by Zahra Girard
“No.”
“No what? No to something simple and uncomplicated like getting with that guy Crash being what you need to get over Edgar? Or no to the fact that four years is a very long time to go without dating anybody at all — or even doing something like going up to Aspen to hookup with some rich rando — and that you want to persevere in being so darn severe when it comes to me?”
“To all of it.”
Kendra sighs. “Vi, I know that bar is your baby—”
“Our baby,” I correct her. “Not everyone is as lucky as I am that their best friend will move states with them to help them follow their dream. We’re business partners, remember?”
“Fine. And I love you. But you have spent the last four years doing nothing but work at the Timberline. Don’t you think it’s time you did a little something fun and reckless?”
I sigh. She’s right. It has been a long time and sometimes, when I finish a day and am not totally exhausted and thinking of nothing more than microwaving my dinner and scarfing it as fast as I can before I collapse into bed — all to start the same routine over again the next day — I do kind of miss having someone in my life to share things with.
But Crash?
I shake my head.
“I lost the Pappy Van Winkle last night,” I say.
Kendra drops her fork. It hits her plate with a clatter, and fragments of egg flutter across the table.
“What? You lost your celebration bourbon? What happened? Did it get broken in the bar fight?”
“No,” I say. “I gave it to Sheriff Cartwright.”
“Why the hell would you give it to that incompetent dickwad?” She says, sitting up straight and her eyes on fire; she looks like she’s ready to march over to the Sheriff’s station and retrieve the bottle herself.
“To get him to go away,” I say. And, when Kendra looks to me expectantly — because she’s my best friend and knows when I’m trying to dance around an answer — I pause for a second to think of a believable lie; whatever cargo those bikers from the other night are transporting, it has to be dangerous and highly illegal, and it would be an awful idea to tell Kendra about it. “He and his deputies were making all these suggestions, like they’d have to close my bar to investigate everything that happened, and if word got around that the Timberline Tavern was a place where bikers stabbed people and shot up cars in the parking lot, I would lose almost all my customers. Well, all my customers except for those stupid bikers who like to stab people and shoot up cars in my parking lot. And those people suck.”
There’s a lengthy pause; I don’t speak because it hurts to say any more about losing the expensive bottle of bourbon that I’d been holding on to for all these years until a special moment came along, and she doesn’t speak because she’s my best friend and she knows when I’m really hurting inside.
“Hey, Vi, I know things suck right now, but we’ve been through worse. Remember the first few months when we opened the bar and how the only regular customer we had was Creepy Ray?”
I laugh. “Oh my god, Creepy Ray! I almost forgot! What was his deal, again?”
“He kept telling me that I looked hot, just like his daughter, and then he kept asking if I was open to being adopted by a much older man.”
She always knows how to make me feel better. Even if it’s at her own expense.
Suddenly feeling much better — and so grateful not to have been on the receiving end of Creepy Ray’s months-long adoption quest — I drink some more coffee with a smile on my face.
“I think we’ll open a little later today,” I say.
“Oh?”
“It’ll take me a little while to do all the cleanup from last night. I left things in a state.”
“You want me to come in early and help? I can have a sitter pick Josie up from school.”
“No, no, you don’t have to do that. Just have her make me up a thermos of her crackhead latte and bring it with you. I think I’m going to need about a dozen of those to get through today. My head feels like death.”
“Deal. But only if you promise to stop spurring my daughter’s interest in crack.”
“Fine.”
Three heavy knocks ring through the house. Kendra and I trade looks and then she stands up to go answer the door.
Another sip of coffee goes down before I hear her scream.
Dropping my coffee cup — which shatters against the floor, spilling coffee everywhere — I grab a butter knife from the table and run to the front door.
Standing there, gun in his hand, is Switchblade.
He smiles at Kendra. Then at me.
“Hey ladies, I told you I’d be back.”
Chapter Six
Crash
“Yup, it’s just like I said last night: this will definitely be a project car,” Max says as he climbs out from beneath our shot-up cargo truck, his hands, face, and overalls all covered in grease.
My hands find their way to my temples and I try to massage away the headache I feel brewing.
“What’s your best estimate on how long until we can get this thing back on the road?”
“Few days. Maybe more.”
I cast a look behind me, further in to Max Paisley’s auto repair shop, where Mack, Blaze, and Snake are looking over one of Max’s real project cars: a cherry red, mid-1960s MG roadster. I’m not a car guy and won’t ride in something with more than two wheels unless there’s no other option, but even I have to admit it’s a sweet machine that seems tailor-made for summer days, and open roads with the wind blowing through your hair.
“Do your best. Whatever you can to get this truck back on the road as quick as possible, I don’t care about the cost, just do it.”
He smirks. “Son, I don’t half-ass things. Hell, even if it did, I know my ass is big enough it’d still do a better job than most regular men. Trust me, I’ll have your truck running soon enough.”
“Fine. Just do it,” I say and, turning away from him, I head over toward my brothers to break the news. But, from the way their expressions change, the bad news must be showing on my face already.
“Shit,” Blaze says. “How long?”
