Chapter 13 Miles
Thirteen
Miles
The garage at Honey's Hot Rods smells like oil, rubber, and a hundred ghosts of engines that have roared through here before mine.
I breathe it in like it’s oxygen.
My bike’s stripped down to her bones in the center bay, chrome and black scattered across the red concrete floor.
I’ve got grease under my nails and sweat sliding down my spine, radio low in the corner playing some classic rock Stud has it set to.
The overhead fans churn the heavy Carolina heat but don’t do much more than push it around.
This is my church.
Out back, in the second building where Stud keeps his personal collection—a series classic muscle lined up like trophies in a glass case—I hear a truck door slam hard enough to rattle the sheet metal walls.
I don’t have to see him to know who it is.
The gate out front limits activity in the bays to keep customers out of the unsafe areas.
The amount of people who will casually walk under a car on a lift not knowing a thing about vehicles in the first place astounds me.
Cars fall even with seasoned mechanics using the lifts.
Stud learned a long time ago, even the gate and fencing only limits the fools that tread back here.
That specific slam, I know it anywhere. It’s an late nineties model Dodge truck. One that may be rough around the edges, but carries an unmatched loyalty. Much like the owner.
Smoke.
His boots hit gravel, fast and heavy. The man never learned how to walk into anything calmly.
It’s probably his biggest downfall, rushing into everything with a reaction rather than stopping to read the full situation.
It’s him through and through. One thing about me, I’ll never ask a man to change because I’ll be damned if anyone can change me.
A second later, his voice carries through the open bay doors. “Honey, I’m not here to fight with you dammit. I want to talk.”
There’s a short laugh—sharp as broken glass. The edge of a tired woman who seriously can’t believe she’s standing here listening to him. Same song and dance they have had for years. Honey.
And she is fired up this morning. The problem is Smoke is a brother in the Hellions MC and Honey, she’s Stud’s daughter.
She is like having a little sister to all of us because she tells us like it is out of genuine care but without hesitating to bust our balls every chance she can.
She understands our lifestyle. She accepts each of us with all of our flaws.
I wipe my hands on a rag and tilt my head just enough to catch the rhythm of it. I can’t see them from this angle, but sound travels in a shop like this. Every word bounces.
“You always say that,” Honey fires back. “Then you do exactly what you always do. We talk, I fall for every empty promise and within months your words mean nothing once again.”
“I’ve fucked up more than I’ve gotten right. But dammit, I want you, I want our family.”
She lets out a huff. “You’ve said that too.”
There it is. The argument that’s been circling them for years like vultures waiting for the death of their past to be final.
I lean back against the tool chest and close my eyes a second, listening without meaning to. Smoke’s voice has that edge—desperate and proud at the same time.
“Give me another chance. I’ll stay home. No more road trips. I’ll tell Country Boy no transports, no rides. No barflies. I’ll fucking work here with you if that’s what it takes.” He blows out a breath. “For our kids, come on, Tiff.”
“The ship sailed, Smoke.”
Silence. Not the peaceful kind. The heavy, breathing kind.
Before I can decide whether I should walk over there and make sure things don’t go sideways, boots crunch back toward the main garage. Smoke rounds the corner, jaw tight, dark eyes stormy.
He spots me and snorts. “Women ain’t worth the trouble if they can’t see when a man is laying it all on the line.” He tosses the words like they’re nothing. Like they don’t weigh anything.
I don’t answer right away. Because behind him, Honey steps into view.
She’s got her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, curls wild behind her, grease on her cheek, and fire in her eyes.
She catches me looking and lifts one brow.
“Don’t,” she instructs. I can see the glisten of unshed tears that she refuses to let fall. “Just don’t, Miles.”
Didn’t plan on it. I don’t have a dog in this pony show and I’m not about to wade in between two people who are family to me. I hold up my hands in surrender.
“Ain’t my mess,” I reply.
She studies me a beat longer. Honey knows brotherhood. Knows loyalty. Knows how easy it is for men to circle the wagons around one of their own even when he’s dead wrong.
“I don’t want to hear about how he’s trying,” she says flatly. “Or how hard it is. Or how brotherhood means I should understand. How I need to accept the past and get over it like he only fucked up once. I don’t need to hear it, none of it.”
