Chapter 4
Tex
O n the way to work the next morning, I think about my crazy neighbor. I know she separated from her husband a few months ago. Everyone in the neighborhood was talking about how he cheated on her and she hosed him down like the dirty dog he was. I’m more amused by that than I should be, because it’s something only an unhinged person would think to do.
She’s cute as a little button, short, curvy with wild red hair. Her big blue eyes are beguiling. In other words, she’s just my type and by far the prettiest thing I’ve seen with my two eyes. If only my plate wasn’t already full, with two jobs and a son that I have to watch like a hawk. Maybe if I wasn’t so busy and if she wasn’t a lunatic to boot, we could have had a chance at love—or lust at least, I think wryly.
I shake my head and shift gears. I’m thirty-eight years old and learned early on in life not to stick my dick in crazy. Not that I think she’s into me at all. I’m big, ornery, and mean when I gotta be. It has apparently not escaped her notice that I’m socially maladjusted and never get any visitors. That had been embarrassing.
I didn’t appreciate her calling Levi a delinquent, even if it was true. I did like that she apologized almost immediately. Something about a woman who’s not too proud to admit when she’s wrong is a weakness of mine. I quickly realize that I’m spending way too much time thinking about my pretty neighbor when I should be paying better attention to my job and son.
It’s Thursday, so I’m working at the Savage Legion’s security business. They decided that after pulling some ad hoc security shit, they needed to be better organized and maybe set up their own company. They needed someone with experience to get their business back on track and I needed a second job to make ends meet. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
I walk in and find the club officers having an unofficial meeting in the bar area. It’s not even ten in the morning, so they’ve all got breakfast and coffee. Siege, waves at me. “Grab some breakfast and join us. We need a progress report on the security business.”
“You got it, boss,” I tell him, and start to give him an update on how things are going.
Before I can even get started giving my club brothers a run down, I get a call. It’s from our contact at the Las Salinas PD, so I make my excuses and take it. He’s calling to inform me that Levi was picked up with two older guys at a skate park, which is interesting, considering he’s supposed to be going to that private school I wrangled him a scholarship to, and he doesn’t even skate. I let out a long, drawn-out sigh. I don’t want my personal and work life colliding. I know my supervisors wouldn’t look too kindly on me being a patched in member of an MC. Luckily, so far, it’s not something that’s drawn anyone’s attention. Hopefully, with whatever shit Levi’s pulled that’s the way it’s gonna stay.
When I step back into the room, I see my club brothers have all scooted around the table to make space for me and someone added another chair. This is what I love about being a member of the Legion and about working for them. They always make me feel welcome, even though they were mostly all born and raised here and I’m technically an outsider from Texas of all places.
“Anything urgent?” Siege asks.
I shake my head, “Levi’s gotten himself into trouble, but I’m gonna let him stew a while, till I get the official call from the precinct.”
After giving me a few minutes to get started on my breakfast, Siege asks, “How’s your other job going? You getting tired of helping train cops?”
I take a sip of my coffee. “Not hardly. It’s gratifying to see them coming in all innocent and wide eyed and leaving jaded, ornery bastards, like me.”
Tank laughs. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Don’t think for a minute that I don’t do my best to rub the shine right off their naive ideas about being in law enforcement. I took them all out to the body farm the other day.”
Dutch makes a surprised sound. “If that doesn’t rub the shine off, nothing will.”
Rider apparently isn’t eating, because all he has is a coffee in front of him. “That place is fucking creepy.”
“Well, it’s helpful in a lot of ways. I can’t believe after what most of y’all have seen in the military a dead body would spook you.”
Rider leans over the table to glare at me. “I ain’t fucking spooked, okay?”
“Calm down, don’t get your panties in a twist,” I say with a grin and shove my plate towards him so he can grab a couple of pieces of bacon. Dude gets hangry if he’s not fed regularly.
After snagging my bacon, Rider makes to tackle my eggs, so I finish up my meal as quickly as possible and drink down the last bit of my coffee before pulling my laptop out of the messenger bag, I carry with me just about everywhere I go. “Are y’all about ready for your update?”
Siege jerks his chin at me. “Hell the fuck yes, we are. Dutch, are you gonna take notes?”
My club brother nods his head and gets his tablet out.
