Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8)

by Susan Fanetti

  There wasn’t much to be found—from fourteen, she’d fed herself, clothed herself, paid for school supplies herself, and paid into the household as well—but it was all she had, and she was slowly building some savings. If she ever had to run, with her mom or without her, she had enough to get far enough away to be lost.

  Today, though, she just needed enough cash to eat and purchase a couple things. She took two twenties and a ten out of the roll, stuffed it back in the little black canvas drawstring bag, set it in the black shoebox, and tucked her stash deep into the shadows under the floor.

  A house spider dropped onto her hand, and she brushed him off to wander on wherever he was headed. The bugs in the walls and floorboards were about the only things living decent lives in this house.

  ~oOo~

  As Sage stepped lightly down the hall, she stopped at the kitchen doorway, surprised.

  Her mom was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, looking out the window at the back yard. A cup of coffee steamed in one hand, and a cigarette coiled smoke in the other. Each day started with a cigarette. After lunch, she’d add cheap wine to her tobacco intake. After dinner, it would be all that plus whatever else Denny pushed on her. Usually weed, which was no big deal. But too often it was pills, crushed for snorting. When he was feeling flush, it was coke.

  “Mom?”

  She turned stiffly and stared at her. Her neck was vivid red and dark purple, and her eye and mouth had puffed up even more. Her dingy brown hair lay oddly off her crown, probably over a new bald spot. As used to her mother’s bruises as Sage was, it still hurt to see.

  “Mornin’, baby girl. Working early today?”

  “Yeah, both jobs.” She kept her voice down. “I’ll be home late, unless you need me.”

  Her mom shook her head. “Probably for the best you stay away today.”

  Yeah. Sage couldn’t have agreed more. She went into the kitchen, kissed her mother’s swollen cheek, and got gone.

  ~oOo~

  There were two things that had made Sage’s life pretty bearable even before she’d had the escape of work: books and music. So as far as she was concerned, she’d found the perfect jobs, at the library and a used record shop, and she could live her whole life without ever moving on from either.

  She also really loved tattoos, not only the pride she had in wearing art, but the actual physical sensation of being tattooed. As much as she loved the way she looked, though, she understood—hell, she’d been told too often not to understand—that she’d significantly limited her career options. Marla at Iron Spike had sat her down for a whole damn hour of heart-to-heart when Sage had told her she wanted ink like mehndi on her hands—and again when she’d wanted the little sprig of lilies on her temple. So she knew she’d never work in an office or be a teacher or anything like that, she but loved the way she looked, and she especially loved that nobody looked like her.

  With so much ink, she probably couldn’t have found a job at any other branch of the Tulsa City-County Library, but her high-school librarian had left the school and come to work as the head librarian of the Maxwell Park branch, and Mrs. Wilmett had always liked Sage, so she’d been willing to overlook the ink.

  Sage’s shift began half an hour before the library opened, and Mrs. Wilmett was the only one already there. She was standing at the circulation desk, going through a stack of papers, when Sage came around from the back and stuffed her bag in her cubby.

  “Morning, Mrs. Dub.”

  “Morning, sunshine,” Mrs. Wilmett chirped with a smile. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  Warm sun, spring breeze, and birdsong. A day more like mid-May than mid-April. “If you like that sort of thing.”

  Mrs. Wilmett laughed. “You try to be so gloomy, but I know there’s sunshine in your heart.”

  Not this morning, there wasn’t, but Sage smiled anyway. She was away from the house, in a sleepy library still dim from the night, and, okay, the sun had felt pretty great on her arm as she’d driven to work with the window down.

  “You’re the sunshiney one, Mrs. Dub.” She went to the book drop, pulled back the nearly full bin, and started sorting the books onto a library cart.

  “When you get those checked in and shelved, how about taking on the displays? It’s time to start pushing the summer reading program.”

  “I’m on it!” Doing the displays and bulletin boards was a favorite task. She liked playing with colored paper and the die-cut machine to make letters and shapes. A lot of the borders she could choose from were sparkly, too. She loved glitter. Today might be a decent day after all.

