“Yeah. Congratulations.” The word was thick with sarcasm.
“Thanks.” Brash hesitated with spoon in midair before continuing to scoop extra big helpings of coffee into the paper filter.
When he finished and started the machine, Raze spoke up. “I’m not havin’ any of that. So I hope you’re in the mood for a half gallon of coffee. And you did not tell me what you’re after.” Swiping a hand through his hair in a show of exasperation, he said, “Why are you even here?”
Brash’s features softened. He sat down at the table again and for a couple of minutes there was no sound in the room except for Mr. Coffee’s inappropriately cheerful gurgle.
“You remember that time… when we played those rich kids at Leander?”
Brash figured the look on Raze’s face was as close as the man could get to a smile in the current version of himself. “I do.”
Brash laughed. “Man, were we outmatched. In every way possible. I got laid out like a corpse by a monster, six four and three hundred pounds. He was supposed to be a kid, but I’ve always had my doubts. I get back twinges somethin’ awful when the barometric pressure drops.” Brash glanced at Raze to make sure he was following. “I know what you’re thinkin’. The wife says I have to make a choice between Texas and medicinal cannabis. She has visions of goin’ to the house for weed.” He chuckled. “I tease her by sayin’ it would give her bar street cred. She doesn’t find that as funny as I do. Way I see it… it’s a plant for Christ’s sake. And the Creator didn’t say you can eat these plants, but not those.”
Raze grunted agreement.
“Anyhow. I’m on the ground like a rag doll. I knew better than to move. Truthfully, I was just concentratin’ on tryin’ not to bawl like a baby in front of my friends. Not to mention girls.
“People started runnin’ at me from the home sideline. Medics. Trainer. My old man.” He glanced at Raze again. “But before any of ‘em got to me, you were down on the ground on your knees leanin’ close and sayin’, ‘I’ll get him for you, Brannach’.” Brash stopped to smile. “I had no idea you knew my real name. Didn’t know anybody knew my real name except the people with the keys to the file cabinets in the office.
“So they put me on a stretcher and carried me off to the side, but they started the clock again when they were loadin’ my ass onto the ambulance. I turned my head even though they’d told me not to. Sure ‘nough. That fucker was laid out same as me. You standin’ there with a big grin, givin’ me a thumbs up.
“Don’t know how you did it. You’re no bigger than me.” The coffee maker announced with an extended hiss that it had discharged its duty. Brash got up, poured a mug full, and set it down in front of Raze. “Not the kind of thing I’m likely to forget.”
Raze cleared his throat. “Look, Brash. You don’t owe…”
“Shut up and drink that down.” He nodded to keys on a holder near the door. “Those the keys to the shop?”
Raze narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
Brash didn’t wait for his answer. He pulled the key ring off the cup hook and started for the door. “Gonna see if your ride is up for a spin.”
Raze huffed. “I told you…”
“Heard you, Ruin.” Brash walked out without looking back.
Two hours later Raze was more sober than he’d been since he’d been back, which was a good thing because he was speeding along beside Brash Fornight, the deafening rumble of Harleys filling a place in his heart he hadn’t realized was empty and yearning. It wasn’t lost on him that there was probably a reason why he’d scraped off almost everything in his life that was tangible, but kept the bike. He’d even done a little maintenance to make sure it was good as gold, but he hadn’t taken it out.
Until Brash came for him.
The feel of evening air rushing past was like an elixir moving slowly through his veins to rearrange his molecules and give him a reason, that single elusive reason that had been successfully evading him, to think life might still have something for him. The other bike keeping pace with him, a steady reminder that he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought, began to heal the frayed edges of his soul.
“Got a guest, boys,” Brash announced as he stepped into the clubhouse kitchen a step ahead of Raze.
Raze got a hearty welcome from club members who were also there for supper.
There was a time, when Brash had prospected, that Raze had considered club life, but had decided to go another way. There was an unspoken feeling in the club that he could have been, would have been, one of them if he’d chosen it. That and his relationship with Brash made him an honorary of sorts, a friend of the club. More than a ‘hang around’. But not an official member.
