by Deja Voss
“Motorcycle accident. Nineteen-year-old male. Passerby found him in a ditch off of I-80. ETA about twenty minutes.”
It’s my time to shine. I wing the cupcake into the trash can and try to get myself centered. Surgery is so much easier when you look at it from a logical standpoint instead of a human standpoint—putting the pieces of a puzzle back together just like they’re supposed to be. I wave goodbye to Carol and make my way down the cold sterile hall. I pop in my headphones and put on my pump-up playlist. It’s time for us to go to work.
Chapter 2
Gavin
I groan like an old man as I push myself up off the floor. I’ve been laying down hardwood all day, trying to get one step closer to finishing this old A-frame farmhouse, and it’s putting a serious beating on my back. Caked in sawdust and dripping with sweat, I barely notice it’s damn near dark already.
“Beer me, brother,” I say to Heat, wiping the sweat from my brow. The old man is beyond the point of being able to help me in most of the construction, but as long as he keeps me hydrated, I have no problem keeping him around. Plus, I know it’s making him happy to see my grandfather’s home restored back to its original glory.
“It’s looking good, Gav,” he says. “Your grandpa would be real proud of you. I wish he was here to see this place. It reminds me of when me and your pops were just young bucks.”
The farmhouse out here in the middle of the woods was where the Mountain Misfits MC all began. My grandfather, Ike Boden, the founding father, would host the meetings over his big oak dining room table. United by the love of motorcycles and the desire to live off the grid, self-sustained, up here in the mountains, these wild outlaws had created a legacy run on moonshine and motor oil.
“Lotsa memories between these walls, that’s for sure.” I smile. I remember when I was barely in elementary school, my grandpa used to let me sit on his lap while he conducted meetings. I had no idea what these men were talking about, but I knew how much my grandfather loved them, and it made me love them too. I grew up obsessed with guns, beards, whiskey, and bikes. I wanted nothing more than to be a part of that legacy, long before I understood what it actually entailed.
“Lotsa baby batter spilled all over these floors, too, you know,” he chuckles. Heat has been like a second father to me my whole life. As club chaplain, he is always good for some sage advice, and as a dirty old pervert, he’s always good for a jizz joke.
“That’s why I ripped them all out. I don’t want to think about anything that comes out of your body, Heat. No offense.”
He lets out a low rumble of a laugh and shrugs.
“When are you going to settle down and find yourself a nice little flower to pollenate anyway, Gav?” he asks. “There are plenty of dirty birdies floating around the club who would love to have your babies and you know it.”
“I’m not trying to get serious with a club whore, dude.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with the ladies who hang around the house looking to become an old lady, but the thought of sharing my life with a woman who’s been shared by all my brothers isn’t exactly appealing to me.
“Don’t be hating on the whores, Gavin. My mother was a whore, and so was yours, and look how good we turned out.”
“Single and living in my father’s basement?”
“It’s the club’s basement, but point taken.”
I take a long draw from my beer, polishing off the can, crushing it and tossing it across the room into the trash can. I grab my hammer and get back to the task at hand.
I don’t want to tell anyone, but my grandfather is only a small part of this renovation and why I’ve been working nonstop to get this house in shape. There is a woman. She’s gorgeous and smart and driven. She’s everything I’m not, but I’m going to do everything I can to show her I will do whatever it takes to be better.
I’ve been dumping all my time and energy into fixing this place up, building the business at the Bucktail Saloon, and putting a little more space in between myself and the shadier side of the Mountain Misfits MC ever since I met her.
It might be unrealistic.
I might be setting myself up for disaster.
I let her slip through my fingers once.
But the day that she comes back into my life, the day that I can finally wrap my arms around her soft, curvy body, I’m going to make sure that I’m the best possible man I can be.
I pound another nail into the floorboard as I hear the low rumble of a bike pulling up the gravel driveway.
“Brooks,” Heat says confidently. The man knows his motorcycles.
Sure enough, Brooks is standing in the doorway, and he looks mad as hell.
“You seen Goob today?” he asks.
“No, man, why?” My nineteen-year-old brother is no longer my responsibility. I’ve done everything in my power to try and help him out over the years, but he’s always been more interested in being a pawn for my dad. I couldn’t do anything about that.
“I don’t know. We went on a run for the old man today and he split on me.”
“Did he have anything on him?” I hate asking, but his track record wasn’t exactly pristine.
“I got the cash, so probably just the usual.” The usual bag of smack. He’ll be back as soon as the buzz wears off and he realizes he needs some cash.
“Well then, I’m sure we’ll see him soon. You want a beer?”
“Sure.”
I hand him the hammer and a couple of nails.
“I’ll get you one.”
I might feel bad about the old geezer, Heat, helping me around the house, but Brooks is a young buck like myself. We were both born into the Mountain Misfits MC and grew up side by side. He’s always been more of a brother to me than any of my real brothers. We are more about the mission than the money, more about the freedom than the fame.
He tucks his long blond hair back in a bandana as he rolls his eyes at me and gets to pounding.
“I walked right into that trap.”
“You know I’d do the same for you,” I tell him.
