Chapter Twenty-Four
AJ
The moment I watch Hollie drive away in her car, back to Canyon, an explosion detonates deep inside my gut. I stand there in the dirt for a moment, absorbing the impact.
The moment she said she wanted to go, I knew. I knew he was the reason.
And not the only reason, either. Because tonight, Chase Brennan proved to me what an asshole I was in high school too. And I hate that I’ve hurt Hollie, and she’s running away from me because of it.
I turn to Reyes and Nicole. ‘Where’d Chase fucking go?’ I ask.
Half of Nicole’s face is in shadow. I see her swallow. ‘He went inside.’
‘Right,’ I say, and my eyes flit to the porch where Lester sits with his feet up.
‘AJ, forget Chase,’ Nicole pleads, because she knows just from my expression that I don’t plan on letting this lie.
As I stalk toward the steps up to the porch, Lester stirs.
‘Hey, AJ, maybe put a shirt on first, huh?’ he mumbles, except I walk right past him before he can even get to his feet.
When I throw open the door to Scotch & Smoke, the music hits my ears.
Thunderstruck.
Through the saloon doors, some Venom bikers greet me as I walk in, but I don’t pay ’em any attention. Some drinkers glance my way, maybe because I’m shirtless. But I keep moving toward the back.
My blood is roasting in my veins. Fuck this heatwave.
I stalk toward the pool tables. I know exactly where to find that motherfucker. Right where he always is.
He’s racking up balls on the surface of the pool table. I press my right knuckles into my left palm. I know this is gonna fucking hurt, but right now, that’s not what I care about.
When my knuckles make contact with Chase Brennan’s cheek bone in a sucker punch, it feels good. It feels like I should have done this years ago.
He’s caught off guard. He careers backward into the wall, so I follow up my initial punch with a left uppercut, hitting him square in the nose. If that first punch was for me, then this one was for Hollie, even if she wouldn’t want me to hit anyone. Chase cries out, blood spewing out his nostrils.
‘What the fuck, man?!’ he hollers at me, clutching his face.
‘You had to fuck this up for me, didn’t you?’ I snarl, raising my voice, because I’m through with being chill with his shitty attitude. ‘You couldn’t fucking resist!’
Chase lunges at me, and within a few seconds, we’re trading blows. He lands a slug to my chin and mouth, and a second to my eye, but the damage I do to his face is way worse.
‘The one good thing that happens to me in, like, forever, and you shit all over it!’ I yell at him.
I barely notice when a small crowd forms around us, but when two of the Venom crew try to split us up, I fight back and jab my elbow into one guy’s solar plexus.
Within minutes, all hell has broken loose as more Venom guys pile on to pry us apart.
I take a few more punches, and I can hear Nicole pleading with us all to stop.
‘You’re coming at me over a fucking girl?’ Chase snaps back as he’s yanked backwards, two guys holding him down.
I don’t even know how many guys are holding me back as I holler, ‘The first girl I actually like, asshole! More than like!’
‘Aww, boo hoo, AJ. So, you played a few pranks on her back in high school. So fucking what? Hollie’s uptight. It’s patheti—’
I yank hard and break free. Shouts go up. Another slug to Chase’s face shuts him the hell up. It’s a bonus that two guys were holding him down already. I feel like I’m only just getting started when I’m wrestled to the floor.
I hear Echo’s voice above the thumping beat of AC/DC and somebody grabs me by the shoulders and jerks me up.
‘What the fuck is goin’ on?’ Echo roars.
On my feet, I look down. There’s blood streaming from my nose and streaked on my chest, mixed with sweat. Chase is still fighting. ‘I didn’t do nothin’, Echo! He just came at me!’
I struggle, but with so many hands on me, they’re holding on tight and I can’t free myself.
‘Cool it, the pair of you!’ Echo hollers. ‘Calm the fuck down! Put AJ in my office. Nando, he’s gonna need an ice pack. Reyes! Take Brennan home. You boys been drinking?’
I hear Reyes from somewhere. ‘No, Echo, we ain’t, I swear it! We went to the river to cool off.’
‘Then why the fuck are these two knuckleheads tearing pieces off each other?’
‘Just some beef involving AJ’s girl.’
‘Who’s AJ’s girl?’
‘Hollie Palmer.’
A silence descends, only the music’s still blasting above our heads. Echo narrows his gaze, looming over me. He gives me a look like we need to talk.
‘Get him outta my bar,’ Echo says to Reyes. ‘Get him cleaned up. Make sure he don’t come back here tonight.’
‘On it, Echo,’ Reyes says, and Chase is marched toward the main door, both arms pinned behind his back.
‘Hold still.’
I suck air through my teeth. I’m in Echo’s office with an ice pack pressed over the swollen knuckles of my right hand. There’s a cut over my right eye where Chase landed a slug. Echo’s ol’ lady, Katerina, sits in front of me and cleans up the blood, but the pressure hurts.
