by S. E. Jakes
Running with Billy after he’d annoyed the hell out of his dad.
Sitting in the backseat of our newest acquisition, wondering what the hell to do next.
Joyrides down the highway on a summer’s night, when we were all still invincible. Because I was goddamned convinced we’d been, at one point.
“You take on too much, Rush. Because of me. I know that. Always did,” Noah was telling me now. I swallowed and forced the panic down like a lion tamer with a whip. Problem was, I was too tired to stay as alert as I needed to be, and the growl of panic was waiting for the right opportunity to bite back in. “Give me twenty. I’ll be there. Want me to stay on the line?”
I pulled myself together and said, “No, ’s’okay.”
“You’re not. I’m coming.”
I thought about how Ryker probably still had guys watching me. And how Jethro probably did too. And hell, there was still Edmund in the mix. “Go through the back.”
Noah snorted. “Yeah, I know I’m wanted.”
Twenty minutes later, on the nose, he was in my bedroom. Coffee. Donuts. Smokes. He took one look at me, still shivering, and told me to go take a warm shower.
I did. Came out, got into fresh sweats. Noah had changed my sheets for me.
“When did you get domestic?” I asked.
“When I almost got you killed—twice—and realized what a fuck up I am.” He handed me a coffee, and I took it and a chocolate donut while he pressed Play on one of our usual movies—Red Dawn (the original). We knew it by heart so it didn’t matter if we weren’t paying attention. It was background comfort.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Rush. I just . . . I got caught up. I didn’t give it much thought when I couldn’t find my phone, but I should’ve. I’d told Edmund you didn’t want to play anymore, and he accepted it way too easily. And then he needed me to drop off a customer’s car a few hours away. I should’ve fucking put it together, but I wanted to stay in his good graces, and he was promising me big things.”
There were a lot of truths in Noah’s speech, and a pretty damned big lie. “He threatened you, didn’t he?”
Noah winced, took a drag off his cigarette before admitting. “Okay, yeah, that’s part of it. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Until he cuts the brakes on a car he asks you to steal.”
“Shit.” He stubbed the cigarette out. “Got myself into it. I’ll get myself out.”
“I—”
“Want to help,” he finished. “No. I’ve been relying on you for too long. Time to man up.”
“Picking a hell of a time to realize it,” I grumbled.
“I can’t believe you grabbed that car for me the other night. After everything that happened, you still did that for me.” He shook his head.
“You’d have done it for me.”
“Yeah, I would’ve.” He sighed. “Look, Edmund’s leaving you alone—that much I know. He’s freaked you’ll send Havoc after him, so he’s laying low, pretending he had nothing to do with the brakes being cut.”
“But you know it was him—his goons,” I prompted, and when he nodded, I added, “You need to get him to leave you the fuck alone too, before he decides you’re as big of a liability as I am.”
“I’m not connected to an MC.”
“I am, though, and you’re connected to me, Noah—that’s not changing.”
“Thanks,” Noah said quietly. “I promise, I’ll handle it. And I’ll tell you if I’m in too deep.”
“You’d fucking better.”
Now, Noah turned to the matter at hand, the reason he’d come here in the first place. “Why’d you have the dream? Did Ryker do something?”
I’d much rather have kept ragging on Noah. But hell, what goes around comes around. It was my turn on the block.
I blew out a breath, feeling like I was betraying Ryker by talking about it when none of it was his fault. But Noah knew the history. “He didn’t . . . It’s . . .”
“Say it. Doesn’t matter how stupid it sounds.”
“They film porn there. And then he pushed me down for a blowjob, talked about filming it—joking—but I freaked and left and I haven’t heard from him since.”
For a second, Noah’s mouth pressed into a grim line, but his eyes softened at the same time, like there was a war going on inside of him. “He’s still keeping tabs on you.”
“Good for him,” I muttered.
“Do you think you might’ve overreacted?”
“Wait a second—now you’re on Ryker’s side?” I shoved his shoulder. “Maybe you should get the fuck out and go hang with him.”
“Yeah, not gonna happen.” Noah lit another cigarette, and I grabbed it, took a long drag.
“Linc has better stuff.”
“He always did,” Noah agreed. “Ryker makes you happy.”
“So does Linc’s shit and stealing cars and all of it’s obviously bad for me.”
He stared at me. “You’re having that PTSD shit again, right.”
It was much less of a question and more of a certainty. One I didn’t want to admit to, but when he needed to be, Noah was a great interrogator. “Maybe a little.”
“Maybe you should talk to someone about it.”
I motioned in his direction. “What’re you, a mirage?”
He rolled his eyes. “I mean, someone who can actually help.”
For a long moment, I looked at the guy I’d been calling a best friend and realized that, in his own fucked-up way, he’d never really stopped. “You help, Noah.”
After a couple more days just sitting around sulking, I got BT’s number from Noah and called him to get myself back in the game. Because hell, as long as I was self-destructing, I might as well go all the way and have some motherfucking fun with it.
And fun it was. BT had no ties to anyone but his own racing enterprise—if I stuck with him as a free agent, I wasn’t beholden to any of the MCs. But I was putting myself out there in some dangerous territory—stealing and racing in my old stomping grounds, right under McKibbins’s nose.
