15. Diesel
DIESEL
The gravel lot’s still wet from last night’s rain when I pull in, tires kicking up that fine spray that gets everywhere, and I’m grinning like an idiot before I even cut the engine.
Been grinning like that since I left Penny’s driveway, actually, which is a stupid thing for a grown man to admit even to himself.
I park next to Ryder’s bike and head for the clubhouse, boots loud on the gravel, still tasting her on my mouth if I’m honest about it, still feeling the ghost of her nails on my back.
The second I step through the door, something’s off.
Can’t put a finger on it right away. It’s not silence, exactly—the place is loud as ever, TV blaring some game nobody’s watching, somebody racking balls on the pool table—but there’s a shift in the air, a kind of attention that wasn’t there yesterday.
Ace looks up from the bar. Doesn’t say anything.
Just looks, and then looks back down at his beer like he’s suddenly really interested in the label.
Gunner’s the one who breaks first.
“There he is.” He’s got that grin on, the one that means trouble’s coming whether I want it or not. “Officer Friendly himself.”
I stop halfway to the bar. “The fuck did you just call me?”
“Heard you had a hot date last night.” Gunner leans back on his stool, arms crossed, entirely too pleased with himself. “The Depot, no less. Fancy.”
“Word travels fast,” I mutter.
“Word travels at the speed of Brenda seeing your truck outside a certain cop’s house all night,” Ryder pipes in from the pool table, not even looking up from his shot. “And Brenda called her sister. Who works the desk at the station.”
Christ. Of course it did. This is Briar Fork. A man can’t take a piss without three people knowing what color it was by sundown.
“So it’s true,” Ace says, finally looking up all the way, something more careful in his expression than Gunner’s teasing. “You and Penny Carpenter. Again.”
“Wasn’t aware I owed anybody an explanation.”
“Nobody said you did.” Ace shrugs, but there’s a weight behind it. “Just didn’t expect it, is all. Woman arrests guys like us for a living.”
“She’s never arrested anybody in this room.”
“Yet,” Gunner says, and cackles at his own joke like it’s the funniest thing he’s said all week.
I grab a beer off the bar, more for something to do with my hands than because I want it, and I’m still riding high enough off last night that none of this actually lands.
Not yet. I take a pull, lean my hip against the bar, let them have their fun, because I figure it’ll blow over in a day like everything else does around here.
Then Bone walks in from the back office, readers pushed up on his head, ledger tucked under one arm, and the second his eyes find me, something in his face goes tight in a way that Gunner’s teasing never managed.
“Heard you had company at The Depot,” he says. Not a question.
“That a problem?”
“Might be.” He sets the ledger down, slow and deliberate, the way he does everything. “Might not be. Depends how far you’re planning on taking it.”
I feel my jaw tighten. “Taking what, exactly?”
“Whatever this is with the Carpenter girl.” He says her name like it leaves a sour taste in his mouth. “She’s a cop, Diesel. Not a rookie one, either. Good at her job, from what I hear. That’s not nothing.”
“I know what she is.”
“Do you?” Bone’s got those sharp eyes on me now, the ones that see straight through a bad set of numbers or a lie dressed up as an excuse.
“Because a woman like that, sworn to uphold the law, sitting across a table from a vice president of an MC that runs guns across state lines… That’s not a fling, son.
That’s a liability with a badge and a gun. ”
I narrow my eyes at him. “She’s not gonna turn on the club.”
“You don’t know that.” Tank’s voice, coming from the couch where he’s been sitting quiet enough that I forgot he was there, big arms crossed over his chest, watching me with that steady, ancient patience he’s had since before I was even patched. “Nobody knows that. That’s the whole problem.”
I set my beer down harder than I mean to. “You two got something to say, say it plain.”
Tank doesn’t flinch. Man’s seen worse than my temper, lived through wars that make our recent mess with the Kings look like a schoolyard scuffle.
“You can’t sleep with a cop, Diesel. Not really sleep with one.
Not the way you’re talking about, all soft in the face over a woman you had breakfast tacos with in high school. ”
“Nobody said anything about breakfast tacos.”
