Chapter 2
Sabre
The whole point of a night ride is to clear my head.
The cool air, empty roads, and the hum of the engine in my ears are supposed to calm me the fuck down.
It’s always done exactly that, until now.
I’m all twisted up over that chef. I keep seeing her big brown eyes, long eyelashes, and her honey blonde hair pulled back in that elegant fuckin’ knot at the nape of her neck.
She’s the kind of woman any man would be damn lucky to get.
The way she looked over my knives let me know she understood their worth.
My knives aren’t some pretty, high-dollar matched set.
They’re knives I’ve collected over the years, each for a special task.
And none of them match because it’s about utility and not beauty.
Cooking has always been a passion of mine.
When I was prospecting for the Savage Legion it was one of my main roles.
The brothers used to joke that I should set up a catering company.
Gotta admit, that’s still a dream, though I love my life now.
And after tonight, I’m wondering if it could get more interesting.
Linsey is a woman who knows how to talk to people without making them feel small or corrected.
I’ve been cutting shit since I was eight years old.
First, it was sticks for firewood as a kid, then later it was fish, and meat of every kind.
I know my way around a knife. This woman watched me work for thirty seconds and taught me a better way without making me feel like an idiot.
How she handled it, well that makes me like her even more.
I force Linsey’s smiling face and soft hands out of my mind and switch gears to my destination, the Savage Legion clubhouse.
I ain’t no club officer, and I never wanted to be one.
Siege has the gavel because his old man founded our club.
Tank has his ear as our VP. Rider grew up with Siege, served in the military with him and he keeps the peace as our sergeant at arms. And Dutch keeps the books, serving as the club secretary and treasurer.
I’m just a newbie compared to the old guard.
The officers’ seats are filled by men built for carrying other people’s weight.
I carried enough weight as a kid and did my tour of that duty in the military already fresh out of high school.
I don’t crave power the way some men do.
I’m well fuckin’ satisfied being just another brother.
My life is simple. I take on only what interests me and what I can do well.
I run the grill when I’m in the mood, keep every blade in that clubhouse sharp, and feed people.
Now, I don’t do full fucking meals like a gourmet chef.
I make what Talon called bits and bobs. Little skewers.
Stuffed peppers. Smoked sausage cut into coins with toothpicks stabbed in ‘em.
Deviled eggs that disappear faster than I can keep up with making them.
Talon used to give me hell about making finger foods. He’d stand there eating his fourth bacon-wrapped bit of steak and say, “You know what your problem is, brother? A real meal’s too much responsibility for you.”
I’ll admit it in the privacy of my own helmet, that bastard wasn’t wrong.
Finger food is easy to make. Somebody takes it off the tray and walks away, and whatever happens next ain’t my problem.
A whole meal is a different beast altogether.
I never had family dinners. On the days when my old man cooked, it was usually something from a can heated up.
The sad truth is that I keep my hands busy so the rest of me stays quiet. I’m a simple man and this is enough for me, or it was until I met that pretty chef tonight. Now, I’m wanting all kinds of things that I swore off.
Just when I think all the thoughts circling around in my head are going to drive me insane, I see that Savage Legion gate up ahead. Putting on a burst of speed, I come to a skidding stop right outside the slowly opening metal monstrosity.
Levi pulls the gate open. “What’s the rush for, Sabre? You’re ridin’ like you got the hounds of hell at your heels.”
“Just tryin’ to outrun bad memories, I guess.”
Then my mouth snaps shut because that’s a little more candid than I intended to be. Levi is Tex’s boy. He’s a tall, lanky eighteen-year-old, proudly wearing his prospect cut.
He squints at my bike, and I can see the gears turning in his head. “Hey, can I ask you somethin’?”
“Yeah, of course you can, prospect.”
“Evan says the brothers used to call you Harley.” He points at my bike. “That ain’t a Harley. Is that why they stopped?”
Evan wanders over from the shack behind him.
He’s Rigs’ adopted son, and a few months older than his best friend and fellow prospect, Levi.
“Of course ain’t, genius. They decided to call him Sabre ‘cause of the throwin’ knives.
This man can hit a bullseye at twenty feet. Get him to show you sometime.”
“I know that,” Levi says, defensively. “I’m asking about the before part. You can’t just quit being Harley.”