After dinner with the seven people who showed for food and easy conversation, they adjourned to the bar.
“Don’t you have a wife to get home to?” Raze asked Brash.
Brash shook his head. “She’s gone to Houston for a shoppin’ trip. It’s the semiannual drain-the-bank-account girls’ thing organized by my mother.”
A single barked laugh escaped Raze’s chest and shook his body in a way that was alien and called attention to itself. He realized he hadn’t laughed in a long, long time. So long his body was reacting like it wasn’t sure that was normal.
He was just about to tell the recruit behind the bar that he’d have whiskey, but Brash beat him to it. Brash had gone around the bar, pulled two long necks out of ice and set a cold beer in front of Raze. The look he gave Brash was part glare, part amusement, part admiration, and part affection. He took the beer and pulled down a long swig. Brash took a stool next to him and did the same while studying his friend.
“You’re staring,” Raze said quietly.
“Yeah.”
“I’m not suicidal if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”
“So happens that’s not what I’m thinkin’.”
Raze lifted his chin and gave Brash a ghost of a smile. “There’s something you’re itchin’ to share. And I think I’d rather hear it than continue the silent examination.”
“Why didn’t you return my calls?”
“Didn’t want to talk.”
Brash exhaled a long weary-sounding breath. “Why’s that?”
“I’m thinkin’ I’m not the best company right now.”
“Why’s that?”
Raze turned to look Brash in the face. “My troubles are my own.”
“And there it is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means you’re dead wrong. Means so long as you got people who care about you, your troubles are not just yours.”
Raze took a gulp of his beer and glanced around the room before answering. “I hear what you’re sayin’. And it means somethin’ to me. A lot, actually. But…”
“If the next thing you’re gonna say is that you need to hole up and nurse your wounds with Jack Daniels, I’m gonna say that’s unacceptable.”
Raze almost smiled. Brash’s audaciousness was one of the things he’d always liked about the biker kid. He supposed that was the reason why he’d earned the nickname Brash.
“Well, the thing is, for good or bad, it’s not up to you.”
“Makin’ it up to me.”
At that Raze felt a chuckle bubble up in his throat. His friend was clearly on a mission to rescue him and he knew Brash well enough to know that Raze represented the bone he’d taken hold of. He wasn’t going to let go until the world was leveled.
“So you’re out to save me, are you?” Raze didn’t try to disguise his amusement. The idea was preposterous.
He’d ended up in a horror of a war because of a woman who wanted more shoes. While he was in the middle of that, she’d betrayed him, and the only family he had left had died. He felt like he was more than entitled to a few decades of alcoholic oblivion.
The question was rhetorical. So Brash didn’t answer.
“How’re you gonna do that?”
“Gonna help you find your way to somethin’ use
ful.”
“Somethin’ useful,” Raze repeated drily.
“That’s right. Your mind’s full of dark thoughts. Can’t do anything about that. Can’t change what you’ve been through. But we can give you something to do until some other thoughts start fillin’ up your pail.”
“I don’t wanna be your project, Brash.”
“Too bad. Here’s the thing. The club has interests that are far-reaching. Probably more so than anybody not involved with the day-to-day would guess. If you added in my brother’s business, well, you’d know the Fornights have forks in a whole damn lot of pies.”
When Brash stopped talking, Raze said, “If that has something to do with me, I’m not makin’ the connection.”
Brash paused, like he was trying to feel out what to say next. Careful wasn’t his modus operandi, but he could tread softer when he needed to.
“D’you know my pop started out as a hands-on mechanic?”
That seemed to catch Raze’s interest. “No.”
Brash grinned. “He was so damn good he was head mechanic for The Yellow Rose when he was still in his twenties.”
“I did not know that.”
Brash chuckled. “Yeah. The custom business grew outta that.”
“Huh.”