“Yeah right. The only banging you’d do on my floor is with my girlfriend while I was asleep in the bed right next to you.”
“That was a long time ago. And that was NOT your girlfriend. That broad was everybody’s girlfriend.”
“Are we talking about Becky Clit Ring again?” Heat chimes in.
“No, no. Lucy,” I say.
“Oh yeah. I love Lucy. And Lucy loves cock.”
“She was a very nice girl,” Brooks says. “Just misunderstood.”
“That’s because she always had a dick in her mouth,” Heat says, and laughs.
“Now that you mention it,” Brooks says, “I feel like maybe that was why we got along so well.”
Chapter 3
Sloan
As soon as they wheel this kid in on the stretcher, my heart starts pounding.
I know those tats. I’ve had that emblem burned in my mind ever since the night I laid eyes on Gavin. The big black skull. The Mountain Misfits MC. From his collarbone to his stomach, he wears it like billboard.
He’s already under, and with good reason. I can tell by just looking at the way his leg is contorted that we’re going to have some major work to do here to get him back into any sort of functioning condition.
“Did he have a helmet on?” I whisper to Dr. Peterman. This kid has some road rash on his face, but other than that, there’s no visible trauma to his head.
“No idea. Either way, he’s a lucky guy.”
He’s an extremely lucky guy. He’s in the hands of one of the best trauma surgeons in the state, Dr. Peterman, and as his long-term trainee, I know his process in and out. The two of us are a dream team, we operate like a well-oiled machine.
Laying there, he looks like a young boy, but I guess he is a teenager after all. I often forget how old I am, and these days, more and more people look young to me. His body is so lanky. He’s extremely tall, but all skin and bone, and the track marks on
his arm stick out like a sore thumb on his pale white skin. His face is sprinkled with freckles and he has long curly blond eyelashes. He looks so peaceful laying there, in spite of his tattered condition.
We go to work setting bones, stretching his torn muscles and pinning them into holes and sewing everything up as proficiently as possible. The few hours it takes us to finish up is nothing compared to the months of rehab this poor guy is going to need before he can get back on a bike again.
They take him into recovery to sleep off his anesthesia, and I can’t help but wonder if anyone’s tracked down his family and contacted them yet. He’s just a teenager; surely there’s someone out there looking for him.
“Nice work today, Sloan,” Dr. Peterman says to me. His reassurance feels so good to me, and I know that when it comes down to me officially graduating, he’ll be a huge part in making sure I end up with my dream job here at the hospital. “I think you can handle the rehabilitation plan for this one if you want to get started on it. I’ll be back in a little bit to check your work.”
This was the first time he’d ever suggested such a thing. Normally, we worked together on projects like this. I’m so excited about the opportunity that I almost forget about the patient himself. Who he is. What that could possibly mean for me.
I shut myself in the office with a huge cup of coffee and try to focus on the task at hand.
It’s not happening.
There’s only one thing weighing on my mind.
That giant stamp tattooed across Hank Boden’s chest. One I’ve seen before, if only for a short moment of my life.
That one-night stand with a tall dark bearded mountain man that actually never happened. The one that I play over and over again in my brain, imagining what actually might’ve happened if I let my guard down and let myself have a wild night of casual sex with a biker that I hardly knew. My lady parts tingle just thinking about it.
Gavin, sexy Mountain Misfit, is the stuff that wet dreams are made of, and until now, I’ve been able to keep him right where he belongs with a little help from my best friend, Olive—as far away from me as possible. Only in my dreams.
Even just the idea of him right now is messing with my productivity. I have a stack of paperwork spread out on the desk and I’m just picturing him storming through the hospital door, staring me down with those dark eyes, and dragging me into the janitor closet. I don’t know what it is about him. He definitely doesn’t seem nice.
He seems like my type.
The exact opposite of nice. The big bad wolf not even dressed in sheep’s clothing, but in leather and tight denim.
That’s why I’ve sworn him off, at least until I am done with school and gainfully employed. Head down, nose clean.
I take a big swig of my coffee, burning my tongue recklessly.
That’s how I’m acting right now. Recklessly. I need to get back into that productivity zone.
I pull up a chart on the computer and start making a case file for him. I’m surprised he’s not in the system at all. Based on that fact, I’m fairly certain any effort I make on his rehab plan is probably going in the trash, but I need to show Dr. Peterman that I’m capable of doing this on my own.
I can’t picture this kid doing physical therapy, but he’s going to need it if he wants his leg to function normally ever again.
I hate thinking about the fact that he’s being pumped full of painkillers right now, given the obvious signs of drug use, but again, I doubt anything I do or say is going to solve that problem.
I distance myself from any assumptions and just get lost in the work.
Follow the protocol, Sloan, I keep reminding myself. I’m so close to the finish line.
I’m having a hard time focusing. I can’t stop worrying about who this kid is and if anyone even knows that he’s missing. The Mountain Misfits are known to be fairly reclusive, keeping to themselves high up on the mountain. My best friend, Olive, works for them at the Bucktail Saloon, though, and I’m sure she could probably send out a message for me. I pull out my phone to text her.
Sloan: You working?
