias and patches on it, including one that said “SOA” on it. I wished that I could see the back of his jacket because it felt like that also would have patches on it, but I couldn’t tell anything other than figuring he must have been a biker.

  Maybe one in LeCharles’ group. The Grim Reapers, I think they were called?

  “By the way, out of curiosity,” I said, nodding to his jacket. “Is that a... Grim Reapers jacket?”

  Brian looked down at his jacket, held it out, and gave a polite but deferential chuckle.

  “It’s a club jacket. But it’s nothing important. I just wear it because it’s comfortable.”

  “Oh, cool, I have a friend in your group, I think.”

  Bold lie. You better hope that it pays off.

  “Really?” Brian said, friendly enough.

  “Yep, name is LeCharles Williamson. Black guy, probably mid-to-late thirties—”

  “Oh, yes, I know him,” Brian said.

  At least his voice is friendly enough.

  I wanted to press more, to ask if Brian could pass on a message, if he could say anything to LeCharles, but knowing that Dr. Clovis would wonder what was taking so long, I decided to just keep my mouth shut for now. I would be the one to walk Brian out, so I decided that would be the point I’d do it.

  When I did get Dr. Clovis in, I was struck by how friendly Brian was. He was a guy that could have crushed both of our necks at once or just made people piss themselves with his size, but he really was the epitome of a gentle teddy bear. He talked to Lucky the same way I talked to Shiloh, and the faces he made were like that of a teenager. I had no idea what he was like in the club, but here, he was strangely endearing.

  When Dr. Clovis finished, I finally had my chance. I went through the procedures of follow-up and made small talk about how I had just moved here, just enough to make it so that when I made the ask, it would seem more natural.

  And it came just before we left.

  “By the way, I’m having some trouble reaching out to LeCharles, can you pass him a message?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ve got a memory worse than a goldfish’s, though, can you write it down?”

  I agreed, but I hadn’t even thought of what I wanted the message to be. I quickly grabbed a notepad, wrote down, “LeCharles, sorry about before. Would still love to meet for coffee if you’d like.” I scribbled my phone number down, even though he had it already, and handed it to Brian.

  “I appreciate it,” I said, feeling like I was doing the equivalent of having a friend ask out the cute boy for me.

  “Of course, I’m happy to help.”

  I had hope, but I was still very much on edge. There were no guarantees this would work, and in fact, I wondered if this would actually make it worse. But it was too late now.

  “Off to anywhere good now?” I asked.

  “Just grabbing some food at a diner out east,” he said. “Want to wait until In-n-Out opens, but I don’t think I have the patience.”

  “Story of all our lives,” I said with a gentle laugh.

  I wished him well, went back to my workday, and prayed that I had not suddenly screwed myself over worse.

  But when things were at rock bottom, could they really get any worse?

  Axle

  I sat in the break room of Carter’s Auto Repair, checking my phone. I had no new messages from Rose, which was oddly disappointing. I didn’t want to be disappointed, and I didn’t really want her to text me, but frankly, there was something invigorating about knowing someone wants you so bad they’ll do anything for you. To have that idea seemingly snapped away from me was a little bit jarring.

  I did, however, have a bunch of messages from Thea, and unlike Rose, I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. But I was beginning to regret that pretty seriously because it seemed like Thea was hell-bent on us going out on a date. Too bad for her, I had heard her comment about finishing inside of her. Too bad for her, I had a better chance of moving to Guatemala than that happening.

  Too bad for her, there was only one girl I could see myself nutting inside, and that girl was a fantasy, a girl that had once existed in a relationship but had proved to be nothing more than an illusion. And if I ever did wind up coming inside of that girl, the reality behind the illusion?

  I would have had a lot of questions that seemingly would need an entire book to answer.

  I was about to send one more message to Thea when I heard the loud, thunderous steps of Butch approaching. I looked up nonchalantly.

  “Have something for you,” he grunted.

&
nbsp; Instinctively, seeing his hand go into his pocket, I tensed up, preparing to defend myself. Was this the moment that Butch revealed himself to be the rat by trying to knife me? Bold move in the middle of daylight, but…

  And then he showed me a small piece of paper.