“I was never Harley. My real name’s Harvey. Maybe you need to get your hearing checked?” I say.
Evan cackles. Levi turns red to his ears.
“For real, though,” Levi presses, because the kid has never once let a thing go in his life. “What changed?”
I shrug. “I got patched in. Maybe Harley would’ve been a good club name, but Siege thought my knife skills deserved recognition.”
That starts them discussing what club names they want when they finally get patched in, so I leave them to it. They’ll learn soon enough that you don’t choose your own name. Either life or the club chooses it for you.
I roll up to the clubhouse, which is lit up from inside.
I can hear laughter and music as I dismount from my bike and walk past the other ones lined up gleaming under the lights.
Inside the clubhouse are all the people I care about, drinking, shooting pool, playing poker and telling tall tales.
I can smell the scent of beer hanging heavy in the air.
This is home, or the closest thing to it I’ve ever had. I head through the back door to the grill. Ever since cooking that steak tonight, I’ve been keen on the idea of making something similar for my club brothers.
Rick, our longest running prospect, rushes over to me. “Thank fuck you put in an appearance tonight. No one can get the grill lit and the brothers are getting hangry.”
I lay down my knife roll and tell him, “I’ll have a look at it. Sometimes the fittings get a little rusty. Go ahead and bring out the steaks.”
“What? You mean like all of them?”
I take a deep breath and clarify, “No, not all of ‘em. We buy that shit in bulk and we usually make a case a night. Bring me a case of the ribeyes.”
Rick’s a prospect who should come with a damn warning label.
It used to be that if there was a way to mess something up he’d find it.
But he’s been trying harder lately. He’s gotten the hang of asking for clarification before running off half-cocked and doing something we all regret.
I respect a man dedicated to fixing himself.
I remove the fittings, scrape off some rust, and make a mental note to replace them.
Being outside is hard on fittings because the metal is thinner.
I turn on the gas and light it up. Rick drops off the box of steak.
I give him a list of things I need, including the whiskey glaze I mixed up yesterday and off he goes.
I pull out my favorite cutting board, a huge, thick fucker, and get busy cubing everything up.
Fifteen minutes later my best friend finds me. “How was the fancy cookin’ class at the fig place?” Talon asks, dropping down into a nearby chair. He’s got a beer bottle in his hand and is eyeing the bite-size pieces of steak I’m in the process of searing.
I shoot him a withering look. “The restaurant’s called The Gilded Fig, not that fig place, Talon.”
“Whatever,” he says. “It’s too fancy for my ass.”
“That’s too bad. I heard your old lady’s been wanting to go there for your anniversary.”
He freezes with his beer almost to his mouth and slowly lowers the bottle. “You’re sure my Kelly wants to go there?”
I give him a feral grin. “I made that shit up just to scare the bejesus out of ya. Did it work?”
“God, you’re such an asshole sometimes, Sabre.” He takes a long draw off his beer before looking at me intently. “You’re also very good at changing the subject. Back to the cookin’ class. Did you like it?”
“It was fine,” I say tightly, concentrating on finishing the sear.
“Fine doesn’t cut it, brother.” Pointing the top of his beer bottle at me, he continues, “You rode to town on a weeknight and paid eighty fuckin’ dollars to learn what you already know. There’s got to be somethin’ more going on here and I want to know what it is.”
“She’s a Michelin starred chef and I’m just a regular self fuckin’ taught cook. I wanted to see if she could teach me anything that I didn’t already know. That’s it. Nothin’ more.”
“She.” Talon says it slow, like he’s tasting it. “What the hell is a Michelin starred chef?”
“It’s just a rating for restaurants that indicates how good their food is. It’s only for fine dining. The restaurant gets the star not the chef, but everyone knows that they’re responsible. It’s a big thing her coming to work in a small town like Las Salinas.”
“I get it,” he says. “My Kelly is a social worker. She has a license. It’s kind of the same thing.”
I nod, keeping my eyes on the grill as I keep shuffling dozens of cubes of steak around. Rick drops off the whiskey glaze, and I begin marinating the pieces and moving them to a less hot part of the grill.
“So, was she all that, like you thought she’d be, or a big disappointment?” Talon asks quietly.
Sighing, I admit, “The woman knew her stuff. There were twelve of us and she paid attention and made individual time for all of us. She was professional but polite and real respectful too.”