  ~oOo~

  After a four-hour shift at the library, Sage grabbed a quick cheeseburger Happy Meal at McDonald’s and drove to the Brady Arts District and The Spin Bin, where she was scheduled for an eight-hour closing shift as the shift manager. Not that ‘manager’ was a big deal at the Bin.

  In the Bin’s tiny back lot, her sixteen-year-old Dodge Aries kept running for about a minute after she took the key from the ignition, and she had just about convinced herself the fucker was possessed before it finally stopped.

  Shit. She’d just put a bunch of money into this craptastic machine a few months ago for new brakes. If it needed more work, she might just pour gasoline over it and light a match. Public transportation wasn’t so bad, right?

  Except that this car meant freedom. Just having it parked in the driveway at home meant she could get away whenever she wanted to. She’d paid for it with her own money, and yeah, it was a piece of crap, but it was her own piece of crap. Her own ticket.

  She let herself in the back door, into the dark hole that was the Bin’s stock and staff room, and signed in. By the music thumping through the speakers—Alice in Chains—Sage knew she’d find Dylan out front, probably sitting behind the sales desk, his beak nose buried in a comic book.

  Yep. There was no one in the shop but Dylan, which wasn’t all that unusual for a weekday afternoon. Abe, the owner and actual manager of The Spin Bin, opened most mornings and checked out by noon. He spent most of his time focused on his true love, trying to find the Next New Thing in the regional band scene, and wouldn’t think about the Bin again until Sage called him with the totals tonight.

  “Afternoon, freak,” Dylan said as she came up to the desk.

  “Afternoon, mutant,” she answered. “How’d it go last night?” He’d been to Cain’s for a show. Sage was supposed to join him, but she’d been busy aiming a shotgun at her mother’s boyfriend.

  “It was good. Things got chippy outside after, but they had some hardcore security, so it didn’t get too wild. I missed you, though.”

  “Yeah, sorry. Had some things to deal with at home.” Nobody knew what went on at her house. She didn’t elaborate, and Dylan knew not to expect her to.

  “Hey—nobody bought that UK pressing of ‘Iron Fist’ since I was here last, did they?” The Bin sold old and new records and CDs, as well as t-shirts and posters and other fan paraphernalia, but they specialized in rare vinyl pressings and bootlegs.

  “The red one, that’s been sitting here for a year? No, nobody bought it in the past two days.”

  “No need to be a smartass.” She bumped her elbow into his leg. “Scoot. You’re in my way.”

  With a roll of his eyes, Dylan unfolded his miles-long legs, stood, and dragged the stool back so he wasn’t blocking the big drawer where the rare heavy metal albums were kept. They didn’t put the rares on the floor. Instead, they kept a handmade catalog on the sales desk. Customers had to ask to be shown one, like fine jewels.

  Sage opened the drawer, went to the Ms, for Motörhead, and flipped through until she found what she was looking for. A 1982 limited-edition single, pressed on red vinyl. B side was ‘Remember Me I’m Gone.’ The sleeve was in good shape; the record itself was perfect.

  She checked the catalogue for the price. Retail was forty bucks. With her employee discount, it was thirty-two. Pretty steep for a thank-you gift for a guy who’d all but chucked he
r out on her ear last night. But he had saved her mom.

  “You got a sudden itch for Lemmy?” Dylan asked.

  “Gift for a friend.” She went to the register and checked herself out.

  “You mean you have a friend besides me? Cheater. I thought we were exclusive.”

  “Hate to break it to you, mutant boy, but I am loved by many.”

  ~oOo~

  On her way home that night, Sage drove down Knoxville Avenue. She wasn’t in any hurry to go around to the next block and her own house, and hoped for signs that her hot biker neighbor was home. Her excuse to stop by lay on the passenger seat at her side, slid into a slim Spin Bin paper bag, its distinctive lime green so bright it practically illuminated the interior of her car.

