by Hazel Parker
Matty grunted into the line, and I could practically see him rolling his eyes at me. He always said I needed to learn to talk shit to him like a true fag would, but what in the fuck was that supposed to mean? I wasn’t exactly lacking for verbal wit, anyways.
I also knew he knew I was full of shit. But he was also smart enough not to press me on the real reasons for my misery. He was also smart enough to play along as needed.
“Lemme have a whack at the ol’ girl. I’m sure I can get her singin’ again. The very least, I can prolly get her to give Aero back before she flatlines for good. Then we’ll see ‘bout getting’ ya a new one; a better one!”
“I’d appreciate it,” I said, although I couldn’t claim to relish that idea at all. It wasn’t as simple as saying “a new one, a better one.” That implied I could just move on from her that easily, and…
If I could move as easily on from my gals as Roost seemed to imply was possible, would I be in my current state?
“Any idea what caused the power outage, anyway?” I said, hoping to deflect Roost’s further questions. “I feel like I would’ve woken up if there’d been a storm.”
“No storm, sadly,” Roost said, his breath coming out a little heavier than before—whatever he was doing, he was moving, and old Roost didn’t have the healthiest of bodies. I loved him for his mind, his wit, and his charm, but the idea of making him run down a Black Falcon was as laughable as me chasing down a real falcon. “Not in the way ya mean, at least.”
Something passed over the receiver on his end—his hand, I guessed—and his suddenly muffled voice shouted an order to move the latest shipment to the back room for inventory. I didn’t think anything of it.
Didn’t think much of anything, really.
“Sorry ‘bout that, boss. Anyways, it’s the goddamn heat. That’s what’s to blame for the power goin’ out. Blackouts ‘cross the whole damn city. It’s like one of them damn solar flares, that’s what the weatherman said. I dunno what in the fuck that means, but yer not gonna get here without some sweat glistening down yer body.”
“The heat?” I repeated, glancing towards the sun outside and seeing heat waves rise off the black concrete. Riding my girl is gonna be a real bitch today. She’s gonna be packing some heat, alright.
“Fuckin’ A,” Rooster drawled. “Hot as a parade of greased-up Dwayne Johnson clones out here. And ya know I’d much rather have ‘em…”
He didn’t dare call the WWE wrestler by his stage name. Not when the leader of the Black Falcons, my biggest fucking nemesis and the biggest pain in my ass, shared it.
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” I offered, daring a peek outside as I stood up to stretch my legs.
The air itself swirled as the blazing sun cooked through it and took a fresh stab at my eyes. The glass felt hot enough to fry an egg. To say that I had stepped into an oven was a misnomer, because an oven provided the good kind of heat—the kind of heat that told you some delicious food was coming.
This heat just told me that a bad fucking day was coming. It was too hot even for the pretty girls nearby to sunbathe.
“Shit…” I muttered.
“Yuppers,” Rooster sang back. “It’s a ‘risk the ride without yer helmet’-sort of day if ya ask me.”
I snorted.
“I didn’t,” I teased, ignoring how I’d gotten to the diner in the first place. “But I won’t, anyway. You know me.”
“Won’t what? Ride with yer helmet? Yeah, we know,” Rooster said.
Just as I had rolled my eyes at George’s voicemail, I knew Roost was rolling his eyes at me right now. I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t. But then again, Roost thought in terms of, like, wanting to live and be happy and stuff.
“Ya think it sends out the whole ‘fearless leader’ vibe, but really it’s just got us taking bets ‘bout when you’ll spill yer stubborn-as-a-mule brains all over the damn streets. Loser gonna hafta clean yer up. I never planned on takin’ over Savage Saviors like this, but ya keep bein’ an idiot…”
I resisted the urge to say “sooner rather than later, I hope”—knowing I’d only be locking myself into a nagging, drawling lecture later for it, followed by some false promises and a repeat of the same cycle a month later—and offered only an “uh-huh” as I motioned for the waitress to bring the check. Honestly, she didn’t even need to do this—I knew I left $15 every day for an $10.87 meal—but I think she liked the idea of keeping some semblance of a routine on her job.
“How we looking?” I said, ignoring Roost’s warning.
“Me, personally? Fucking gorgeous, of course,” Rooster said with a laugh. “I’m always as handsome and rugged as the best of ‘em!”
“Uh huh, as always,” I said. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. Assumin’ ye’re askin’ ‘bout the shipment, it looks like we’re a bit on the shorthanded side.”
Fuck.
Fuck!
Seriously?
I clenched my teeth, pausing in the doorway. First, her. Then the thoughts. Then the heat.
Now this?
“Just how fucking short?” I growled, making sure I’d stepped outside before dropping the f-bomb.
“Whoa there, cowboy,” Rooster said, his voice hurried. “Slow yer roll. I said it looks like we’re a bit on the shorthanded side. Still got a few crates to unload, and I ain’t even got a chance to eyeball the invoice reports. For all I know I fucked up the order—missed a zero or something, or maybe I just flat-out forgot to order—so many things, I could’ve—”
“Be real with me, Roost,” I said, cutting him off. “What’s the likelihood that you fucked up? Be honest.”