  He tossed it on the table and walked away without a word. It was the most typical Butch thing—hardly say a word and communicate the bare minimum of what he was doing. This could have been a note from the President of the United States or from a McDonald’s employee, and I wouldn’t have known the difference by his presentation.

  I unfolded the note. Even though I hadn’t read the handwriting on it in years, I knew immediately who it was.

  Rose Wright.

  You just can’t leave things alone, can you?

  And then I started reading, much to my own chagrin. I was doing a pretty shitty job of keeping my distance through all of this. If that wasn’t the case, then why did I find myself reading this note over and over again, to the point I had Rose’s phone number all but carved into my skull?

  I could delete her messages, and it wouldn’t make a difference because I couldn’t delete her number from my mind—as was the case even before this note.

  Also, why the hell would Butch have the note to deliver it to me? Do they know each other?

  And if so... in what capacity?

  I was beginning to feel a little outraged. Did Butch know that Rose and I had, at one point, been a serious couple? Did he do anything with her knowing that? Why the hell did it matter so much?

  But I couldn’t pretend like it didn’t matter, because it most certainly did. The fact I was stewing in the chair, my mind accelerating by the moment, getting more and more pissed off with every passing moment, said that it mattered.

  I stormed out of the room, peered around the repair shop, and saw Butch walking back to the club headquarters.

  “Butch!” I shouted, walking to him.

  He stopped and slowly turned, his grim expression unchanging.

  “How did you get this note?”

  He shrugged, but even that was barely perceptible.

  “Girl handed it to me.”

  “Okay, where did she hand it to you?” I said.

  I had to deliberately tell myself to speak slowly in order to avoid him noticing how I was feeling.

  “Someplace,” he said. “Just said make sure you get it. So I did.”

  “Someplace is not a place in town, Butch. You ran into the girl who wrote this note. She knew you were in the Black Reapers and that I was in the Black Reapers well enough to make this request. So you must have been wearing your cut. Where did this happen?”

  But again, Butch just shrugged. God, it was so frustrating.

  “Running errands.”

  Damnit, Butch, do you have to pretend like you’re a mute?

  Without another word, Butch passed by me, walking into the headquarters and disappearing from view.

  “Motherfucker,” I muttered to myself as I pulled the note back up, trying to make sense of where she would have run into him.

  The hospital? I mean, last I’d seen her, she’d wanted to go to medical school, and she was wearing scrubs at the grocery store. But I hadn’t seen her... well, then again, she did say she had just moved here.

  But why would Butch have gone to the hospital? Unless maybe he just went to get some routine physicals done? But that didn’t happen at hospitals.

  Maybe Rose wasn’t a hospital doctor. Maybe she was just the kind of doctor you saw once a year to make sure your blood pressure hadn’t soared above the normal limits.

  Or, maybe, it was something that I didn’t know about, something that I really wouldn’t want to know about, something that I would regret knowing.

  But of course, that just made me want to know it more.

  Fuck, why did Rose have this effect on me? It was like fast food—you knew it was bad for you, you would regret it as soon as you ate it, but the buildup to it and the process of having it were irresistible. You couldn’t say no to getting it, and in the exact moment of having it, things tasted wonderful.

  At least fast food, though, digested and disappeared from your body. Rose would never leave me.

  Butch being the one to deliver the letter to me had made me too curious to push her away again. Call it weakness, call it a necessity, call it whatever the fuck you wanted, I knew that if I wanted my mind settled and some measure of peace, I had to do it.

  I had to meet Rose Wright in person.

  But I damn well had to do it on my terms and my terms only.

  I pulled out my phone. I didn’t even need to look at the sheet to know Rose’s phone number. I confirmed it before I sent a very awkward text to someone who had a similar number, but I got it right. It didn’t help that my phone suggested the phone number after I punched in the first five digits.

  Her older messages popped up, the one suggesting we meet up when she arrived. Guess you won, Rose. Guess you’re getting what you wished for.

  “I’ll meet up Thursday,” I wrote. “Joe’s Java. 7 p.m. You get an hour. No alcohol. Just coffee or tea.”

  I stared at that message. Angry enough? Straightforward enough? Limiting enough to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid? Check, check, and check.