  It was after ten o’clock on a weeknight, which was probably a rude time to just stop by, but she doubted that bikers kept regular hours. In fact, she knew he didn’t. She’d seen—and heard—him around the neighborhood a little, riding his big Harley, roaring around late at night, sometimes early in the morning. If he wasn’t around, she’d just stick a note in the bag and leave it on his porch.

  In fact, that might be better. Mysterious.

  But as she neared his house, she saw lights on in one set of windows, and her one working headlight glinted off the chrome of his massive Harley, parked at the top of his driveway, up against the closed garage door, leaning jauntily on its kickstand. He was definitely home.

  She parked on the street and turned off the engine. Yet again, it did that poltergeist thing where it kept running like the key was still in it. What the hell?

  Again, it ran just long enough to make her think it might not stop, and wonder what she’d do about that, and then it stopped. The car shook like it had a case of the willies and then settled.

  Fuck. If she’d ever had a father, maybe she’d have learned how to fix a car. But her father had died before she was born, and the only men in her childhood had been her mom’s pantheon of loser boyfriends. The only thing any of them had ever been capable of fixing was a speedball.

  Maybe Hot Biker Neighbor would take a look? It was worth an ask. Maybe he’d take off his shirt when he got under her hood. That would be cool. She got hold of her canvas bag and the lime green bag containing her very thoughtful thank-you gift, and opened the door.

  It made its usual rusty complaint as she got out, and it rattled when she closed it. Still, she stuck the key in and locked it. This neighborhood was mostly okay, but it wasn’t what you’d call prosperous, and even her piece of shit was worth a few hundred bucks of scrap. If nothing else, the brakes were new. Ish.

  Feeling kind of dumb and immature—what she felt like was a teenager with a crush on her teacher, so much so that The Police were singing in her head about it—Sage went up the walk, stepped onto the little stoop, and pushed the faintly glowing button of his doorbell. There was a diamond-shaped window in the door, above her head. It was dim, just showing a faint light from what was probably the living room, but she saw shadows moving, and then his head—he looked around sharply, quickly, at the space above her, and then down. When their eyes met, he stared. She put on a ‘hey neighbor!’ smile and gave him a little wave.

  And then he went away.

  The door didn’t open, she didn’t hear a lock turn or anything, his porch light didn’t go on, and Sage thought he was going to let her stand out here in the dark until she gave up.

  But then the porch light came on, a deadbolt turned, and the door opened.

  Sage would never have said she was into the whole older-man thing. The guys she dated were her mostly like her—pallid, skinny punks, or the occasional skater boy. Emo, goth, punk, whatever. She’d never had a father, didn’t need a father, certainly didn’t want to fuck a father.

  And yet, oh Daddy, this guy was hot. She had unconventional tastes in men, but she thought this dude was, like, objectively hot.

  His dark hair was short, almost buzzed, and he had a scruffy, three-day kind of dark beard going. She was short, so almost all guys seemed tall to her, but she thought he was around six feet—nearly a whole foot taller than she. Broad shoulders, good pecs, flat belly, tight ass, excellent back, good ink. And those eyes the color of tropical sea.

  He wore faded, unfussy jeans and a plain white t-shirt. It wasn’t on quite straight, and Sage wondered if he’d yanked it on right before he’d opened the door. Maybe that was the delay. Remembering how he’d put his shirt on last night, like it was his armor, made her smile.

  He sighed rhetorically. “Hey. You need something?”

  She was not so weak-willed as to be dissuaded by a passive-aggressive breath. So she grinned up at those beautiful peepers and held up the green bag. “Is that any way to greet someone bearing gifts?”

  His forehead creased. He must have had a lot of cause to frown, because those lines in his forehead were carved fairly deep. But so were the lines at the corners of his eyes. “What? Gifts?”

  “Well, gift in the singular. A thank-you for what you did last night.”

  “You already thanked me, shortcake. More than once. You don’t need to do it more.”

  Her grin fell off her face, and she was serious for a minute. “I think I do. I don’t think the words are enough. I mean it—you saved my mom last night. And probably me, too.”

  His expression shifted subtly, and he shook his head. “Probably not. Guy like that, he gets off on the threat, not the deed. He wanted her scared, not dead.”