If I’d blown things with Ryker—the best thing I might’ve ever had—because I couldn’t get my shit together, I was going to go out with a bang. A different bang than I would’ve had with Ryker, but sex with anyone else held no interest for me. And at least the stealing almost matched the feeling Ryker gave me in the pit of my stomach before I came. Not quite, but close enough that I could pretend.
How long was I going to have to pretend? Forever, it looked like, since Ryker wasn’t exactly banging down my door.
Had I expected that? On some level, probably. I wanted him to fix it—I’d been relying on that. But really, how could I expect him to fix something that was so deeply rooted inside of me, especially when I refused to share it?
I was the one bitching that it couldn’t work out between us, but I was also the one putting up the brick wall between us as fast as I could to prove it.
For two weeks, in preparation for the next big round of races, I stole cars from North Carolina and Georgia, driving them with plates BT got from his DMV contacts. I was hoping the actual stealing would help me get back into the fun of it, and I’d found my rhythm by the end of it, if not the joy I’d expected. Since Noah and I couldn’t be seen together for any number of reasons, that made it a little less thrilling than I’d hoped.
When I got to the race area, there wasn’t a Havoc member in sight, but plenty of Hangmen . . . and one ATF agent pretending to be on the Hangmen’s side.
Then again, he’d never actually said he was pretending.
He headed my way, a saunter that made me—and a lot of women and other men—look twice at him. An act? I couldn’t be sure, but I wasn’t going to blow his cover. I tossed him something between a smirk and a smile—because hell, he was the competition and as much as I was trying to forget, he also wasn’t Ryker.
He rested his elbows on the hood of the 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302 in all its C-stripe glory. “Really?” he asked, looking down at t
he dark-green classic.
“You’re not disrespecting my car, are you?” Granted, it was a capable street performer, not a racer . . . but that’s before I’d gotten my hands on it. BT had known I’d been bored and let me modify.
“Not a bit, Rush. This for Edmund?”
I rolled my eyes. “I thought we were past pretending.”
Jethro shook his head and smiled. “Going rogue?”
“Completely.”
“Ryker?”
I shook my head. “And before you ask me, I don’t know where Noah is either.”
“Threats?”
“None that I know of. But this is for pleasure, not business. I’m returning her when I’m done racing.”
Jethro furrowed his brows. “You’re a different one, Rush.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Casey saunter over in time to catch his comment. “That he is,” he agreed. “Maybe he could do some business with the Hangmen. With the two of you on my side . . .”
We could make him some serious money. And I guess that’s all he saw me as—a moneymaker. And maybe an easy piece of ass. Him and most everyone else. But I was the one who needed to be in control from this point forward—I’d proven I couldn’t handle it any other way. “Forget it,” I told him.
Jethro straightened and looked at me like I’d signed my death warrant . . . and with a good deal of respect.
Casey was studying me, the way Jethro had, and the way Ryker used to, but no way would Casey or Jethro would get it right. Or right enough. “You’ve got balls, Rush. I’ll give you that. I see what made Ryker jump through hoops for you.”
Seriously? I shot him a look that made him ask, “Sore subject?”
Ya think? “How fast does word spread?”
“Speed of light.” Casey smiled.
“I’m moving on,” I said firmly, meaning it for that second.
“Liar,” Jethro murmured as he walked away. And that made me angry—angry enough to kick his ass in the race. Which I did, and easily, barely making use of the aftermarket mods. I took my anger out on the car, and she took it out on the road, and then I took the money and told BT I’d see him for the next round. We were doing everything in shifts and in different locations, all two days apart to make sure the police didn’t catch on.
I’d driven the Mustang here from BT’s place. Postrace, I’d dropped it back in the parking lot from where I’d taken it. I’d been planning on calling Noah for a ride. Instead, Jethro was waiting on the street, motioned for me to get into his car.
“Need a ride, Rush?”
I don’t know why I agreed to it. But the anger had dissipated, and I was still half-floating on that warm race energy that left me momentarily pliable.
But instead of taking me straight home, he pulled into the local diner.
“Racing always makes me hungry,” he explained, and what the hell—I could always eat. We didn’t have to worry about being seen together at this point, and actually, Casey would just think Jethro was trying to talk me into joining the MC’s racing team. So would BT, and he’d probably pay me extra for it.
I refused to think about Ryker or Havoc.
We ordered, and I played with the tableside minijukebox until the sodas came, avoiding any classic rock that reminded me of Ryker. Instead, I chose Jamie N Commons’s “Jungle,” and Jethro gave a nod of approval as the heavy beat shook the table between us.
It was only then I asked, “How long have you been watching me?”
Jethro grinned. “Not just you—you and Noah. And the Hangmen too, obviously. But there were jobs that started about nine months ago, before you got out of the Army. At first, I figured you were good for them, but then I started to zero in on Noah.” He paused, ran a long finger along the side of the soda glass that was wet with condensation. I don’t think he ever broke from watching me, but I was kind of mesmerized by the long finger. Because it’d been a long time for me without Ryker. When I finally met Jethro’s eyes, he added, “But you’ve got a lot of guys watching you, don’t you, Rush?”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but what came out was, “Ryker’s a good guy.”
