4. Garret
GARRET
The Black Anvil was half empty tonight, which suited me just fine with the mood I was in. I dropped onto a stool at the far end of the bar and slapped the counter hard enough to make the bartender look up from the glass he was drying. "Whiskey neat, and keep 'em coming."
He grabbed a bottle off the shelf and poured without a word. I liked that about him. He never forced small talk or asked a bunch of questions, and tonight I appreciated it more than ever.
The first drink went down like gasoline and I barely tasted it.
I pushed the glass forward and he filled it again, and the second one burned a little less.
By the third, I was starting to feel the edges of my anger soften, but it was still there, sitting right in the center of my chest like a hot coal I couldn't cough up.
I still couldn't wrap my head around why Sara would break it off when things seemed to be going so well.
And why did she start pushing for something I told her from the jump I couldn't give her?
It was like she'd already made up her mind before she ever opened her mouth, and there wasn't a damn thing I could've said to change it.
"Another," I said, and the bartender poured.
"Rough night?" he asked, which was about as much of a conversation as I'd ever gotten out of him, though some of the guys called him Doc and spoke about him like he was a therapist or something.
"Something like that," I grumbled and swigged the whiskey he set in front of me. I didn't feel like talking about it, anyway. Talking wouldn't fix what went wrong, anyway.
He leaned against the back counter and folded his arms. "Woman trouble or club trouble?"
"Does it matter?" I scowled and rubbed a hand over my face, hoping he got the point and walked away.
Then he nodded at my whiskey and asked, "You want me to start a tab or are you paying as you go?"
"Tab," I grumbled at him, sliding my glass across the bar.
It'd been a long day and maybe I'd made the wrong choice coming into this place.
When I felt like this, it was better to go home and sleep it off.
Last thing I wanted was to become a drunk like some of the guys who hung around here all the time.
He pulled a ticket and clipped it to the rail behind the register, then turned to me. "Just don't break anything. I had to replace two stools last week after Crawl got into it with that trucker."
"I'm not here to fight. I'm here to drink."
"That's what he said too." He walked away, and I almost smiled at that, but I didn't have it in me. I stared at the glass instead and turned it slowly between my fingers.
The thing that really got under my skin was that Sara wasn't wrong. What I had with her was way more than sex. I just couldn’t admit it to her.
It had been going fine—better than fine.
It was the best arrangement I'd ever had with a woman, and I'd had my share of arrangements too. But after Peter's visit to the shop, it started to eat me up that I wasn’t keeping my word to him. Then Sara brought up making it official, and I couldn’t cross that line.
And dang it if she wasn't perfect for me.
We had a lot in common, which was odd with how large the age difference was, but we were two peas in a pod when it came to most things.
And if we disagreed on something, it was easy enough to put it aside and focus on the things we had in common, which was more than I could say for most women.
But Peter's voice rattled around in my head too, which didn't help.
I thought for sure when he got on my case, it was because he'd seen me with her and he'd had enough.
Maybe it would've been better if he had, then we'd have a common party to be angry with instead of just me feeling so rejected and hurt by her.
I pushed the glass forward again. The bartender filled it and gave me a look.
"What?" I said.
"Just counting." He set the bottle back. "That's five," he said in a cautioning tone.
"I can count," I snarled while I sipped the glass, but he had a point.
Drinking myself stupid wasn't the answer any more than being angry and snapping at everyone.
This was no one's fault but my own. I brought it on myself by getting tangled up with a girl who was off limits.
It was bound to end someday, and I knew it, and every time Peter looked at me crossways, I got reminded of it.
"Well, hey there, stranger."
I didn't have to look up to know who it was. Crystal slid onto the stool next to me and crossed her legs, leaning one elbow on the bar. Some guys would've welcomed the company after a night like this, but not me.
"Not tonight, Crystal." I kept my eyes locked straight forward on the cash register and the bottles of liquor on shelves behind it. Crystal had been around town more times than my bike. I had zero interest in her advances, which I had pushed away more than once.
"Oh, come on. You look like you could use some company." She put her hand on my arm, and I pulled it away before she could settle in.
"I said not tonight."
She pouted and touched me again, picking at a loose string on my cut while I sipped the drink in my hand. "Heard you went out to the track the other day."
I scowled at her out of the corner of my eye and asked, "What's it your business?" If the town bicycle knew I'd been out to watch Sara's race, who else knew? Maybe Peter's visit really was about more than I thought and he was too intimidated or polite to say it out loud.
"Oh, it's not…" She shook her head and smiled at me, walking her fingers up my bicep. "I just didn't know you were into dirt bikes. I ride sometimes. We could do a few laps if you want."
This woman couldn’t take no for an answer and it was disgusting.
I turned to look at her full in the face and said, "I told you, I'm not interested."
"You're no fun," she said and slid off the stool toward the pool tables where Rusty and Hank were setting up a game.
The bartender watched her go and then looked back at me. "You sure about that? Might improve your mood."
"Trust me. It wouldn't."
He held up both hands in surrender and chuckled. "Your call."
On any other night, I might've at least been tempted. Tonight, all I could think about were brown eyes and engine grease and the way Sara laughed when I threw a handful of grass seed and it caught in her hair.
Damn it.
I was nursing what was left of my fifth glass when the front door slammed open and folks looked up to see who'd made the racket.
Lightning stomped in looking like he'd been chewing nails.
His jaw was set tight and there was a scrape along his left forearm that he hadn't bothered to clean up.
His cut was dusty and his boots were caked with dirt.
He looked rough—not injured rough, but like he'd been somewhere he shouldn't have been doing something that didn't go smoothly.
He stomped straight to the bar and slapped the counter. "Beer. Cold. Now."
