20. Mars
Mars
The world outside has been dark for several hours by the time I decide I’ve stared at enough numbers.
I’m trying to do some of the accounting for the shop, and none of it is going right.
ever since I opened the place, it’s been successful.
We have some of the most talented mechanics in town in the Black Oaks, and that made it easy to bring them into the garage and even make the business the official club career.
And it’s always worked even better than I hoped.
We ride together, work together, and play together, and each thing makes us stronger as a group.
Everyone has specialties in the shop, and that makes things even smoother.
It’s been a dream come true.
Until last year, when that stopped. Suddenly the customers started drying up and work got scarce, and no matter how much I looked for an answer, I couldn’t figure out why.
The problem is, when the garage starts to get slow, it’s bad for business...
and worse for the crew itself. Morale starts dropping when there’s not as much money, my men start to question their choices, and some of them end up taking on small jobs, which means they’re not available when I need them.
Even worse, they might start turning to illegal activities. And I won’t hear of that. I know a lot of MCs run guns and drugs and even humans, but I’ve never allowed that for the Oaks. We’re good family men.
We do things the right way.
And that’s a whole lot easier when the garage is performing the way it’s supposed to.
Last week, I would have said I didn’t know how to get that back on track. Hell, two days ago I would have said that.
But yesterday, Arden came into my shop and put in a whole new process, and suddenly the place feels like it actually works again.
And of course the minute she did that, the other pieces fell into place.
We had a backlog of work because we weren’t finish projects as quickly as we were supposed to.
That backlog meant projects were falling between the cracks and people were going other places.
I own one of the best restoration shops in the state, but once people started realizing we weren’t making deadlines, it damaged my reputation.
And when I stopped fixing cars from Wood as quickly as I had, people from town started thinking they couldn’t count on me.
But with Arden’s faster process...
We might be able to save everything.
I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it in time to keep everyone on board, though, and that’s what I’ve been going over tonight. Cash is very short and I have payroll coming up, and as much as I hate the idea of letting anyone go, I’m not sure I’m going to have a choice.
We need more customers, and we need them quickly.
I wonder if Arden has any thoughts on the matter.
The idea brings me up sharp, mostly because I’ve never sought out advice from anyone in my life. I turn it over again and again, looking for holes in the concept, but no matter how much I examine it, I keep coming to the same conclusion.
Arden’s new in town, sure, and doesn’t know much about running a garage.
But that means she’s coming in with fresh eyes, and twice the brain I have.
I watched her tease Orion when he was working on the Chevy and then figure out exactly how to fix something, and then I watched her reorder the shop in the space of three hours to make it more efficient and keep the men happy.
She’s got a whole different way of looking at things, and that changes everything.
I wonder how much she knows about marketing.
I get up and leave my desk before I can dwell any more on it, but when I try to open the door to my shop, it’s stuck.
I frown. That can’t be right. I built this house myself and every line and angle is perfect. None of the doors should stick.
I push it harder, but with no luck, and then put my shoulder down and bang against it.
Someone cries out on the other side and suddenly the door flies open, like I’ve just dislodged whatever was keeping it ‘stuck.’
I surge out, surprised by the sudden freedom of the door, and almost trip over someone laying on the ground. I manage to step over them and hit the other wall, then spin around, ready to shout at whoever was standing right in front of my door, but bite my tongue before I can say anything.
Arden is scrambling up from the floor, looking both embarrassed and surprised, and I put a handout to help her
“We have beds, you know. You don’t need to lay on the floor.” My voice is mild partially because I’m trying to figure out what the fuck she was doing.
She scowls at me. “I wasn’t laying on the floor until you decided to come exploding out of your room.”
“I had to explode out to get the door unstuck,” I say, pointing out the obvious.
She scoffs at that. “It wasn’t stuck, you moose, I was leaning against it! And if you can’t open a door just because I’m leaning against it, I guess that doesn’t say much for your general strength.”
She shuts her mouth and looks at me, eyebrows arched and expectant, and she’s so cocky, so adorable, that I want to tackle her and tickle her until she screams. Pin her down and feel her body under my fingertips, her skin hot and flushed and her mouth opening on a cry.
And holy baby Jesus, where the fuck did that thought come from?
I shove it away from me, half horrified and unwilling to admit that I know exactly where it came from, and then remember what I was doing in my office before the whole door incident.
“Get your jacket,” I say, turning for the kitchen.
She pauses. “What? Why?”
“We’re going.”
She catches up to me and strides along next to me, putting in two steps to every one of mine. “Where?”
“You ask too many questions.”
I can feel her look heating up the side of my face, but I don’t return it. I’m having too much fun.
“If you think I’m going to let you kidnap me, you’ve got another thing coming.”
This time I do spin and push her against the wall.
I back her up until she’s pressed against it and then cage her in with my arms, my hands against the boards on either side of her head.
I lean in until I can smell the oaky shampoo she uses and the scent of the chocolate she’s been eating.
And then I lean further, until my lips are at her ear.
“Liar. You wouldn’t stop me. Now get your fucking jacket. I want some fresh air.”
Our mountain isn’t the highest in this range, not even the tallest in the area, but it does lead up to the belly of one of the taller mountains, and whoever decided to settle here also decided that we would need a bridge to that other mountain.
I can’t for the life of me figure out why they thought such a thing, or why they put so many resources toward it, but here we are.