Olive: Yes, but I can leave if you want to chill!!!!!
Sloan: We have Hank Boden here.
Sloan: Motorcycle accident. He’s in recovery.
Olive: Shit!!!
Sloan: Can you contact his family?
Olive: I’m here with his dad. I will send him. Text me the info. Thank u.
Sloan: No problem.
Olive: Can u hide his shit?
Sloan: What?
Olive: Never mind. Forget I said that.
Olive: You know that’s Gavin’s brother?
My heart damn near stops. It’s gross and I feel like a horrible person, yet overly excited at the same time. I don’t ever want to see someone get severely injured, but I’m going to get to see that sexy stranger again. Who knows? Maybe things have fizzled in the months since I met him, but the stirring in my core tells me otherwise.
Sloan: Oh no! Well tell him Hank is going to be ok. He’s pretty banged up, that’s all. I’ll tell him all about it when he gets here.
She sends me a couple angry face emojis.
Sloan: Just doing my job.
Olive: And I’m just doing mine!!!!!
Captain Cock Block, queen of keeping me out of trouble. What is a girl supposed to do, though? Sometimes work and pleasure get mixed up. I’m going to do my best to keep my cool.
Dr. Peterman is going to be back any minute now. I toss my phone in my pocket and turn to the screen in front of me.
“Tibial fracture rehab protocol:” I type. “Phase I – in-house care.”
I begin typing up the first week of Hank’s recovery, which will mostly be strict bed rest. It’s fairly boring: figuring out which specialists need to see the patient at what time and what goals need to be met to get him back to full recovery, but my coffee is finally cool enough to chug down, and I zip through my work effortlessly.
Gavin
I pull my phone out of my pocket. It’s Olive, my manager at the Bucktail Saloon. She normally doesn’t need my help unless there’s an emergency. I step outside into the fresh mountain air.
“What’s up, girl?”
“Hey…” she says somberly. “Goob wrecked. He’s ok; please don’t panic. Your dad is on his way to the hospital now, but I thought I should let you know.”
“Oh shit. How’d you find out?” We don’t really do conventional medicine up here. We have a “guy,” Patch, who’s been taking care of us for years. He can dig a bullet out of a body like the best of ’em. I would be surprised if Goob was even in the system at this point. Who knows when the last time was he saw a doctor down there?
“I have my sources.”
She has A source at the hospital. And I know exactly who it is. The chick who has been just out of my reach for all these months, the woman that Olive has been doing everything in her power to keep me away from because she thinks I’ll be a bad influence on her.
I probably won’t be a good influence on her, I mean, I’m halfway hard just thinking about her perky little tits and tight ass in a pair of scrubs, but I’ve been really making an effort lately to clean my act up so she doesn’t think I’m a complete degenerate. No more sticking my dick in dirty birdies or blowing rails of coke ’til all hours of the night with the boys. The only thing I’ve been banging is floorboards since the day I met Sloan.
“You still there?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll head down now.”
I’m not happy that my brother is in the hospital, obviously no one wants to see their kin hurt, but everyone said it was only a matter of time before we found him dead or in a ditch. The kid has had a rough life, and I thought I could help him, but all I did was make him worse. Meaner, badder, more reckless. Maybe this will be the nudge he needs to slow down.
“Stay away from Sloan!” she says, knowing exactly where my mind is. Olive is 5’2 and cute as hell, with tight blonde curls and a perfect pout, but
when she’s being serious, she kind of scares me. “If you get her in trouble YOU’RE going to need a trauma surgeon.”
“She’s a grown woman, Ollie.”
“And your brother just got out of surgery,” she taunts.
“I know. Can you stop lecturing me so I can get down there before my dad does something ridiculous? He’s the one you need to worry about.” He’s probably got the place turned upside down by now. Anytime that man sets foot in a building that isn’t a bar, he turns into a feral dog, snarling, snapping, and pissing everywhere. “I’ll keep you posted on Goob.”
“Hey,” I yell to the guys. “We gotta go. Goob wrecked.”
“Oh shit. He ok? The cops got him?” Heat asks.
“He’s in the hospital.”
They rush out the door and I lock up behind them.
The three of us mount our bikes. The clubhouse is only a few minutes away, thanks to the trails my grandfather and his brothers cut through the side of the mountain.
Pacing around outside the house is the president of one of our allied clubs, The Sabers. He’s a short dark man whose bite is way worse than his bark. I’m more than happy to have him on our team. I’ve seen the kind of things that happen to his enemies.
“Where’s your old man?” he asks as soon as he spots me. He looks pissed. Telling him what’s going on downtown could be a big mistake. There’s no need to let anyone on the outside in on the fact that things aren’t operating business as usual today.
“He’s busy.”
“I really don’t care. We need to have a sit-down.”
By the empty black glare of his eyes and the dark wrinkled frown on his face, I can tell it’s not going to be a friendly meet and greet. I’m on a mission, though, and I don’t have time to track down my troublemaking father.
“Brooks, you wanna handle this for me, brother? Why don’t you see if Esther wants to show Mr. Jaso around the place while we try and find Moses.”