“Few days, at least,” I say. “The thing’s been shot to hell.”
“You want me to pull him aside, see if I can motivate him?” Snake asks, patting the spot inside his cut where I know there’s a sheathed knife that he is just aching to put to work.
“Stabbing him isn’t an option, Snake. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“It could work,” he insists. “Might make him take it a little more enthusiastically.”
“The only person who gets more enthusiastic when they see a knife is your mum when she’s sucking my cock,” Mack says.
“Dude,” Snake says. “Come on.”
“Snake, I will say this to you one more time: no stabbing, no knifing, no murdering, no torturing. Besides, I don’t think anything you could dream up would work on this Max guy.”
“True,” Snake concedes. “He’d probably tell me he saw worse in Vietnam and then try to correct my technique. Maybe I’ll see if he wants to get a drink later. It could be fun to learn something new. I heard the Viet Cong were masters at that shit.”
“Are you crushing on the mechanic?” Blaze says.
Snake shrugs. “Maybe. They say everyone’s got their unicorn, the person who’ll make them swing the other way. For some guys, it’s Tom Hardy and a desert island, for others, it’s George Clooney.”
“And for you it’s an old greaseball named Max?” Blaze says.
“Maybe,” Snake says, casting a look toward Max that makes me want to punch him. “You never know until you try.”
“Brother, you creep me out. Any more weirdness out of you and I’m not inviting you to Matty’s birthday party,” Mack says. “I will not have your fucking deviance around my son.”
“Seriously, Mack? You’d deprive me of birthday cake just because I’m unafraid to learn?” Snake says.
I put
a hand on Snake’s shoulder. “Snake, it should go without saying, but I will say it anyway: keep your weird shit to yourself and away from the mechanic. At least until he’s fixed our truck. Got it?”
“Fine,” he says.
Deeper in the mechanic’s shop, a phone rings. Grumbling, Max trundles across the worn concrete floor and puts the receiver to his ear. The second he picks up the phone, his expression changes. His worn, craggy features show concern and anger in equal parts.
His gruff voice is loud enough that, even on the other side of the shop, I can hear him.
“What’s that? Vi? Slow down, slow down, dear. Talk slow. I’m old and I can’t keep up with your fast talking.”
He goes quiet for a second. All four of us — Mack, Blaze, Snake, and myself — trade wary looks.
Then Max clears his throat and hangs up the phone.
“You. Crash. Get your ass over here.”
I cross to him and, from the grubby table that constitutes his desk, he snatches up a grease-stained sheet of paper and scrawls an address on it.
“You’re needed,” he says as he shoves the paper into my hands.
“What the hell is this about?”
“That was Vi. She needs you. And you’re going to get your ass over there. Now.”
“I’m not her fucking errand boy.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a grown fucking man. And she’s a woman. And she’s in trouble, and she needs help. So, be a fucking man and get your ass over there. Because, if you don’t, you will find just how fucking slow I can be when it comes to fixing your truck.”
Shoving the sheet of paper into the pocket of my jeans, I storm toward the parking lot, stopping only to shout “Keep an eye on the fucking truck and keep out of trouble” at my brothers before I get on my bike and speed down the tiny streets of the shit town of Carbon Ridge.
I get to my destination in four minutes. It’s a small two-storey home, with a white coat of paint, blue trim, and a literal white picket fence out front. There’s a novelty mailbox in the shape of a doghouse with Snoopy asleep on top of it. And there’s a sheriff’s car parked in the driveway.
When I stop my bike behind the car, there’s a good long moment where I consider turning around and forgetting this whole damn mess. Whatever’s waiting for me inside, I do not want to deal with it.
Then, through the front living room window of this small, picturesque house, I catch sight of Violet. Standing in front of the sheriff, gesturing wildly, with tears streaming down her face. And, when she turns, I see the ugly purple bruise that — even from this distance — I can tell has got to be painful as hell.
Someone hit her.
My blood catches fire in anger and I’m off my bike and storming to the front door before I know it.
Someone hurt her.
And that someone is going to die.
Pounding my fist against the front door, I shift back and forth on my feet like a rabid animal ready to strike. If whoever attacked her is inside, I don’t give a damn that a sheriff is here, I will kill them.
The door opens, and the sight of Sheriff Cartwright’s smug, ugly mug greets me. My anger flares even hotter at the thought of this corrupt son of a bitch being the first person Violet sees after suffering an attack.
It shouldn’t be him.
It should be me that takes care of her.
Coming from behind him, I hear Violet’s sobs and, without waiting for the asshole sheriff to get out of my way, I barge past him.
“What happened?” I say, my voice loud and furious.
“Calm down, buddy. Calm down. She’s already given her statement. Just take a seat and let the law handle this,” Sheriff Cartwright says.
I whirl on him. Take a step toward him and grin as he takes a cowardly step back.
“Like I give a fuck about whatever you pissant sheriffs think you can do.”
“Crash, please, calm down,” comes Violet’s tear-strained voice.