I get busy telling them where the security business stands financially, how many clients we have, how I’m advertising for more clients because we have good, strong brothers going without work. They take in all the information, ask a bunch of questions and after about an hour, I head to the office Rigs created for me. It’s about the size of a closet but has a window up at the very top of the room, so at least I get a little sunshine. I check my e-mails, work on the calendar of events, adding new jobs that I plucked out of my e-mail and send out electronic invoices for the jobs I just accepted. I’m just starting to get to work on the employee schedule when I get a call on my cell phone.
I was expecting it.
Obviously, our contact can give us a heads up, but even if I did want to go down to the precinct all guns blazing to see what they’d picked up Levi for, I had to wait for the official call.
“Hello, Officer Prichard. How are you today?”
“Not bad. I’m sorry to report we picked up your son a while ago on a truancy charge. Can you come down to the precinct?”
“Of course. I’m on my way now.”
I sent Siege a text, informing him I was leaving early because of an emergency with my son. He texted back immediately, asking me to let him know if I needed anything from him or the club. I hope and pray that I don’t. Imposing upon people for favors because my son couldn’t do the things he was supposed to do in life was humiliating.
I drive over there ruminating on what I did wrong. Levi used to be a good kid, but after his mom died, he went off the rails. I guess it’s not an uncommon story, but it makes me feel like I failed as a father. After leaving my cut in my pickup I head across the parking lot. When I show up at the police station, I find my son sitting with two older men, like really old men and they’re beat all to shit. God, I hope Levi isn’t responsible for their injuries, if he is then I really don’t know what I’m gonna do with him. Officer Prichard waves me over to his desk, and I walk over to see what the hell is going on.
“I hope my son isn’t in too much trouble, Officer Prichard,” I comment casually as I drop down into the seat in front of his desk.
“Well he’s definitely truanting this morning. He was apparently watching a chess match between two older men while his friends skated on their boards. Unfortunately, there was a disagreement about the legality of a chess move. The verbal disagreement turned into a physical fight when one of them threw hands.”
Damn it. I don’t know what I can do with my son if he’s started attacking senior citizens. Before it was just low-grade troublemaking. But actual physical violence is worse than I could have imagined, “I hope they’re not too badly injured. I don’t know where to begin apologizing about my son—”
Prichard frowned. “They would probably be in much worse shape if your son hadn’t tried to intervene.”
Relief floods my mind that he didn’t have anything to do with their injuries. Still, the problem is he should have been in school. I’m giving him the same warning I did his friends and that is, going to the skateboarding park on their lunch break is fine because St. Mary’s has an open campus. However, when lunch break is over, they need to return to class. The fact that they hadn’t even gone to school this morning showed how little notice they took of my advice.
I guess that because his friends hadn’t been in trouble before, they all got off with a warning. This situation doesn’t bode well for that trust I’m supposed to building for my son.
“Has he been charged?” I ask.
The officer shakes his head, “Other than the truanting, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. We just took him in because we needed a statement. The older gentlemen are looking at being charged with disturbing the peace.
“Trust me, this won’t happen again, he’s gonna get a talking to when I get him home.”
When I walk over to Levi, he’s huddled with the two older men with his cell phone out. I can hear my son whispering, “James is correct. It’s a special move that allows a player to capture an opponent’s pawn if it moves two spaces forward. It called en passant, which means in passing in French.”
The older man he’s talking to responded irritably, “I know what the phrase means in French. I’m not illiterate.”
The other older man with a black eye and busted lip grins, “Someone owes me an apology and I think his name is Edward Kincaid.”
“To use that move, you’re supposed to call it first,” Edward insisted.
My son scrolls on his phone. “Sorry, Edward. There is no mention of calling it first being a requirement.”
James looks triumphant. “Did you hear that, Eddie-boy? You forfeited the game and I’ve giving you a five-point penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.”
Edward barks, “Don’t you be calling me Eddie-boy like you’re my friend.”
“We’ve been living together for coming up on twenty years, if we aren’t friends then what are we?” James exclaims.
“Well in our case familiarity breeds contempt.”
“Wrong again, sucker. You’re just a sore loser.”
I stand there for a second, looking from one to the other of them. “Time’s up, Levi. We need to get going. Tell your friends goodbye.”
“Sorry, I gotta go. My dad’s gonna have steam coming out of his ears if he has to wait much longer. You two should kiss and make up.”
