by Jessie Cooke
“Want me to drive?”
Cody never had a driver’s license before he was locked up. Some of the guys had been teaching him how to ride before he got locked up, but Dax wasn’t sure he’d ever done that on his own either. “Not ready to die today,” Dax told him with a laugh. “Get your felon ass in the car.”
Cody grinned and opened the door. After tossing his box over the seat he got in. “The old lady’s car?” he asked Dax when Dax got in the other side.
“Yeah. Her name is Angel.”
“Hard to imagine the woman that tied you down…especially if everything I heard about her was true.”
“You’ll like her,” was all Dax said. He wasn’t surprised Cody had heard about Angel. His father used to say that the prison grapevine was “faster than a bored housewife on speed.”
Once Dax got them out of the prison gates and onto the road, the two men drove in silence for miles. Cody broke the silence first, and Dax almost cringed as the kid asked:
“So, have you seen Macy?”
Dax knew this moment was coming. He’d let himself believe that Cody had put two and two together…but even if he suspected, he was obviously still in denial. When the kid asked about her in his letters to Dax, he had “conveniently” forgotten to answer that question. Now, there was no getting out of it.
“Yeah, she’s…around.” Macy was the daughter of Tank, one of the club members that had been around since Dax’s father’s days. He wasn’t that old—Dax figured maybe forty-five—but he had C.O.P.D. and thanks to all the trouble he had breathing, he didn’t ride much anymore. He still lived on the ranch and he was still an active member of the club. He did handyman and mechanic work around the ranch now, and up until about six months ago Macy had still lived with him. She worked in the bakery owned by one of the club girls in town and she was taking classes at the community college. As far as Dax knew, she was always a pretty good kid. He knew for a long time that she was hanging out with Jimmy Kearns, Cody’s lifelong best friend, but he'd assumed it was just to support each other…that is, until she moved in with him right after he became a prospect. Dax thought about kicking the kid out, but he hadn’t done anything other than fuck Cody’s girlfriend, and that went on in droves around the ranch. Instead, he just hoped that Cody would be over Macy by the time he came home. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.
Cody raised an eyebrow and said, “Well, I have to give her credit for standing by her promise that she was finished with me if I ever went back to jail. I only talked to her once in eight years. I called her the day they transferred me out of the youth authority…on my eighteenth birthday. I was surprised when she took the call. I guess she felt sorry for me or something. She didn’t say too much, just that she hoped I’d be okay. That was it. I’m glad she’s still around, not that she’d ever want to be with me now. I’m a convicted felon, and that will be with me always. She had big plans for her life. Did she go to college?”
“Maybe you can talk to her about all that when you see her,” Dax said. Cody raised another eyebrow. Dax could tell by the look in his eyes that the thought of seeing her both thrilled and terrified the kid. Dax hated the thought of how crushed he’d be when he found out about her and Jimmy. Especially when Cody surprised him by going on to say:
“You know, she was my first…my only…everything. When I first got locked up all I did was think about her and wonder how she was doing and if she was thinking of me. I drove myself crazy wondering what she was doing and who she was with. I’ve loved that girl since I was thirteen years old. I guess even if she never wants to see me again, I’ll probably keep right on loving her.”
It was in those words that Dax heard how truly young Cody still was. Not just physically; Dax had known many men who went inside as adolescents, came out as legal adults, but somewhere along the way, their development had gotten arrested. Cody was still sixteen years old emotionally, and Dax was afraid of what he’d do when his heart was ripped out of his chest. “How’s her dad?” Cody asked, desperately reaching for something about Macy to talk about, Dax thought.
“Tank’s good. He’s as ornery as ever. Pissed at the world that he can’t ride anymore. He stays busy fixing things on the ranch.”
Cody was quiet for a few minutes and then he said, “I met a guy from a club out in Cali while I was inside.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. They’re called Cen Cal Commies. You ever heard of them?”
It was Dax’s turn to raise an eyebrow. That club’s reputation stretched all the way back east. They were the kind of hard-core that old Hawk had been trying to make his club, the Sinners. The kind of hard-core that Dax had been trying to get the Skulls away from. They dealt in anything and everything that would turn a profit, and last Dax heard, they’d expanded their territory from the Central Valley all the way up north above Sacramento. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them. What’s the guy in for?”
“He was in for trafficking and weapons charges, and he assaulted a couple of police officers when they arrested him.”
“What was he doing in prison in Massachusetts?”
“He was picked up just outside of Boston. He was only seventeen at the time. He did eight years and got out a couple months before I did. He’s kept in touch. Cool guy.”
“He’s not the kind of guy I’d recommend you associate with if you’re planning on staying out of prison.”
Cody chuckled. “Thanks, Dad, I’ll remember that.” Dax shot him a sideways glance. This kid was definitely going to cause him some trouble. He’d been kind of enjoying the peace and quiet the past six months or so since the war with the Sinners ended and he’d been concentrating on legitimizing their businesses, and on Angel. He gave Cody another glance. The kid was staring out the window now and Dax couldn’t help but notice how young he looked. He was still young enough that this didn’t have to destroy his future. The problem was going to be convincing the kid he wanted one…outside of the club.
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Acknowledgments
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to people, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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