The bartender moved faster for Lightning than he had for me, and I didn't blame him. That guy had a short fuse on his best days, and this clearly wasn't one of those. The scowl on his face had carved crevices in his forehead and a permanent wrinkle on the bridge of his nose.
Lightning downed half the beer in one pull and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he turned his eyes on me. I could feel him looking before I saw it.
"Crank."
"Lightning," I said, nodding at him. God, I wished he'd just buzz off, but he started moving toward me and I closed my eyes so he didn't see me rolling them.
He crossed the space between us and planted himself on the stool right next to me. "My bike's suspension is shot to hell. I need it fixed before nine tomorrow morning."
I took a slow sip of my whiskey before I answered. "That's a pretty tight window."
"Didn't ask if it was convenient. I said I need it done." I got a better look at that cut on his arm and it was scratched to hell. Blood had beaded and dried across his sweaty skin, and tiny grass seeds clung to it.
I set the glass down and turned on the stool to face him. "And I'm telling you, I'm not a prospect anymore. You can't just walk in here and hand me orders like I'm some kid scrubbing toilets at the clubhouse. You want your bike fixed, you ask me like a man and we work out a timeline."
His eyes narrowed. Tony was taller than me by maybe an inch, and he liked to use that full inch to try to prove he was more of a man.
He leaned in just enough to make it clear he wasn't asking.
"You want to talk about timelines, Crank?
Alright. Let's talk about how somebody saw you out at the dirt track three days ago. You remember that?"
My stomach dropped, but I kept my face flat.
"Fox said nobody goes near those races right now. Period. There's been Locust boys running those circuits, and the last thing we need is somebody from our side starting something in public. You remember him saying that, or do I need to refresh your memory?"
I remembered. Fox had laid it down at church two weeks ago, clear as day.
The Black Locusts were probably recruiting, and Fox wanted zero contact until things cooled off—no exceptions.
I'd gone anyway because Sara was racing that day and because I was a damn fool who couldn't stay away from her even when I should've.
"I went for a ride," I said. "Ended up near the track.
Didn't talk to anyone." I turned back to my drink and finished it, wishing there were more in the glass, but Lightning wasn't done with me yet.
He grabbed my shoulder and shoved me so I was forced to turn back to him.
I noticed the bartender's scowl and remembered his warning not to get in a fight. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be talking to this jerk.
"Doesn't matter, you were there. And if I bring that to Fox, you know what happens.
" He took another pull from his beer and set it down.
"You're looking at a sit-down at best. At worst, he pulls your wrench privileges for a month and you're back on grunt work while somebody else touches the bikes. You want that?"
I didn't answer because he already knew I didn't. The garage was my domain, the one thing in this club that was fully mine, and Tony knew exactly how to threaten it. God, I wanted to punch him so badly.
"Nine a.m.," he said again. "Suspension, front and rear. She's pulling left and the rear shock is blown."
I held his stare for a long second, then looked away. "Give me your keys."
He dug them out of his pocket and dropped them on the bar next to my glass. They landed with a rattle as I reached for mine and slapped them in his palm. "Don't disappoint me, Crank."
Then he grabbed his beer and walked off toward the back room where a few other brothers were playing cards. The bartender watched him go and then looked at me with his eyebrows raised.
"Don't," I said.
"Wasn't going to say a word." He picked up a glass and started drying it, but I caught the look on his face. Everybody in this bar knew the dynamic. Tony wasn't in charge or anything, but he liked to make trouble when we didn't do what he said. And trouble was the last thing I wanted.
I closed out my tab, pocketed Tony's keys, and left before I did something I'd regret.
The one good thing that'd come from that interaction was that I was able to put that argument with Sara out of my mind for a few minutes because I was so pissed at Tony, it didn't occur to me that I should be sulking again.
His bike was parked out front, a blacked-out cruiser with custom pipes and a paint job that was scratched up now.
I threw a leg over and kicked it to life, and right away, I could feel what he was talking about.
The front end dipped too far when I touched the brake, and the rear shock had no rebound at all.
It felt sloppy and loose like he'd taken it on a jump or two.
The moron didn't have the sense to respect his own steel.
I rode slowly through town toward my place, and the more I paid attention, the worse it got.
The suspension wasn't just worn out. It was beaten to hell, like he'd been running this thing over rough terrain at speed.
No road in Grove Hill would do this kind of damage under normal riding conditions.
This was what happened when you ripped through fields or unpaved back roads where the ground was uneven and full of ruts.
I pulled into the gravel lot outside my trailer and killed the engine.
The sudden quiet was almost louder than the pipes had been.
I sat there for a minute, just listening to the ticking of the cooling metal, and then swung off and crouched down next to the rear wheel, almost losing my balance as the whiskey started to really kick in.
There was grass tangled in the spokes and not a little bit.
Thick clumps of it, wound around the lower spokes and packed into the gap between the rim and the brake caliper.
I pulled some of it out and rolled it between my fingers.
It was green and fresh. I checked the front wheel and found the same thing, grass jammed into the brake pads and threaded through the spokes like he'd been riding through a field at full throttle.
I stood up and stared at the bike under the yellow glow of the porch light.
This wasn't like him. Tony didn't go off-roading. He babied this thing like it was made of glass. I'd seen him threaten a prospect for leaning against it wrong. So what the hell was he doing tearing through grass hard enough to shred his suspension and pack his wheels full of debris?
I wiped my hands on my jeans and headed inside. The trailer was dark and quiet, same as always. I dropped Tony's keys on the kitchen counter and stood there in the silence, thinking.
Something wasn't right.
I didn't know what it was yet, but the feeling sat in my gut, and it wasn't going anywhere. Much like the gnawing reminder that Sara had dumped me. I needed to go to bed, and I needed to forget about her.
I just didn't know how yet.