Chapter Two #2
I shook the memory loose and switched lanes, passing a semi that stank of diesel and livestock. Bo had always been a runner—running from his family, from the valley, from anyone who got close enough to pin him down. But I knew the truth behind the bluff.
He wanted to be caught. He wanted someone to haul him out of his own disaster and say, “Enough. You’re safe now. I’ve got it.”
I flicked my lights at a Prius that wouldn’t budge from the left lane, then eased past, all the while keeping one eye on the rearview.
I liked knowing what was coming. It was a habit drilled into me from a young age, reinforced by a mother who made lists for every grocery run and a father who never let a stray bolt sit on his workbench more than five seconds.
The world was chaos, but if you moved careful and stayed two steps ahead, you could keep your people safe.
The image of Bo’s face—swollen, stitched, still trying to pull off a smirk—swam up again. I pictured the way he used to sleep in the back room at the shop, curled up like a dog in a pile of oily coveralls, and the way his nose crinkled when he was about to say something he knew would piss me off.
Once, when he’d stayed the week after the Fourth of July, I’d come home to find him at my kitchen table, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and drawing on a paper napkin. He’d looked up, all sleepy-eyed, and said, “I got bored. Hope you don’t mind.”
I never did. If anything, I was so starved for company it made my teeth ache.
I forced myself to focus on the lines on the road. The only thing worse than losing Bo was getting both of us killed because I couldn’t keep my shit together.
Another memory surfaced, this one from Portland last winter. I’d driven up for a parts expo and stumbled into an art show in a warehouse near the river. It was one of those places where the paint on the walls was still wet and everything cost more than a month’s rent.
I spotted Bo’s work from the door: brutal, angry canvases with slashing lines and colors that looked like they’d been scraped out of a wound. He signed everything “B.McK” in the corner, but he’d tried to play it off like he was just one of the crowd.
I bought three of his paintings and had them shipped to the shop under a fake name, never told him, never hung them up.
They lived in storage on the third floor of my shop with the rest of the stuff I didn’t want anyone seeing—old family photos, love notes from an ex I hadn’t forgiven, and, most embarrassing of all, a worn copy of the motorcycle magazine Bo had been in during his brief modeling stint. I kept it locked up like contraband.
Maybe it was.
I’d told myself it was just about supporting his art, but I knew better. I wanted every piece of him that nobody else did. Every secret, every ugly truth, every scrap he was too stubborn to hand over. I wanted it all.
Knox would break my jaw if he ever found out.
I rolled down the window, let the cold air slap me awake, and checked my phone at the next red light. Motel address: Room 12, Yreka. The message said “Not answering now,” but the lack of panic told me Knox still expected me to deliver.
Good. I wasn’t about to disappoint.
I drove the rest of the way with both hands on the wheel, knuckles gone white under the strain. As the mountains started to rise on the horizon, the sky bruised from indigo to pale orange, and the ache in my chest sharpened into something crystalline.
Every mile that passed made it clearer—Bo was coming home, whether he liked it or not. This time, he wasn’t running. This time, I was going to hold him so goddamn tight he’d never break loose again.
In my head, I pictured him the way I wanted: on his knees at my feet, looking up with that stubborn, hungry defiance, daring me to take what I’d always wanted.
The thought made my pulse kick and my mouth go dry. I knew it was wrong. I knew it’d kill Knox to know his “brother in arms” wanted his baby brother, not just as a friend but as my lover, as property, as something to protect and use and fuck until neither of us could think straight.
I wanted Bo to stop running because I wanted to own his surrender. Not out of cruelty. Never that. But because he deserved better than the men who’d spent his whole life trying to break him down. I could give him order, boundaries, the kind of stability that never had to hurt.
The sign for Yreka flashed up on the right, and I took the exit without thinking. The first rays of sun caught the ice on the ground and set the whole world glittering. I felt a weird, hollow anticipation—like the instant before you drop the clutch and feel the whole bike surge forward.
He was going to fight me every step of the way. Good. I hoped he did. I liked a challenge.
I found the motel in five minutes, parked out front of Room 12, and killed the engine. The silence was immense, broken only by the tick of the cooling block and the distant rush of trucks on the interstate.
I took a breath, rolled my shoulders, and climbed out into the morning air. Every muscle was tensed, ready. I was going to do this right.
When I knocked on the door, I already knew what I’d see: Bo, battered but alive, surprised as hell that I’d come for him. I was ready for his anger, his tears, his mouthy bravado. I was ready to haul him home and never let him go.
The only question was whether he was ready to belong to someone for real this time.
My money said yes.