“Then why isn’t he here with you?”
“Because I walked away. And he let me.”
Jethro stared at me. “Stupid man.”
“Me, or him?”
He snorted. “Either way, it’s his loss. My gain.”
Because I was the stupid one too. “Yeah. We’re not even close to being on the same side. Perfect together.”
“Closer than you might think. And stranger things have happened,” he commented as the waitress put down our plates of burgers and fries. He squirted ketchup on his fries and continued, “But you’re not ready for anything.”
No, I definitely wasn’t. And it hadn’t been a question anyway. So we ate in silence for a while, until he asked, “Where is Noah these days?”
“No idea,” I lied.
Jethro shook his head, obviously not believing me. “He almost got you killed. Why’re you hiding him?”
“That wasn’t entirely his fault. Besides, wouldn’t you hide your best friend?” As soon as I said that, I saw a look pass over his face. It was an expression of remorse and guilt and pain all rolled into one, a look I was intimately familiar with. “I’m sorry.”
He sat back. “Yeah, well, me too. It was five years ago. You’d think I’d be over the worst of it.”
“I think it gets worse, not better,” I confessed. “Noah and I, we’re all fucked up about Billy. Fucking nightmares.”
Jethro looked concerned. “Did you talk to anyone?”
“Yeah. In the military, they say, ‘You okay to go back out there?’ And I say, ‘Yeah.’ And everyone feels a lot better.” He snorted. For a second, I realized we were probably going through the same kind of thing, and that made me want to get Noah out of trouble by handing him over to Jethro. “What would you do for Noah?”
Jethro raised his brows. “Trading favors?”
“Trading information,” I corrected.
“What would you want me to do for him?”
“Get him out of this mess he’s involved in.”
He considered, but didn’t fully commit. Just said, “I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
“The Hangmen?”
“Actually, no. They just provide a convenient way for me to assess my target.”
“And you’re sharing all this with me why?”
He sighed, played with his soda glass. Finally, he admitted, “Because you served under my brother for three years.”
“Captain Keller?”
“My stepbrother,” he agreed. “You’re a smart guy, Rush. You can make something of yourself. What do you want to do? Like really, truly, wake up every day for the rest of your life and face the prospect of doing?”
Ryker’s face flashed in front of my face immediately, mainly because of the literalness of Jethro’s question. But I also knew that sex wasn’t enough to hold us together. Even so, was he enough? Would I find everything else through him?
Hadn’t I already started to?
My answer to Jethro was, at least, honest. “I don’t want to do anything that doesn’t have an element of danger. I suck at rules and authority. And I have this problem with stealing cars. Can’t help myself. Which makes me really popular with local law enforcement.”
Jethro smiled. “You definitely have a future in the ATF. And yes, McKibbins has a real hard-on for you. I’ll get him off your back. No strings.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got to do it on my own.”
Jethro sat back. “You do that a lot.”
“My whole life. Yeah.”
“Isn’t it nice to get some help?”
“I thought it was,” I muttered. “But it made me stupid.”
“Love’ll do that,” he agreed. “I’m just not sure that’s such a bad thing.”
At this point, I wasn’t either.
fter Jethro dropped me home, I found a message from Greta on my p
hone. I’d never given her my number, met her for all of fifteen minutes, but her, “Call me back now, Rush,” had me listening.
I dialed, then hung up. Five minutes later, I looked through the window to see Greta knocking at my door, holding a paper tray with two takeout coffee cups.
I opened up for her, asking, “What, are you tracking me?”
“I’ve been waiting a couple of blocks away,” she admitted. “I was hoping you’d reach out before I had to barge in. I figured a hang-up’s close enough.”
Barge in, she did. I didn’t know what to say to her, what the hell I was supposed to say, but obviously she’d planned on being the one doing all the talking, because she sat next to me on the couch and started in immediately. “You’re not the first to have trouble easing into the Havoc world.”
“And here I thought you were going to make me feel special.”
She stared at me with that I’m not impressed with your wiseass remarks look people often attempted with me, but I never truly believed them. I believed her. “You’re special to Ryker.”
I swallowed hard, shifted on the couch, wondering how the hell I could get away from her and her impromptu therapy session. In the end, I was honest. “Fine. But what if I can’t be with him?”
She sighed. “We can get you help for the PTSD.”
Well, there were reasons beyond the PTSD, but hell, might as well start there. “You have biker shrinks now?”
“If I say yes, will you see one?”
“No.”
“Stubborn ass.” She handed me my coffee cup and picked up her own. “So you’re just going to keep doing this?”
She motioned to me and the couch, and hell, it’s not like I was the most productive member of society, but I wasn’t sitting here moping. Much. Just in between all the stealing and racing.
“Ryker’s not fighting for me,” I reminded her after taking a sip. “He pulled away too.” Because it was so much easier to blame him along with myself.
“So you try once, and if it doesn’t go your way, that’s it?” She paused. “I’ll bet you spent more time researching how to steal a single car than you’ve spent trying to get him back.”