  “I don’t know about that. It’s not all threats. He hurts her plenty and doesn’t seem to care about that.”

  Again, his expression changed, and Sage saw what was happening. He was relaxing. Softening. “Does he hurt you?”

  “He hasn’t yet. They all get to me eventually.” Perversely, Sage was usually glad when it happened. Because that was when her mom would finally make them leave. Her mom would let them do almost anything to her—she’d even let one whore her out to his friends for some cash—and she’d tolerate Sage being threatened. But if they ever actually touched her daughter, then she’d make them leave. Twice, she’d landed in the hospital with the effort of evicting them.

  “All?”

  She didn’t even know this guy’s name, and he was nosing into some very delicate territory that absolutely no one in her life knew except her mother. She held up the bag. “Anyway, I got you this to say thank you.”

  He took the bag and gave its contents a cursory peek. “Thanks.”

  That was not a strong enough response for her liking. He’d professed to being a Motörhead fan. “It’s a limited edition UK release, pressed on red vinyl. From 1982. Pretty rare.” Then a thought she should have had a while ago occurred to her. “Do you even have a turntable?”

  He grinned at that, the first one she’d seen, and Sage thought her knees would give out. His mouth had a kind of squared-off shape, but his smile softened those edges and took years off his look. His teeth were white and perfect, the canines a little more pointed than normal, and his eyes lit up like blue suns. The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened like sunbeams. “Yeah.” He pulled the record out of the bag. “This is cool. Where’d you come up with it?”

  “At The Spin Bin. I work there. Don’t worry, I used my discount.”

  His knee-weakening grin got even brighter, and he stepped back. “You want to come in, I’ll put it on?”

  Oh yes, she really did. “Sure, I got a minute.”

  She stepped up into his house—and right into his living room. She’d expected an entryway or something, when the window in the door was dim, but she was in his living room. As he closed the door, he must have hit a switch, because two floor lamps came on and showed the room.

  It was nicer than her house, by a lot. Nice hardwood floors, sheetrocked walls with neutral paint, simple neutral curtains drawn over the windows. The walls were bare. The furniture was pretty minimal, just a puffy black leather couch and a couple of chrome and vinyl sling chairs. At one side of the fireplace—which
wasn’t bricked up, and looked like it actually worked—was a big television on a stand, with a stereo tower beside it. Speakers taller than she was were positioned in two corners of the room. The other side of the fireplace was a tall bookcase crammed with books. Oh, that was interesting. A biker who read. Hmmm.

  But the real centerpiece was in front of the fireplace, spread out on a blue tarp: what Sage was ninety-percent sure was an engine and a bunch of tools. On the floor. In the middle of his living room.

  “You work on engines in your living room?”

  He’d crossed to the stereo and was setting the record on his turntable. “Not the whole engine. That’s just a crankcase. I watch TV while I work.”

  “You have that whole shop out back. Wouldn’t it be easier to put a TV in there?”

  A lift of one shoulder was his only answer. As the frenetic guitar and drums of ‘Iron Fist’ burst from those big speakers, Sage set her bag on the floor by the door and went deeper into his house. There was a distinct smell of engine—or crankcase, whatever—and under it, the aroma of food. He’d made himself dinner. Something with beef. Her stomach rumbled. All she’d had since her Happy Meal lunch was a Diet Coke and a box of Mike and Ikes from the candy rack at the store.

  “You want a beer?” he called over the music.

  “Sure.” When he turned and went through a dining room—a couple of empty duffel bags and a messy stack of mail on a round table too small for the room—to his kitchen beyond it, Sage took the minute to ask herself what she was doing here. Had she planned to, like, seduce the guy?

  Not planned, no. She hadn’t really expected to get farther than his porch. But here she was, in his house, waiting on the beer he’d offered her—which indicated that he’d decided to believe she wasn’t jailbait. Last night, she’d picked up the scent of his interest, and his unwillingness to be interested. Did knowing he wouldn’t get arrested for fucking her make him more willing?