When the door opens, I look up, only one eye open. Echo enters and kicks the door closed behind him. With two hands on his hips, he eyeballs me again.
‘How’s our boy doin’?’ he asks.
Katerina attaches two Steri-Strips to my brow, then leans back to check her handiwork.
‘He will live,’ she says in her thick accent.
Echo steps forward. ‘Thanks, babe. You mind giving us a minute?’
She gathers up all the pieces of the first aid kit, drops the bloody cotton balls in the trash and gets to her feet.
As she passes Echo on her way out, he slides one hand around to her ass.
She’s wearing tight-fitting leather pants and a Van Halen tank.
She tilts her head, and Echo presses his lips to hers.
I grunt in objection, because that’s not what I wanna see right now. That’s what I had today, ’til Chase opened his fucking piehole.
I think about Hollie. It stings that I know she’s hurting.
Katerina pulls back, then smooths down the edges of Echo’s mustache before she moves past him, out the door.
When we’re alone, Echo rubs his forehead and exhales. ‘You really know how to bust my balls, AJ, you know that?’
‘Sorry,’ I mutter, and glance down at my boots. There’s a speck of blood on the left toe cap.
He lowers himself into the vintage leather chair in the corner of the room, because I’m currently occupying the chair behind his desk.
‘So,’ he says. ‘You and Hollie Palmer.’
‘What about it?’
Echo throws his hands up into the air. ‘You say it like it’s nothing.’
‘Me and Hollie Palmer, so what? What’s the big deal?’
‘Did you not hear me weeks ago? Not to go there? Does Evelyn Wallace know?’
‘No. I dunno.’
‘And this thing… it’s what? You two goin’ steady?’
I shake my head. He’s so fucking antiquated sometimes. ‘As in, is she my girlfriend?’
He raises his voice at me. ‘Yes, you little punk, are you two just fucking or is this a serious thing?’
‘Why are you yelling at me?’
‘Did you sleep with her yet, AJ?’
‘And that’s your business, why?’
‘DAMAGE CONTROL!’ Echo roars in my direction. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m tryin’ not to make things worse for us out here! You sticking your dick inside Hollie Palmer, that’s tantamount to civil war!’
Echo doubles over at the waist, holding his head in his hands. He lets out another shaky breath, like the magnitude of this thing is overwhelming. For a moment, we sit in silence.
‘Yes, I’m sleeping with her,’ I say quietly. ‘For about a month now. No, Evelyn Wallace doesn’t know yet. Not as far as I’m aware. And, yes, it’s serious, until Chase fucked everything up for me tonight.’
‘How so?’
‘In high school, we weren’t exactly nice to Hollie. She found out that I did something I’m not proud of, courtesy of Chase. That’s why I wanted to give him a beatdown. She left. Went back to Canyon. So, I guess now she’s mad at me.’
More silence.
‘Chase Brennan had it coming,’ Echo says calmly.
More silence.
‘Look, she might break up with me after this, but don’t ask me to break up with her, all right, because I’m not gonna.’
Echo shakes his head. ‘You’re like your father. Even if I asked you to break up with her, for the good of Rapture, I doubt you’d listen to me. You’re too much like him for that.’
I bristle. I hate my father and don’t consider myself to be anything like him. ‘I am not.’
‘You are, you’re a rebel. You were born a rebel, like your daddy was.
People tell you not to do shit, it makes you more determined to do it.
Lo had your father’s independent streak in addition to being a rebel, which is precisely the reason you’re still here and he ain’t.
You got some of your mother’s blood in you.
You care about other people, which is why you stuck around. ’
‘The hell that got to do with anything?’
‘It means I’m the one who has to deal with the fallout. How do you think Evelyn Wallace is gonna react when she finds out her stepdaughter is fooling around with a tattooed auto mechanic from Rapture? And a member of Hell’s Venom, no less. You think that’s gonna help our situation out here, AJ?’
‘It’s not just fooling around,’ I mumble.
‘Do you love her?’
I go quiet. Tense up.
‘Because if you’re serious, and you’re in love with her, I’m more inclined to back you, AJ. But if this is just a way for you to fuck around and get your rocks off, then that’s not helpin’ anybody.’
‘Did you not hear me just now?’
‘If it was any other girl on the planet, I’d say, son, go ahead, smash that.
Roll between the sheets. But this is Hollie Palmer we are talking about.
I will always back you, AJ, but you’re walking a line.
It will look like a cheap shot. Like us tryna get revenge on the mayor and her desire to see this place steamrolled to the ground.
You’re making it personal. This place could go up in smoke.
So, if this is just about hooking up with some girl like you always do, then you should break things off with her now before they go any further. ’