  I hit “Send.”

  Boy, I had a feeling I was going to regret this. I could see it now. Seeing her, her beautiful body... catching up on the bad times... and the good... deciding to grab a drink... getting something light... things getting a little heavier…

  “Axle!”

  I had never been so happy in my life to have Lane break my concentration.

  “Come meet me in church?”

  I nodded immediately. Lane disappeared into the clubhouse. I stared back at my phone. Rose hadn’t responded yet. She didn’t even have the three-dot bubble appear to show that she was typing.

  I knew I’d only sent the message barely a minute ago. I knew it wasn’t like Rose didn’t have a job—at least, I assumed as much. Why else would she be returning to the small town of Springsville?

  But... well, fuck. I was so used to just snapping my fingers and getting her to do whatever the hell I wanted that to suddenly lose that was jarring.

  In any case, I put my phone in airplane mode, the better to not be tempted by it, and headed to church. Inside the meeting room, Lane was already propped up in his president’s chair. He smelled of vehicle oil and gasoline, as good a sign as any that he had put in needed work this morning.

  “So,” he said, getting right down to business like I always preferred. “Good news is, instead of an accusation, I have an opportunity.”

  “Not always good news,” I said with a snort.

  Lane knew me well enough to know that was sarcasm, even if I didn’t smile or laugh right after.

  “Jerome reached out to me this morning and told me that he wants to launch a strike against the Fallen Saints. He feels like it’ll release the energy of the group onto the actual guilty party, and he feels like it’ll send a message to the Saints that they know they are the real enemy. For obvious reasons, I am all for it.”

  I nodded. Anything that was done to hurt the Saints was something that worked in my book. Some people believed in gray areas, but I believed in evil when I saw it. I saw it in Afghanistan, and now I saw it here with the Fallen Saints.

  “Here’s the opportunity part of it for you,” Lane said. “Jerome wants your expertise. He wants you to go undercover with them and help them lead a strike. For obvious reasons, you are the only one in the Black Reapers who can go undercover with them. Is this something you’re willing to do?”

  I didn’t often laugh at club business, and I didn’t often smile either, but this put a very small grin and produced a one-breath chuckle from me.

  “Yes.”

  I think Lane had some understanding of the fact the Hovas and I went back a bit. I didn’t think he knew to what extent we did, though. If he did, he might have recognized what I suspecte
d the Hovas were trying to do—but at this point, that didn’t much matter to me.

  “Great, I’ll let Jerome know to contact you,” Lane said. “However, that’s not why I pulled you in here. I could have comfortably made this request out in public without the details. I brought you in here, Axle, because I want to know if you want me to let anyone in on the plans. It’ll be a way for me to test loyalties.”

  “No.”

  The response was immediate and unquestioned in my mind. I understood that Lane felt he had an opportunity to make things better by exposing the rat, but such a strategy was going to put the Hovas in the line of danger.

  Better, I figured, that the Hovas and the Black Reapers have a better relationship after this strike than to find the rat and risk hurting the Hovas.

  “You’re sure,” Lane said, less of a question and more of a resigned statement.

  “If we lose our relationship with the Hovas because of a strike gone bad, we lose our guns. We lose our guns, and we lose the battle against the Fallen Saints.”

  Lane didn’t say a word more. He understood.

  “Anything else?” I said.

  Lane started to speak, caught himself, looked like he wasn’t going to say anything else, and then sighed.

  “You doing okay?”

  Shit, is that obvious that Rose is affecting me?

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  Lane looked like he regretted asking the question. But just the very fact he had asked it in the first place was pretty damn telling to me.

  “You... well, shit, you just seemed a little off this meeting. Just want to make sure—”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Only one of those statements was true, and it wasn’t the one about being fine. I never liked bringing my personal business into the club. I had a lot of brothers, but I didn’t have a lot of friends. I kept things like Rose on the down-low. The only reason I’d even mentioned it with Butch was that, well, he was somehow on the down-low too. Hopefully, not too down-low.

  “Okay, well—”

  “I’m fine, Lane,” I said as I rose. “I’ll take care of myself. Let me know if Jerome needs anything.”