7. Blake
7
BLAKE
“You got a minute?”
I’m on the garage floor of the Chop Shop, lying on my side as I twist some lug nuts onto my bike. The rest of the shop’s dead considering it’s early morning. Chaz and the guys won’t be in for at least another two hours.
I don’t look up to see who’s approaching. My attention remains on the lug nuts I’m tightening. Why bother when the sound of his voice tells me who it is?
Mace stands off to the side, his arms folded across his chest. “Cash… you heard me.”
“Speak whenever you want, Mace. Nobody’s stopping you. I damn sure won’t.”
“What’re you doing at the shop so early?”
“I could ask you the same. Neither of us are early birds.”
Mace spears me with a hard look. Even with my focus on the lug nuts and my wheels, I can tell from the corner of my eye.
“I’m not the one who’s been acting different these past couple days. I heard your bike rumble by the house, by the way. So you’re damn right I’m curious when my best friend’s coming by the shop at six a.m. just to turn some wrenches.”
“Still missing your point.” I hoist myself up to my feet with my hair in my face and extra bolts cupped in my hand. You’d think I was alone with way I move toward the other side of the garage and drop off my things in my toolbox.
Mace traces me every step of the way with that damn glare of his.
A tense second passes between us. Even if I act like I’m unbothered. Even if the opposite’s true. We both know it deep down.
“This got anything to do with Korine being back?” he asks finally.
“Korine?” I fiddle with the tools inside my toolbox just to give my avoidant ass something to do. “What about her?”
“Don’t pull this on me, Cash. Don’t act like I don’t know you. We’re damn near brothers. You forget I know all about how in love with her you’ve been damn near all your life?”
“I was a kid?—”
“Bullshit. You’ve still got a thing for her. Which means her being back… creates problems for you.”
“Well,” I say, shrugging, “she’s married. So it doesn’t matter what I think, does it?”
“You gonna be alright seeing her around?”
“Alright as I’ve always been. I’ll deal with it. The crazy thing is… here I was hoping we could be cool. At least friends. But she wants nothing to do with me,” I explain, forcing my tone to be more nonchalant than I feel on the inside. “You want to know what’s even crazier? Her husband’s some prick that cheats on her.”
Mace raises his brows, his arms tight across his chest. “She have any idea?”
“Don’t know. She told me to stay the hell away from her… but something’s up. I just don’t know what.”
“You two didn’t leave off on the best of terms.”
“Apparently, worse than I thought. Don’t know what’s worse—what’s happened with Korine or my parents trying to force me to be around them.”
“They’ve never been good for you.”
“Tell them that.”
“Cash,” he says. “You know we’re all here. We’ve got your back.”
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m more than good.”
Mace doesn’t look so convinced, but it doesn’t matter. Either he leaves or I do. I slam shut my toolbox, producing a thud that echoes through the empty bike shop. I’d come by for some alone time, keeping my hands occupied and sorting out my thoughts. Not to be lectured… even by my best friend.
I haven’t sorted out what to do about Korine or what’s going on with my folks. Both situations have been sawing away at me so much I’m running on three hours of sleep.
“I’ve got something else I wanted to talk about,” Mace says, picking up on my mood swing. He leans against the cinderblock wall and considers his words. “Things’ve been good for us these past few months. Real good.”
“Real good for you,” I finish for him. I shoot him a sideways smirk. “You and Syd are serious. Living together. Playing house.”
“Yeah, it is. More serious than I thought I’d ever get with anybody. But that’s not what I was talking about—I meant the club. We’ve been thriving since we got back into dealing. We’ve been turning in three times the profit than what we were before. The monopoly we’ve established since the Hellrazors and Rebels’s downfall has helped.”
“Seems like we earned it after what they put us through. It’ll take them a long while to recover. Which is good news for us.”
“You’d think. The law feels differently. We’re their latest target.”
That earns my full attention. Turning around, I forget about my toolbox. “How bad is it?”
“Bad. Stein’s guy on the inside says they’re building a case.”
“And this isn’t leftover bullshit planted by Velma?”
Velma had concocted a whole fake informant story that she sold both to Mace and his father, the real prez of the Steel Kings. It turned out to be nothing but a tall tale that benefited her secret mission to sabotage the club.
Mace shakes his head, sliding a hand over his low fade buzzcut. “This ain’t Velma. This is real. They’re looking at us for what went down with the other clubs.”
“Shit.”
“Shit is right. They’ve got their eyes on us and they’d love a chance to take us down. One fuck up and it could be all over for the MC. We’re gonna have to be more careful in our dealings with the Barreras. Our next deal is coming up.”
My mind goes to Korine and her piece of shit husband. He’s blue. I’d love nothing more than to get my hands on him one way or another. But for now giving him the biggest middle finger of breaking his laws will have to do.
“I want in,” I say. An excited pulse comes to life inside me. “Whatever we decide with the cartel, count me in.”
Mace nods and then thumps me on the back. “Good. It wouldn’t be a Steel King’s mission without you. We’ll talk more at our next meeting.”