Seconds passed. The usual verbose, affable Roost, the one who couldn’t shut up about a thousand… Dwayne Johnsons from the WWE walking down the street, the one who would have suffered if he didn’t talk, went silent.
“Thought so.”
“Look, Derek, it ain’t that big of a deal,” Rooster assured me, the usual talkative parrot resuming his squawking.. “So we gotta pin a few pricks against the walls and remind ‘em not to fuck with us; let it be known that, whether or not the streets are divided, we still got those turkeys by the gizzards. Can’t be that hard. Not like we gonna kill anybody.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “Exactly. Just that easy, right? That’s just all we have to do.”
I coughed and spat in the corner. This time, I made sure to aim in a place I would not step in my own fucking spit.
“Except you know it’s not that easy, Roost; not anymore. Used to be we could just lay a little muscle down on these guys and remind them who they’re working for, but it’s not the case anymore. Muscle don’t mean shit now that the Black Falcons are rolling in and actually taking lives.”
I sighed.
This already shit morning was getting worse, and I didn’t need a reminder that competition had come to town, breaking the well-established rules of this city and raising the bar so high that people would break their necks trying to reach it—literally and figuratively.
And that said nothing about the darkness they had brought me on a personal level.
“What do ya want me to do, Derek?” Roost said, even though he knew I didn’t have an answer then. “Start ordering our boys to slit the delivery guys’ throats? ‘Cause, ‘less ye’re willing to take it to that point, it’s not like we’ve got a hell of a lot to work with to convince ‘em to do things the way they used to be done. It’s just…”
Roost’s words rattled on but my hearing drifted as I moved across the parking lot. The long walk, one I deliberately took to clear my head—no one was that goddamn stupid to steal my bike—instead usually brought me questions like the ones rattling in my head right now.
What would my father do?
Well, for starters, probably wouldn’t have let shit get so out of hand that your own boys decided to run off and start another crew that’s willing to take things this far, asshole. Did you ever think that maybe i
f you’d just stopped things when they started, none of this would ever wind up as shitty as they are now?
Fair, I thought in response to myself, except that they weren’t my boys when all this went down.
But if you’d caught them soon enough…
How would you ever have caught them soon enough? Are you a psychic? No? Didn’t think so.
There are signs. Like Maggie…
Shut up, Derek.
Then, just like that, my warring thoughts stalemated on the only conceivable deduction, the one that made both logical sense and fit with the emotional narrative I’d formed in the months and years since.
Dustin, my brother, was the asshole that had failed Dad and the rest of the city. Dustin was the one that had led to this city descending into the kind of anarchy the old mobsters would have relished and made fortunes out of.
No, stop it. Don’t fucking blame others.
Especially your brother, the best man in your life besides Dad.
Especially the dead.
Especially since you’re the only living one in the family.
I was the failure and the asshole. It wasn’t like I hadn’t already been wearing those titles. Logic could speak at its podium all day, didn’t change a damn thing.
Bad enough that Dustin’s funeral was still fresh on my mind. It wasn’t fair to go and shit on a fresh grave, let alone one of my brother.
“… Derek? Derek? Still there, Derek?”
“Uh… yeah. Yeah, I’m here,” I answered, struggling to find my voice. Don’t you dare fucking lose it on a phone call. You save that shit for being alone. “Just getting on the bike. Might lose you.”
“What? You talking over a rotary phone or something?” he laughed, providing me momentary relief from the chaos in my head “Since when do phones cut out when ya get on bikes like yers?”
“Just warning you in case it happens,” I explained, but I mumbled “fuck” out of earshot of Roost’s line.
“Uh-huh,” he answered knowingly, but he knew better than to press. “Look, just get yer ass out here, kay? We’ll check over the order—see if anything’s actually worth worrying ‘bout—and discuss the next move depending on what we find. I ain’t think anything of it, but—”
“Got it,” I said, cutting Roost off before he went on another monologue about his own failures and hopeful redemption.
I hung up with yet another eye roll—my temples were already starting to ache and the rest of my head not too far behind—and forced myself not to look back at the diner.
The diner my former wife and I shared.
But now, we only shared it in spirit. Because she couldn’t share anything more.
Because she was dead.
But then I came to my chopper.
For just a temporary moment, I had enormous relief.
Because there’s no room for irony and regret when there’s iron to ride and pain to deliver.
Table of Contents
JAXSON
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
1. Jaxson
2. Isabelle
3. Jaxson
4. Isabelle
5. Jaxson
6. Isabelle
7. Jaxson
8. Isabelle
9. Isabelle
10. Jaxson
11. Isabelle
12. Jaxson
13. Jaxson
14. Isabelle
15. Isabelle
16. Jaxson
17. Jaxson
18. Isabelle
19. Jaxson
20. Isabelle
Epilogue - Jaxson
Also by J.C. Allen
Derek