I nod once. “Wouldn’t say it.” And I wouldn’t. Because Smoke did her wrong. More than once. More than twice. And not just because he didn’t keep his dick in his pants. He crossed her repeatedly. The minute things feel too comfortable, he sabotages it all. It’s like he can’t help himself.
Honey ain’t the type to slam doors for nothing. If she’s done, she’s done because she’s bled enough.
I watch Honey a second longer. The way her chest rises and falls. The way her fingers flex like she wants to throw something. The way there’s still heat there—under the anger. That’s the thing.
Love and hate aren’t opposites like people think.
They are like living in a duplex. Separate but attached.
It’s hard to hate someone if you don’t have love or care.
Even to hate a stranger is about them crossing a line of some sort, to cross a line means someone cared enough to draw the boundary in the first place.
You can’t hate if you don’t care. Period.
I’ve seen Smoke fight men with less fire than he uses when he fights her. And Honey? She doesn’t back down from anybody. Not customers. Not club whores. Not men twice her size. And definitely not him.
There’s a line between love, hate, passion, and pain so thin you can cut yourself on it.
I know that now. Because when I think about Danae, none of that feels like confusion. It feels like gravity. She holds me down when life wants to throw me around. She steadies me when the kind of man I am wants to run amuck.
I crouch back down beside my bike and tighten the bolt on the rear fender, but my mind’s already drifting west.
Arkansas.
Her laugh in the kitchen. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s tired. The way she looks at her grandpa like he’s both her anchor and her responsibility.
I miss her. Not in a passing way. In a bone-deep, restless way.
The open road’s been calling me for days. That itch under my skin that says pack a bag, throw a leg over the bike, and go until the horizon changes color.
But this time it ain’t about running. It’s about moving toward something. One direction has my sole focus now.
My phone vibrates in my back pocket. Country Boy. I grin before I even answer. Sometimes I swear that man has a damn radar for when to call without bothering me.
“Yeah.”
“Wrath wants a transport,” he states without preamble. “Need you to head out, collect the cash.”
I lean back against the lift and look up at the ceiling like maybe the universe finally decided to cut me a break. Of all the people to call and all the places to go, this will never work out in my favor so well again.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night is the meet.”
A slow smile spreads across my face. “You got it, Pres.”
“Thought you’d say that,” he chuckles. “You good to roll?”
“Already halfway gone.”
When I hang up, I catch Smoke watching me from the doorway of the office.
“What’s that look?” he asks.
“Transport,” I share. “Wrath wants cash moved.”
Smoke’s shoulders straighten like someone just plugged him into an outlet.
“Where to?”
“Arkansas. Then we see. Gonna hit the road within the hour. Stop overnight in Tennessee make the rest of the ride tomorrow.”
He doesn’t hesitate. “I’m in.”
Of course he is. We’ve ridden out together more times than I can count. Drank side by side. Done things neither of us would admit out loud. Once upon a time, if Smoke went looking for trouble, I was already walking next to him.
“Give me an hour,” I tell him.
“I’m ready when you are, brother.” He tells me what I already know. His bike stays filled with his go bag. The man only unpacks to do laundry.
Honey doesn’t come back out before we leave. Smoke glances toward the second building once, jaw tight, then throws his leg over his bike. We don’t say anything about it. Nothing to say. He’s going to either make peace with losing her or he’s going to figure shit out to fix it.
Engines roar to life. The road opens up in front of us like it’s been waiting.
We cross into Tennessee under a sky streaked purple and orange. Wind tears at my cut, cool against the sweat dried into my shirt. The hum of the engine beneath me smooths out everything in my head.
This is what I’ve always known.
Motion.
Distance.
The steady rhythm of tires eating miles.
We pull into a roadside motel just past the state line. Nothing fancy. Neon sign flickering. Ice machine humming. Smells like stale cigarettes and cheap cleaner.
We grab one room.
Two beds.
Just a place to shit, shower, and sleep.
Smoke drops his duffel on the nearest mattress and immediately pulls his phone out. I sit on the edge of mine and do the same. Danae answers on the second ring.
“Miles?”
Hearing her voice does something to my chest I can’t explain.
“Hey, darlin’.”
“You on the road?”
“Yeah. Tennessee tonight.”
I hear the soft shift of her moving, maybe stepping out onto her porch like she does when she wants quiet.
“You sound happy.”
I look at the cracked ceiling and smile.
“Maybe I am.”