* * *
Family dinner comes and goes. I give it my best shot—I put on a decent V-neck shirt and jeans that aren’t so faded and worn. My hair gets pulled back in a ponytail that’ll keep Mom from bitching about it being too long.
I ride over to their house. Turning onto the block brings a wave of nostalgia. What else can be said for the street I grew up on but that there’s a lot of memories that were made here?
Good and bad.
Afternoons running after ice cream trucks and riding around on our bicycles playing MC. Early mornings waiting on the curb for the school bus and afternoons spent finishing homework as quick as possible to do stuff we really wanted to do. Late nights listening to Bill’s latest tangent as he smashed his fist into a wall… and sometimes a face.
I park a couple houses down and stare at the place I called home for my entire childhood. Moss has grown along the walls and the threadbare curtains flutter pathetically in the window. Then I shift my gaze to the home next door—the one that often served as my salvation.
Korine’s home.
A whole new family lives there now, but they’ve kept up appearances.
I lost track of how many times I’d sneak out through the backdoor and tap my knuckles on the glass of Korine’s bedroom window. Sometimes, Mrs. McKibbens would catch me and warn me that I’d be in serious trouble if her husband ever saw me.
But it was always with the hint of a motherly smile. Always with warmth, like she knew I meant well.
She understood the environment I was seeking to get away from. That I just needed to hide out for a few hours.
And when I was sixteen and finally emancipated, it was Korine knocking on my door. It was the two of us cuddled up on the sofa in front of my shitty box TV watching movies late into the night. Sometimes, so late, we’d be rushing across town to get Korine home in time to prevent being grounded.
I smile thinking back to her smile as she’d rush across the front path and then glance over her shoulder at me. I was always parked at the curb, waiting and watching. I’d have walked her up if we didn’t think Mr. McKibbens would’ve started putting his foot down for real.
The memories fade before my eyes. The past disappears and the present returns like a cold gust blowing through my lungs. I inhale a deep breath and resign myself to the next hour or two of torture.
But as I dismount and cross the empty road, my legs grow stiff. Dread rolls through me and leaves a heaviness in my stomach. Thoughts of that fateful night poison my mind and make me stop altogether in the middle of the road. The realization smacks into me.
I can’t do this.
I can’t sit down for a meal like nothing.
Not after what happened. Not after all the shit that’s wrecked us. It’ll only wreck me… more than I already am.
I glance around as if checking for anybody watching, then jog the rest of the way back toward my bike.
No way in hell am I going to subject myself to the kind of torture I’d encounter inside that house. No way in hell am I going to bother pretending like the past can be undone.
* * *
Music blasts down the street from the Steel Saloon, even louder than usual. I park my bike where I always do, right outside the Chop Shop, and dismount with heavy shoulders and a grim, tight-lipped expression. The last few days have been like a dump of emotional baggage. Stuff I thought I was either over or okay with keeping in the past, have reemerged out of nowhere.
Mom guilt tripped me into coming by the house. She knew if she showed up out of the blue, I’d be so damn caught off guard, I could hardly turn down her pleas. It’s the same classic manipulation tactics I’ve come to expect of her.
She refuses to accept I’m not the son she wants me to be. I’m a screw up who can’t make up for what’s happened; I can’t change any of it.
What’s in the past needs to remain in the past.
The same applies to Korine.
My Kori.
I see it now. After two encounters gone wrong with her, I’m realizing I’ve been misguided all these years. I’ve thought of Korine in a way that’s put her and our relationship and friendship on a pedestal. Always the what if or what could’ve been between us had we stuck out together. The alternate future of how we could’ve made it had things turned out differently.
But these thoughts were never real. They were just fantasies of what could’ve been.
Reality has a way of crushing hope, grinding it into dust. That’s what happened with Korine. I’ve been forced to confront the fact that, as much as she looks like Kori, as much as I miss that version of her, things have changed.
Ten years have gone by. She’s not the girl she once was. She’s a woman now, grown and matured. She’s not the girl who used to run barefoot in the grassy ravine or leave her bedroom window slightly open for me to sneak into. Gone are the days we ate food off each other’s plates and finished each other’s sentences.
….and the belief that it was always gonna be us in the end. It was inevitable we’d be end game.
She’s married, and even if it’s to a piece of trash like her husband who cheats on her, I’ve got to fall back. She made it clear she wants nothing to do with me.
I shake back my golden hair, effectively shaking away the thoughts infecting my brain— and my heart.
Several of the guys greet me with drunken cheers the moment I enter the saloon.
“Look who it is!” exclaims Bush, tossing an arm around my shoulders. He sways on his feet though his grip on his beer bottle is more than secure. “Cash, anybody ever tell you that head of hair is a thing of beauty?”
The other guys snicker among themselves, each as drunk as the next.
“Anybody can have hair like that,” Johnny Flanagan scoffs. His own scraggly hair frames his face like greased-up curtains. “Some of us ain’t trying to be pretty boys.”
I push through the wall they’ve formed without the usual easy-going attitude I’m known for. “Johnny, you couldn’t be a pretty boy even if you tried. Only a mother can love a face like yours.”
Everybody within earshot erupts into raucous laughter. Suddenly rendered mute, Johnny flushes a shade of brick red.