“The point I’m gettin’ to is this.”
“Finally.”
“Hear me out. I’m tryin’ to say that life’s a path with twists and turns. Sometimes we don’t know what’s around the next bend. Might be bad. Might be good. But as long as we keep gettin’ up every day we’re gonna find out. What do you think I do?”
“Do?”
“Yes. Do. What do you think I do with my time?” It was clear that Raze didn’t have a ready answer. “I’m guessin’ by the silence and the blank look on your face that you have no clue.”
“Sorry to say I got no clue. I guess that makes me a self-involved son of a bitch.”
“Let’s not stray from the point at hand. Which is that I finance and supervise entrepreneurial businesses.”
“No shit.”
Brash nodded. “Hard as it might be to believe, it’s a fact. Got little money makers humming away all over town. Dry cleaners. Stainless steel fabricators. Delis. Outdoor kitchens. Pool supplies. Taco stands. I could go on, but you get the picture.”
“That’s… kinda impressive.” Raze looked and sounded sincerely impressed. “All legit?”
That caused Brash to lean back a bit. “Yes. What’d you think? That we’re an outlaw club?”
“Well…”
“Is that why you didn’t throw in with us? You thought we were…” Raze didn’t answer. “Well, to be fair. Things may not have been entirely up and up in my granddad’s day. But Pop changed all that after I was born.”
Raze nodded slightly. “Meant no offense.”
“None taken.” Brash shoved his empty bottle toward the inner edge of the bar. “This is what I want to know. If you could spend your days doin’ something besides sittin’ in your kitchen with a bottle, what would it be? I get that sellin’ off your tools means you’re not wantin’ to reopen the auto repair.” Raze looked at Brash, but said nothing as he finished off his beer. Brash took that as agreement. “So. If it’s not that, then what is it?”
“What is what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I know better.” Brash knocked on the bar. The prospect hurried over. “Coffee. Two.” He turned back to Raze. “If you were goin’ to do somethin’ with your days besides sittin’ in your kitchen with Jack Daniels, what would it be?”
One question.
One simple, straightforward question was all it took.
An image danced across Raze’s inner field of vision of a night when he’d been on the road that followed the Guadalupe River just outside Kerrville. It was about nine o’clock and just a little over an hour from home. He’d made an easy turn and come up on an ice house. It was a nice night so the bay doors were open and he could see inside. Band playing. People at the bar. Sitting at picnic tables inside and out. Bikes parked in a row off to one side of pickups and cars.
He pulled in and switched off the ignition. He sat on the bike for a few minutes just taking it in. The lights. The music. The laughter. It was inviting. Welcoming. The essence of aliveness housed in a place called The Lupe.
Raze kept that to himself.
“Don’t know,” he lied.
“Alright. Consider the seed planted. Now I want you to stay overnight ‘cause I got somethin’ to show you in the mornin’.”
Raze was shaking his head. “Nope. Thanks for the invitation, but I’m getting’ back home.”
“Got a guest room right down the hall with a new toothbrush and clean sheets. Stay tonight.”
“Brash. Read my lips. I’m goin’ home.”
“No, you’re not.”
Raze almost laughed. “Who’s gonna stop me?”
“Well, technically nobody’s gonna stop you, but if you go you’re walkin’, because your bike keys have gone missin’. And…” Brash turned a shit-eating grin his way, “you can’t call Uber ‘cause you don’t have a phone.”
Raze sat back looking incredulous. The move was far out of line. Even for Brash. “You’re plannin’ to hold me captive.”
“Of course not,” Brash said in the most serious tone. “We’re gonna offer our very fine hospitality while we’re lookin’ for your keys.” His smile returned. “I’m sure we’ll find them by mid-morning.”
“Fuck,” Raze muttered.
“Meantime, you can hang out here. Play some pool. Get to know your friends again.” Brash gave him a meaningful look. “And think about what I said.”