Both men splutter a bunch of complaints about how they aren’t like that. I wasn’t sure if I believed them, but it wasn’t my business anyway.
The minute Levi gets into the truck, he buckles up, takes out his phone and starts talking about chess. “Did you know that the word checkmate is from a Persian phrase that means the king is dead?”
“Yeah, that’s fascinating stuff. Wanna tell me how y’all ended up skipping class after I expressly told you not to skip class?”
He ignores my question like he was sometimes wont to do when he was obsessing over something new. “This is fascinating. The number of possible chess games is more than the gross number of electrons in the universe.”
I stretch my neck, knowing that it’ll hours before I can get his attention off chess and back onto the issue of his truancy. Tonight we’re gonna be having a long, hard chat. I drop him off at school, apologize to his principal and head back to the Savage Legion clubhouse.
***
On the way home after picking up Levi from school, we stop by the local building supply company, and I pick up the materials I didn’t get a chance to pick up during the last few days. Levi stays on his phone the whole time, reading chess trivia and memorizing all the rules. Some part of me realizes I should be grateful that he’s wanting to learn about chess and isn’t researching ways to cook meth—but whatever the reason, he’s still skipping school and that can’t happen again.
When I pull into the driveway, Levi hops out of the truck and wanders into the house. As for me, I’m surprised he doesn’t walk into doorframes and shit, since his eyes are glued to his damn phone all the time.
I jump out of my truck and notice my pretty neighbor seems to be having problems with her car. She’s got the hood up and is leaning over, staring at the engine. The thing is, she’s wearing those yoga pants that hug each ass cheek and a tight tank top. Her hair is thrown up into a cute messy bun. I force myself to walk by without saying anything because I refuse to get into the habit of white knighting for some woman who’s at least a decade younger than me. No sir, that’s just asking to be used.
Unfortunately, Clara has other ideas.
“Mr. Jones, do you have a minute.”
“I ain’t got time for y’all today, Miss Clara.”
“Please, I’ve got to do a home visit this evening.”
I snort a laugh. “Teachers round these parts don’t do home visits or else they’d be visitin’ my son on the regular.”
She comes closer to my hedgerow. “You’re right. It’s not an official home visit. It’s an informal one for a student with a bad home life. I promised to help her work on her college applications tonight.”
I shake my head at her. “Do you think every person with a pair of balls is automatically a mechanic?”
She smiles up at me, clearly trying to get on my good side. Her hands come up to land on her hips and she says, “No. I’m an intelligent person, who knows not all men are handy when it comes to fixing cars. But I know you are, because I see you out here fixing your truck and motorcycle all the time. Come on, it’s for a good cause.”
I throw my head back and stare up at the clear blue sky. I tell myself that I’m not doing this favor for her. It’s for the kid with the bad home life who needs to get into college. “Fine, but if it needs parts, you’re gonna be the one paying for them.”
She claps her hands like a little girl, clearly delighted that I agreed to help her. Truth be told, it’s all kinds of cute. “Thank you so much.”
I jump the hedgerow in one gigantic leap and walk towards her car and take a look beneath the hood.
She leans over to see what I’m looking at. “What do you think is wrong with it?”
“It’s hard to tell by looking. Try to start it so I can hear what it sounds like when you turn it over.”
She quickly gets into her car and turns the ignition switch. After hearing the grinding sound, I know exactly what’s wrong. “Y’all need a new starter. For this make and model, it’s probably gonna cost y’all around eighty dollars down at the parts store. They might have it in stock. If not, they’ll have to order it.”
She looks concerned, “Um… Can you give me a ride to the parts store?”
I rake my fingers through my hair because having her looking up at me like I was her hero and being real sweet was making me feel some kind of way about her.
I shrug. “Sure. We can take my truck. Give me a second to let Levi know where I’m going.”
“I’ll grab my purse,” she says gleefully.
I walk off towards my truck, texting my son. Sometimes with him it’s easier than a face-to-face conversation. At least I know if he reads my words it sinks in, whereas if I talk it probably goes in one ear and out the other.
Me: I’m taking our neighbor down to the parts store and I’m going to put a new starter on her vehicle.
Levi: Turncoat. She called me a delinquent.
I don’t even respond to his comments about Clara.
Me: I’ll be back soon and make dinner for you. Try to stay out of trouble until then.
With that I shove my phone in my pocket and wait in my pickup for Clara.