I don’t stop. I keep up my stride, heading straight for the bar counter without a look at anybody else, despite their many sets of eyes on me.
Sydney’s behind the counter, pouring shots and polishing beer steins. Her face lights up when she spots me approaching, then dims once she picks up on my mood.
“Bad night?” she asks.
I slide fingers through my hair and rest my elbows on the counter. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Pour me a glass of whiskey. Straight.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink.” A thoughtful expression crosses her face as she moves behind the counter to make my request happen. She grabs a glass and a bottle of White Oak—an old familiar friend of mine—and pours the amber liquid ’til it’s half full.
I eyeball it with an edgy feeling taking root inside me. The sight’s hypnotic, like watching liquid gold that’s so damn tempting I’m locked into a trance. One that’s broken only when she reaches the halfway mark and stops pouring. I blink and refocus, remembering the rest of the bar around me. Everything other than the glass of whiskey.
Sydney’s talking to me like we’ve been engaged in a conversation this whole time. She’s got no clue I haven’t heard a word. “You should’ve been here for the poker tournament,” she says with a pretty smile that often charms most of the men in the bar. “Ozzie lost a grand. I tried to warn him his hand wasn’t good enough.”
“Right…” I mumble, detached from the moment. My mind’s made up of busy static while my body buzzes like it is.
Thoughts of Korine and Mom and Bill keep filling my brain. More static noise I can’t filter out. Meanwhile, the slithery voice in my ear tells me to just do it.
Just take one sip. One tiny sip can’t hurt. Do it. DO IT.
Sydney slides the glass of whiskey toward me and then moves on to pouring a drink for somebody else; all without knowing what she’s just done. That she’s just dropped blood in shark-infested waters.
My fingers curl around the glass. I stare into its amber-colored contents, so damn tempted there aren’t enough words to express it. So damn tempted, in this second, I’d die for it—I’d be willing to meet my maker if it meant just one tiny taste.
“What’s going on here?” comes Mace’s voice from behind. The sound’s distinct and commanding and rough on the ears.
It serves as an alarm bell that wakes me up from the spell I’ve slipped under. I’m pulled out of the black hole and come to my senses.
He’s standing beside me at the bar counter. His normally stony face is even stonier than usual. His eyes focus on the glass in my hand, then meet mine in a hard glare. He says nothing else, though he doesn’t need to—his stare’s enough. The knowing glint in his dark green eyes communicates his judgment.
His disappointment.
I let go of the glass and slide out of the stool. “I was just… heading out.”
“Cash,” he starts.
“I’ll see you around, Mace. Syd.”
Several more guys try to stop me on my walk out. None of their slurred pleas work. I’m of a one-track mind as I stride toward my bike. First came the noise I had been trying and failing to shut out. Then came the temptation. Temptation so strong I almost gave in for the second time. Now comes the shame.
The shame I let my vices rule me. The shame I’m not the son Mom and Bill wish I was.
The fucking shame that Kori can’t stand to be around me for two seconds. She wants nothing to do with me. Just like Mom and Bill want nothing to do with who I really am.
It’s the ugly truth staring me in the face.
The ugliness on the inside that I can’t seem to fix no matter how hard I try.
* * *
Aimless and alone, I stop by the convenience store on the way home. This time I go through with my transaction. I buy a bottle of White Oak Whiskey and set it down on my kitchen table along with a glass I don’t immediately fill.
It serves as an unbearable temptation as I pace back and forth and have an internal debate with myself over what I want to do next. If I want to finally give into the inevitable and take a drink—just a fucking drop—or if I want to keep up the fight.
I’ve made it this far. I’ve come out on the other side. The second I let a drop of that whiskey touch my tongue, then it’s over.
Bill would be proven right once and for all.
My jaw clenches hard and I run both hands through my hair. I make more laps around the trailer, throwing furtive glances at the bottle of whiskey on the table. It’s possible I could keep a hold on myself. That I won’t make the same mistakes I did before…
My phone vibrates with a text notification. Janessa’s name pops up on my screen.
I miss u. I’m sorry about before. Come over??
After our last fiasco, I swore off messing with Janessa again, but as the bottle of White Oak stares at me out the corner of my eye, I’m thinking of taking her up on her offer. It’ll be enough of a distraction to eat up the rest of the night.
Husking out a deep breath, I shake my head. Janessa’s text is deleted. The bottle of White Oak gets put away in my cabinet along with the glass.
I step back with my fingers deep in my hair and tell myself it’s the right decision.
Go to bed. Go to bed and wake to day eighteen hundred and twelve…
An abrupt knock on the door sounds before I can. It’s not the kind of knock that’s heavy or insistent; it’s the kind of knock that sounds louder than it is due to the night’s silence. I pad over to the door, peeling back the corner of my curtain window.
It can’t be…
The moment feels surreal. My stomach pits and my fingers fumble for the locks. I wrench the door open to find myself opposite Korine and her mother, Ms. McKibbens.
But that’s not even the most shocking part about it—the face I’m looking at doesn’t belong to Korine. It’s a face that’s been beaten and bloodied.