I turn back to her. My blood is still on fire — with anger, and with frustration over the fact that, no matter what I do, I keep getting pulled deeper and deeper into the morass that is Carbon Ridge. And that, for all the fighting I want to do, the one thing I can’t fight is how this woman has some kind of hold on me.
“Crash, please, sit with me,” she says again.
After a moment, I comply, taking a seat next to her on the living room sofa. The sunlight streaming in through the window warms the back of my neck, and I let out a sigh as Violet leans over and rests her head against my shoulder.
“Thank you for your time, Sheriff,” she says. “I have nothing more to add to my statement, but I’ll call you if I think of something, OK?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, nodding, seeming unaffected by the state of the woman right in front of him.
How far up that puny, ratfucking MC’s ass is this sheriff that he can see a woman in her condition and not give a shit?
The door slams as he shuts it behind him.
“What the fuck happened here?” I say as soon as I’m sure the sheriff isn’t listening.
“It was Switchblade,” she says. Then she goes quiet, burying her face into my shoulder.
“He attacked you? In your own home?”
A shuddering sigh rocks her body and Violet leans into me further. It’s a feeling better than I would’ve ever expected and, as angry and frustrated as I am, it puts me even more off balance.
“Talk to me, Violet. Tell me what happened, tell me what he did, and I’ll go take care of him.”
She doesn’t answer.
With my common sense finally getting a grip on the anger burning inside me, I shift on the couch, extracting her face from the crook of my shoulder and I turn, face her, and put my hands on her shoulders.
“I will not be here in Carbon Ridge very long. The more time we waste, the less time I’ll have to take care of the son of a bitch that hurt you.”
Violet’s teary eyes go wide. Then they ignite with anger, and standing suddenly, she slaps me. Hard.
“That’s what you’re worried about? Time?”
Now my anger has a new target: her.
How can she be so goddamn temperamental when I’m trying to help her?
“Yes, time. Because I sure as fuck don’t have much of it and, from the looks of it, neither do you. So take the help that I’m offering and tell me what fucking happened here.”
She sighs, fresh tears brim at the corner of her shimmering green eyes and she shakes her head.
“Can you do me a favor, Crash? Can you just go fuck yourself? And can you, for one fucking second, stop talking about how this is just small town bullshit and be a human fucking being? Do you want to know where we are right now? We’re in Kendra’s house. My best friend, Kendra. That fucking creep knocked me out, and he took her. I am a fucking wreck right now because my best friend in the entire world is in the hands of some sadistic animal, the sheriff’s can’t help me — because you know as sure as I do that they’re in the pocket of the Death’s Disciples — and the only person in this whole fucking town who actually can help me also happens to be the biggest fucking prick I have ever met. So, can you please, for once in your life, put that bullshit attitude of yours away and show me that you have a soul? Because I am so hurt right now and I need you.”
I am speechless before her. The voice coming from her lips is so raw and pained, this woman that I’ve seen show that she has a spine of steel, is breaking. And, despite every single bit of my common sense telling me I should stay away, all I want to do is take care of her.
So I hug her.
I put my arms around her and I pull her to my chest and I whisper to her, “I’m sorry. Just let it out.”
And she cries. She cries until my right sleeve is soaking wet with her tears and she’s sniffling every two seconds to hold back the snotty that’s streaming from her nose. It’s ugly, it’s messy, and it feels so damn good to hold her close.
Minutes upon minutes pass where the onl
y sounds from her are sobbing cries and I lose myself in the sensation of having this woman against me.
Then she stops her crying, and she pulls back and wipes the tears and snot from her face with the back of her hand, and a rueful grin turns up the corners of her lips.
“Sorry about the fucking mess,” she says. “It’s been a fucking day.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just talk to me, Violet.”
Nodding, she lets out a long, shaky sigh. “I spent the night here after last night. I do that sometimes, when I’ve had a rough day. Kendra’s my best friend, she moved here with me to help me start over after I got divorced. Even before the divorce, I was a wreck, because my husband was an abusive prick, and Kendra saw how messed up I was even before I acknowledged it; I had a great job with a Petrochemical company — yeah, that’s right, your favorite bartender has a fucking Master’s in chemistry — and I buried myself in work to keep myself from thinking about how much of an awful prick my husband was and how much I hated my life. Then my grandma died. And she left me some money and a note that I should follow my dreams. So I moved here. And Kendra moved with me because she’s that kind of person, and she helped me open the bar and we both just kind of settled in here. That’s how important she is to me.”
“Your dream was to open a bar?” I say. I don’t know if I say it out of disbelief, or out of respect for her dedication to making a business out of good booze. She’s obviously got good taste, considering how much money she was willing to spend to buy that bottle of Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon that she gave away.
She laughs. It’s bitter, but anything’s better than seeing her cry; I hate seeing tears mar her beautiful features. “Surprised?”
“A little, yeah. Why go from a cushy job to being a bartender?”
“It’s not just being a bartender. I want to be a distiller, too. The whole deal. I already make all the bitters and blends we use in the bar. But there’s more to it than just that… I like it here. In nature. With mountains and trees and snow and having a small town where I know most of the people in it — the pleasant ones and the assholes.”