That was irony for you.
I didn't notice her until she stepped out from behind the beam on the front porch.
June.
Holy shit.
All grown up, but I’d know her anywhere. She was prettier now than she’d been in high school, and I suddenly felt like I was right back there, seventeen again, nervous and fumbling.
What the fuck is she doing here?
I had never expected to see her again, not after all this time. Sure, early on I kept tabs on her, thought I might run into her on a base somewhere, but I gave up on that fantasy a long time ago. The thought of her seeing who I was now, who I had become, left my cheeks burning with shame. It was humiliating.
It took all the strength I had to pry my eyes away from her and look at my father. “Dad,” I said.
His face was scarlet as he walked up to me, drew his hand back, and slapped me hard across the face.
Shit.
So he was still pissed off at me. I'd been expecting that. Hell, if June hadn't been standing right there, he'd have probably slugged me. And I'd have deserved it, after everything I'd put him through.
“I told you, you don’t come back here. You don’t bring this shit here.”
I could feel June’s eyes burning into me, without even looking at her. “Dad, I -”
My voice broke.
There was so much I needed to say, but my pride wouldn't allow it.
Then the door to the minivan opened and MacKenzie, April and Crunch’s little girl, came running out, wrapping herself around my leg. “Uncle Axe! Uncle Axe! Are you okay? Why did he hit you?” She started bawling, and I picked her up, patting her back.
“It’s okay, Mac,” I said. “He was just joking. You know Uncle Axe is too tough for anything to hurt him.”
“No?” she asked.
“Not at all,” I said, brushing my thumb against her cheek, wet with tears. “Do you know who this guy right here is? This is your Uncle Axe’s old man.”
My father glared at me, then turned to MacKenzie, his voice now soft. “I didn’t know you were watching, little lady. I certainly didn’t mean to scare you.”
MacKenzie’s mother, April, scooped her up in her arms, hushing her as she went to stand near Crunch. My father turned toward me, his voice low. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me there was a kid with you?”
“You didn’t give me a chance, Pop.”
“What the hell is going on? What kind of trouble are you in?”
“I need a chance to explain, but this isn’t the time. It’s not what you think.”
Well, it was probably almost exactly what he thought. I knew he thought I was in some kind of trouble connected to the MC, and he would be right.
“You better hope it’s not what I think. Because if it is -”
“It’s not.” I clenched my jaw. He’d help me. Even if my father disagreed with everything I had done, even if he hated the person I had become, he was still my father and he would help me.
“Well, come on in, then.” My father gestured to Crunch and his family, his voice falsely bright. I knew he would make nice with Crunch’s family here, especially with MacKenzie being with us. It had always killed him and my mom, the fact that they didn't have any grandkids. “I was just having a cup of coffee on the porch here with my new neighbor, June. Are you all hungry?”
“Yes!” the little girl shouted, running up the stairs. “And I have to pee!” April and Crunch closely trailed her, and my father followed behind.
“Hi, lady!” Mac waved as she passed June. “Is there a potty in here?”
"Hush, Mac," April whispered as she walked through the door.
June smiled at MacKenzie, and then looked up at me. “Cade.”
Cade.
I hadn't been called Cade in years.
"Hi, Junebug.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Sure, it was something like twenty years later, but it was just like being a teenager again.
“No one’s called me Junebug in forever,” she said. When she stepped forward, kissing me on the cheek, her lips smooth against my skin, I felt an immediate jolt. It was that familiar electricity between us that had always existed.
She pulled back and I grabbed her arms, the instinct to hold her taking over me. I didn't want to let her go. Gazing into her eyes was like taking a twenty-year journey back in time. For a split second, I saw it in her eyes - that look.
It was the same look she used to give me when we were teenagers.
That same way she had looked at me before her sister died.
I had the nearly irresistible urge to pull her into me and cover her mouth with mine. But then I felt her pull back, and the moment passed.
I let her go.
“You look different,” she said.
Different.
You look like shit would probably have been more accurate. Could she see the darkness that surrounded me now? Sometimes I felt like it oozed from my pores, seeped out, stinking up everything I got near.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” I said. No, that wasn’t true at all. Her face no longer held the same innocence it did back then, and I knew there was pain behind her eyes. But she wore that pain beautifully, etched into the lines on her face.
June laughed, the sound light, and I instantly ached to hear it more. “I hope that’s not true.” She was silent for a minute. Then, “You’re a biker now."
"Yeah." Why did I feel ashamed admitting that to her?
"Axe, huh?" She pointed at the name on my leather cut. "One percent."
I could feel my face get warm. I didn't want to explain why I was called Axe. Or what one percent meant. Not to her. She was too good for that shit.
I changed the subject. “I heard you’re in the Navy.”
“I was," she said, leaning back on the porch railing. "But I'm here now. I got out."
“You’re back in town?” I asked. “For good?”
I was suddenly interested in her answer. Why the hell did I care? This wasn't a fucking social visit, and neither of us were the same people we were when we were kids.
"Yeah," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear and biting on her lip. I couldn't stop looking at her mouth, at the nervous gesture, the thing she would do when she wanted me, back when we were sixteen and couldn't keep our hands off each other. I don't even think she ever knew she was doing it.
I wondered if she knew what she was doing to me now, if she knew I wanted to rip her clothes off and take her right here in the driveway.
"Yeah," she said. "I'm back. I bought Mrs. Crawford's old place."
Oh, hell.