“You know what I mean.”
I do. That’s the problem. I know exactly what he means, and some ugly, cold part of my gut’s been circling the same thought since I left Penny’s driveway, grinning like a fool, telling myself all the years of wanting her were reason enough to make it work.
“She’s not like other cops,” I say, and even as it leaves my mouth, I hear how thin it sounds.
“They’re never like other cops,” Bone says, not unkindly, which somehow makes it worse. “Right up until they are. Right up until she’s got a subpoena in one hand and a badge in the other, and she’s gotta choose between you and everything she built her whole life on.”
“She wouldn’t—”
“She might not have a choice.” Bone pulls his readers down off his head, sets them on his nose like he’s about to go back to the numbers, like this conversation’s already over as far as he’s concerned.
“That’s the thing about badges, son. They don’t bend for love.
Not the good ones, anyway. And from what Havoc’s told me about that crime scene the night Erik died, she’s one of the good ones. ”
That lands somewhere low in my chest, sharper than I want to admit.
“She stood up to Havoc,” Tank adds, like he’s helping Bone make the point instead of just piling on. “Told him straight to his face this was an active crime scene, patch or no patch. That’s not a woman who’s gonna look the other way forever just ’cause she likes the way you kiss.”
I drag a hand down my face, and the good mood I walked in with is bleeding out fast, drop by drop, replaced by something heavier settling into my gut. Across the room, Gunner and Ryder have gone quiet, watching this play out now that nobody’s laughing.
“So what,” I say, “I’m supposed to just—what? Walk away? Pretend last night didn’t happen?”
“Didn’t say that.” Bone’s voice softens, just slightly, the closest thing to sympathy the man’s capable of showing before nine in the morning. “I’m saying go into it with your eyes open. Man in your position, VP of this club, can’t afford to be stupid about a woman. Not even a woman like her.”
“I’ve been stupid about her for twenty years.”
“Then you already know how this story ends if you don’t think it through.” Bone picks the ledger back up, tucks it under his arm. “Numbers don’t care about love, Diesel. Neither does a courtroom.”
He walks off toward the office, leaving me standing there with my beer going warm on the bar and Tank still watching me from the couch, steady, patient, not unkind but not backing down either.
“He’s not wrong,” Tank says. “You know he’s not.”
“Doesn’t mean I like hearing it,” I mutter.
“Nobody said you had to like it.” Tank shifts his weight, the couch groaning under him. “Just means you better figure out how this actually works before you go falling any further. ’Cause sooner or later she’s gonna have to choose between protecting you and doing her job.”
I don’t have an answer for that. Don’t have an answer for any of it, actually, standing here with the taste of Penny still on my mouth and Bone’s voice rattling around in my skull long after he’s gone.
Gunner tries to lighten it, tosses out some joke about conjugal visits that nobody laughs at, and even Ryder’s gone quiet at the pool table, chalk forgotten in his hand.
I pick up the beer and drop the half-full bottle in the trash, because suddenly I don’t want it anymore.
Last night I had her again for the first time in seventeen years.
Had her under me, around me, saying my name like it still meant something to her.
And for about twelve hours I let myself believe that was enough, that wanting something bad enough for that long earns you the right to just have it, simple as that, no complications, no cost.
Bone just handed me the bill.
A biker doesn’t get to keep a cop. Not really.
Not the way I’m wanting to keep her—not just some nights and stolen hours, but all of it, a whole life stitched together out of two things that were never built to fit.
She’s got a badge that answers to laws I break for a living.
I’ve got a cut that answers to a brotherhood that doesn’t forgive loose lips or bad judgment, especially not when it comes wrapped in gold hair and a service weapon.
I stand there by the trash a long time, listening to the pool balls start clacking again behind me, Gunner and Ryder picking their game back up like nothing happened, as if I’m supposed to shrug this off and join them.
Maybe they didn’t watch anything happen at all.
I came in ready to tell anyone who asked that Penny was worth the trouble. I still think she is. What I can’t answer is whether I’m worth what this could cost her.