The bridge in question is an enormous, sweeping thing, compete with arches and several tons of concrete, and bridges the gap between the peak of our mountain and a pass on the next peak.
It spans a large valley, where a river runs year-round with runoff from the taller peaks, and though I’ve never bothered to drive across it to the other mountain, I come often to just sit on it and stare.
When I tell Arden this, she looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“You come out here just to... stare?”
“Hush,” I say. I grab her hand and walk from the flat dirt lot where I’ve parked the bike toward the bridge itself. “Don’t judge it until you’ve seen it.”
“You know, I’ve seen bridges before,” she says. “We have a few of them in this place you might have heard of. It’s called New York.”
“You’ve never seen a bridge like this,” I retort. “I promise.”
We get to the bridge and make our way out onto it, then onto one of the platforms that run along the side.
I duck under the rail and pull her with me, then drop to a seat with my legs hanging off the side.
Before me, the mountain drops away into air, water rushing under our feet with a soft roar and trees stretching up around it, reaching for the stars scattered across the night sky.
The moon is full tonight, or close to it, and it touches everything with silver, outlining the branches of the trees and tinting the water with silver.
Above us, stars crowd each other for space in the sky, their bright, twinkling light adding to the shine of the night.
It’s breathtaking, and I’ll never get tired of coming up here to see it.
“Wow,” Arden breathes.
She’s taken a seat while I wasn’t looking and is close enough to me that our knees touch.
And though we’re sitting at the edge of a bridge with hundreds of feet between us and the water below us, she didn’t argue about sitting here. Didn’t ask if it was safe or if we would fall. She’s not even shaking.
This girl, I think for the millionth time, is stronger than anyone has ever given her credit for.
“Yeah,” I reply, my voice nearly as quiet as hers.
“Come here often?”
“Any time I need to think. Any time life gets too loud.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then she takes the bait.
“Is life too loud right now?”
It’s not a demand, and it’s not even a suggestion. It’s just an opening. A door left ajar, in case I want to push through and take advantage of the offer she’s just made.
I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.
The gentle, quiet offer feels like home, if home was actually safe from the people who tried to hurt you. It feels like the promise of a warm blanket on a snowy night. The first sip of hot coffee on a chilly morning.
The knowledge that if you fall, someone will catch you before you hit the ground.
I’ve never had that. Never thought I wanted it, honestly, and certainly never looked for it.
But now, with the stress of the Saints and the garage, Orion keeping secrets and Rookie growing up too fast...
“Yes,” I whisper.
She puts her arm through mine and then slides her fingers into my palm, using her other hand to close my own hand around hers.
And she’s such a tiny thing, so small compared to me and so fragile, but now that she’s holding me in the palm of her hand, every emotion in my heart starts to feel far too big to handle on my own.
“So tell me,” she says. “Let me hold all the noise for a second.”
And despite myself, I start talking. I tell her about my childhood–not everything, but enough–and how I have a younger sister, Sonya, and a younger brother, Casino. How I’m the oldest and was born having to take care of everything.
“Sure, I had older cousins,” I continue. “Gunner and Bear are both older than me. But even they sort of thought I should have the answer to everything. Call Mars if you have a problem. It was always just settled. And I just... I’m tired,” I finish simply.
“Your brother’s name is Casino?” she asks. “Is that... Is that his real name?”
It’s so unlikely, so unexpected, that I bark a laugh, the tension in my shoulders suddenly melting. “No. His real name is Cash, though that’s not much better.”
“So he’s a monetary entity, regardless. Interesting. Is he... good with money?’
This makes me laugh even harder, because Casino is a terrific rancher but he’s not great with money.
“So his names don’t make any sense whatsoever,” she concludes.
“No, but my mother was a Johnny Cash fan and I guess she thought it would be a mark of honor.”
She sniffs. “That man lived his life like he was trying to kill himself the whole time he was alive. Doesn’t seem like a guy you’d want to name one of your kids after.”
I’m surprised at this. “You know Johnny Cash?” I would never have expected it.
She shrugs, though. “Not his music. But I’ve seen the movie.”
It’s a stark reminder of how young she is, how short her life has been, and I tell myself for the five hundredth time that I need to stop this now. I’ve felt this connection growing for days and I know that it’s wrong. As the oldest one here, the responsible adult, I should put a stop to it.
I should pull back my emotions. Leave her alone.
For her own good. Because it’s the right thing to do.
But sitting here with the moonlight shining on her fair, freckled skin and her hand folded into mine, I don’t think I can.
And I know I don’t want to.
“I always thought you liked taking care of everyone,” she says suddenly.
Ah, here we are.
“I do,” I admit. And then: “That doesn’t mean I’m always good at it.
And sometimes I just want to have the choice, you know?
Sometimes I want to be able to say no. Maybe even do something for myself.
Sleep in on a Saturday instead of jumping out of bed because Bear’s got himself in trouble or Sammy needs a ride.
Maybe even fall in love. Start a family of my own. ”
“That’s wildly romantic,” she notes.
Shit.
“It’s not,” I protest.
“It is. But I don’t blame you. Sometimes, you want to stop carrying the world on your back and enjoy the beautiful things. And sometimes, I think, you want to have someone else take care of you, instead of the other way around.”
I don’t answer that one.
I’m too busy wondering how the hell she figured that out when I didn’t even realize it myself.