Flame #2
He's lounging on his bed and looks up from the journal that I know is from his mom with an annoyed look. “Sure, come on in,” he says in a sarcastic tone. Ignoring him, I walk further into the room and take a seat on top of the desk, completely ignoring the chair.
“Get your ass off my desk,” he says while bringing his attention back to the journal in his hand.
“Nah, I’m good here. So, have you decided what you are going to do about the whole sister thing?
” I ask, watching his face for hints about what he’s thinking.
Smoke keeps his emotions close to his chest. He thinks they cloud your judgment.
Too bad for him, I know all of his tells by the way I see him take a slow breath and scratch his eyebrow with his thumb.
It’s obvious he’s nervous about the “situation.” He’ll fill me in when he is ready.
“Not sure yet. I need to apologize for what I said to her about our mom. But I don’t know after that. I want to ask her some questions about Mom, but I don’t have any of her contact info.” A hint of guilt comes through his voice.
“You can ask Blitz,” I throw out after thinking for a second. If I’m going to meet her, he needs to reach out. It’s mostly for him, but I need some help, too.
“This is going to be awkward as fuck, but I might as well do it now,” he says, getting up and walking out his door, leaving me alone.
Not upset with him ditching me, I head over to the box that is open on his bed, removing the lid and grabbing the pictures of his other family. I’m assuming the most recent is on top.
Taking the picture in my hand, I study it deeply. My future wife is beautiful. She has wild, curly, dirty blonde hair that falls over her shoulders, and a small face and nose that make her blue eyes look giant. Her and her mom look tiny sitting next to the guys in the picture.
Willow is holding a picture of Smoke when he was a baby. I can see the similarities between her, Smoke, and Griz. It’s no doubt that they are all related. I stare at the picture for a little longer, memorizing her face before setting it back in the box, putting the lid on.
I walk out of Smoke’s room and decide to clear my head after all the shit that happened today. I head out to my bike and hop on. I make my way to the shop, needing to get lost in the build that we are doing.
The shop is mine and Smoke’s baby. We started upgrading our bikes in the clubhouse garage, and that turned into us building brand new bikes for ourselves. We posted them on social media, and people wanted to pay us to build them one. It slowly took off after that.
Before that, we were both working at club businesses, and the second we were able to start our own, we jumped on it. Our entire lives revolved around the club, so we wanted something completely separate. We pay our dues, but the club gets no say in how we run our shop.
I pull up, get off my bike, and head in the door.
It’s one of the older buildings in town.
It was used as an auto shop back in the day, so it already had the space that we needed for the builds.
We started renting the shop, not just because we had too much business to keep it up at the clubhouse, but to be able to get shit done without constant interruptions.
There is always someone at the clubhouse, or a party going on.
It’s been so bad lately with the new wave of people prospecting and the new hang-arounds.
Usually, we only have about three new prospects per year, but this year, we have twelve.
It doesn’t seem like a lot, but the clubhouse is starting to feel cramped.
The town is growing, so more people are hearing about the club and wanting to check it out.
I like a party just as much as the next guy, but it’s getting fuckin’ ridiculous.
I’m thinking about getting a place outside of the clubhouse in town.
Some of the Brothers do that when they get ‘Ol Ladies that don’t want to be on club property all of the time.
Walking into the shop, the smell of paint and oil surrounds me, making me feel calm and at home.
There is an area in the front that we can set up with seating to meet clients; too bad that isn’t happening.
Jackson and I communicate with possible clients online.
Then, if we decide to do the build, they can speak to us on the phone.
We don’t have the best people skills. Smoke is quiet and prefers to observe people, whereas I have no patience for bullshit and have been known to end a conversation with a swift “fuck off.” It’s easier to just have them write out the details they want, and we decide if we are going to do it.
It’s worked for us so far, but we are going to have to go to a trade show that we were recently invited to.
I would rather put my hand in a fuckin’ wood chipper than have to stand behind a booth and talk to people all fuckin’ day, but Smoke says that we have to keep momentum of the shop going, and I guess if he has to go, I do, too.
We should bring in someone that can deal with the people part of the business, and we can just focus on the bikes.
I walk to the project that we’ve been working on for an out-of-state client.
We finished building the engine last week, and I am finishing up painting the gas tank.
I need to bring someone in soon full-time to help with the paint.
It’s my favorite part of the builds, but there is such a high demand now, I can’t keep up and give the amount of time required for the custom detailed work that I want.
I posted an ad, and I’m still working through people’s portfolios, hoping to get one that clicks.
It blows my fuckin’ mind when I think back to how we started in the garage at the clubhouse, and now, we could call this business a “success.” Smoke and I both had a moment of shock when we found out that we could quit our jobs at the club businesses and do our “side hustle” full time.
About an hour into working on the bike, I hear the door in the back of the shop open. I look up to see Smoke stomping in and taking one of the work stools. He pulls it up the other side of the bike and starts to work on it, not saying anything.
“So, how did it go?” I ask him after a few minutes of working in silence. I’m not good with the quiet. Usually, I turn the music on while I’m working, but I had a lot on my mind when I came in, and then it seemed like too much effort to grab my phone and hook it up to the speaker.
“He gave it to me, but I got a lecture about not being a dick to her if I’m planning on reaching out,” he says over the top of the bike.
“Did you text her yet?” I ask, surprised that Blitz gave it to him after seeing how much he cares about her.
“Yeah, I did, before I came over here. I’m waiting for a reply.” I can hear the nerves in his voice.
“What did you say?” I ask, trying to get him to elaborate. He is a man of few words, and it pisses me off sometimes.