Raze wanted to be mad. He thought he should be mad. But he wasn’t mad. For the first time in forever he felt himself take in a breath that went all the way to the bottom of his lungs.
It was clear that Brash had made a success of an entrepreneurial empire with force of will and an absolute unwavering certainty that, once he’d made up his mind, he was right and not taking no for an answer.
Raze respected that. For less than a second he thought about walking home, to save his pride, but decided that was ridiculous. Brash had something going on in his head. Raze was more than a little curious to see what it was, so he decided he was going to let it play out.
“If you stay on tomorrow night, which happens to be Friday, there’ll be girls here. Single. Willing,” Brash said with eyebrows raised.
“Girls,” he repeated with derision. “I’ll be gone by… ten did you say? I’ve had enough of girls.”
“You got a bad one. There’s no denyin’ that. But they’re not all…”
“Save it.”
Brash held up his hands in surrender. “Not my business.”
Raze barked out a laugh. “Oh! That’s not your business, but everything else about my life is.”
Ignoring the sarcasm, Brash agreed with Raze’s assessment. “We see eye to eye. That’s exactly how I’m thinkin’ of it, too.”
CHAPTER Three RAZE & RUIN
Light was streaming through the high rectangular windows when Raze woke up. He had to admit that he’d gone for several hours without dwelling on Becky or the war or the fact that he hadn’t been able to get home in time for his uncle’s funeral. He also felt something he thought he would never feel again. Gratitude.
He hadn’t slept well. Not because the set up wasn’t comfortable. The sheets were new. The air conditioning was just right. The walls that had been separated by concrete blocks and insulated were virtually soundproof. And it wasn’t because he hadn’t been tired enough to sleep. He had been.
It was because he hadn’t been able to get that image of the ice house out of his head. The last thing he’d ever thought he would do in this life was own a bar. Or a restaurant. Or a music club. But he’d spent a night tossing and turning while considering taking on all three at once.
Sometime in the wee hours after he’d made a decision, whether he realized it, or admitted it, or no
t, he drifted off.
There was a fairly tight seal on the guest room door, but unless his mind was playing tricks, he smelled bacon. He loved bacon. That inner acknowledgement led him to ask himself why he didn’t cook more. It wasn’t like he didn’t know how to fry bacon.
He glanced at the bedside clock, which might or might not be right. Eight thirteen. There was no way to verify that because he didn’t wear a watch, but it felt close to right.
As promised there was a new, still in the package toothbrush in the drawer next to the sink. Shampoo. Soap. No comb, but that was what fingers were for.
He stripped down. Got clean and put his clothes back on, minus the underwear that was unceremoniously dumped in the trash. It wouldn’t hurt him to go commando for a few hours.
When he stepped out into the hall he was alone, but heard faint sounds of dish clanking and the murmur of conversation.
Eric looked up from the remains of eggs, pancakes, and bacon. “You just made it, sleepy. Kitchen closes at nine on weekdays.”
“You run a tight schedule for bikers,” Raze answered.
“What’ll you have?” said the cook.
Raze pointed at Eric’s plate. “I’ll have what he’s havin’ if that’s okay.”
“Comin’ up,” she said with an authority that implied that nothing, not earthquake, hurricane or flood could prevent Raze from being presented with perfectly prepared eggs, bacon, and pancakes.
Brash was sitting at the end of the table with the Austin American-Statesman spread out in front of him and a coffee mug in his hand. He nodded at Raze and kicked out the chair next to him, which was biker for, “Sit here.”
Raze spoke to Arnold on the way to the end of the table. To Brash he said, “Thought only old people read papers.”
“Make of it what you will,” Brash replied good-naturedly, implying that it would be near to impossible to ruffle him.
“So where’s my surprise?”
Brash grinned. “Glad you’re greetin’ the morning with a spark of eagerness.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” When Brash still didn’t answer the question, he said, “Let me guess. There’s not really somethin’ you want to show me.”
Roadhouse (Sons of Sanctuary MC, Austin, Texas Book 5) Page 2