"Next door?” I asked. Of course she was moving in next door to my father. I told myself it didn't matter. I wouldn't be here long enough to matter.
“Cade," my father said, his voice firm. He stood at the door, as if he were consciously trying to interrupt us. “Get inside.”
I had a flash of irritation at him, at being spoken to like I was a child, at the way he'd just broken the moment between June and I. But part of me was relieved. I didn't need to be talking to her like that. I didn't need her to be looking at me like that, as if not a day had passed since I'd last seen her.
"It was good to see you, June," I said, as I turned to walk inside. I could feel my father's gaze, steady on me as I passed him, my boots heavy on the wooden porch.
"Be careful there, June," I heard him say. "Cade's been gone a long time. Things are different now."
I couldn't hear what she said.
Sitting in the guest bedroom in my father's house, I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall. It was late, but I rarely slept much anymore anyway, not since the Marine Corps, and tonight would be no exception. There was too much to occupy my brain, trying to process all the shit that was going on with the club. I knew when I was being set up, and this shit with the club stank to high heaven. I no longer trusted the Club President. Or many other people, for that matter.
Which is why I was here now.
&nb
sp; It was almost midnight, and I could hear my dad out in the living room watching television, some late night talk show. I knew he wasn’t actually watching television. Knowing him, he was trying to figure out what the hell to do with me here. I had put him in a tough position. He hated the idea of me in the club, and worse, bringing that mess here with me. But at the same time, he wouldn't turn away Crunch's family. Not when there was a kid involved.
I had no idea when the club would realize we weren't dead, but I knew what would happen when they figured it out. And I didn't want to bring that shit down on my dad.
Or on June.
This is only temporary, I reminded myself. I twisted the cap off the bottle of cheap whiskey I'd picked up at one of the gas stations when we stopped for a piss break on the way, and swallowed it down, feeling the familiar burn as it slid down my throat.
~ ~ ~
Standing in the convenience store, I'd tried to hide it, but Crunch had seen the bottle in my hand and shook his head. "Do you really need that, man? I mean, out here, with all the shit going down?"
Did I really need it?
Did I really want to give him an honest answer to that question?
"I don't want to hear it, Crunch," I said. "Lay the fuck off."
"Suit yourself," he said. "Just don't fucking drink and get on the back of that bike. I've had enough death to last me a while. And don't let MacKenzie see you drunk."
~ ~ ~
I'd heard all of it over the past year from a couple of the guys in the club.
Clean yourself up.
You used to be a Marine.
How can you just let yourself go?
I'd heard it from myself. It didn't matter. There was no turning around once you were headed on the path I was on. This is who I was.
A knock on the door shook me out of my thoughts. I screwed the top on the bottle and shoved it under the pillow on the bed. “Come in,” I said, steeling myself. I knew it would be my father.
He stood in the doorway. “I brought you a blanket for the bed in case you need it. You know how the temperature drops overnight here, even in the summer.”
“Thanks, Pop."
He paused, the silence awkward. Years of unspoken words just hung there in the space between us. "So your friends," he said. "Are they okay out there? Is everything still working all right at the old bunkhouse?"
The bunkhouse was part of the original homestead, and the only remaining remnant still standing after almost a hundred years. Tucked away from sight in a hidden gulch surrounded by tall pines, it was a good idea to place the family there, strictly from a security perspective. I knew Crunch and his family would be safer there, isolated; of course, Crunch was carrying a piece, just in case.
It used to be my fort back when I was a kid, but in middle school, my dad and I had made it into a real house, gutting the interior, laying new wooden flooring, and putting in plumbing. We'd spent weeks together, him and I, working on the project until the place was habitable. Afterward, I'd disappear for a weekend and my mom would have to hike through the woods to drag me home. And then, in high school, it was the place where I went with June.
Going up to the bunkhouse to get them settled had damn near ripped me in two. The place was haunted with ghosts from my past, filled with memories of her.
“Yeah,” I said. “You kept it up really well.”
Dad grunted. “Well, you never know when something might happen. I figured it could come in handy one day.”
He meant that he never knew whether I might return, the prodigal son coming home. He'd been keeping up with the repairs on the bunkhouse this entire time. For me.
I didn't know whether to be glad he thought I'd come home eventually, or upset that he hadn't written me off entirely.
“Thanks dad. I appreciate it.”
He nodded. “You going to tell me what kind of trouble they’re in?”
He was referring to Crunch’s family, but of course I was in just as much trouble. I had no idea when Mad Dog might discover we hadn’t actually been killed in the fire, and that April and Mac weren’t really in Puerto Rico. I figured we were safe for a while, at least. But who knew how long it would last?
“I can’t exactly, dad, not right now,” I said. “But we are in trouble.”
“With the bike club?”
“Yes.”
He was silent. “Ok, then. Are they armed out there in the bunkhouse?”
“Yeah, Crunch is carrying.”
“Well, you know where the weapons are inside the house. Should I buy ammo tomorrow in town?”
“It might be a good idea.”
“Ok then.” He turned to leave, then paused. “Son?”
“Yeah, Pop.”
“I’m thinking you did right by the family out there. Am I right to think that?”
“Yeah, dad.”
“Good. Glad to have you back, son.”
“Goodnight, dad.”
As the door closed behind him, my heart sank. He had the impression that this was a lot more clear cut than it was, that I was some kind of hero, rescuing Crunch and his family from the MC and coming back home.
The truth was a lot more grey.
Two days earlier
Las Vegas, Nevada
Axe
I stood perfectly still, the sound of my breathing amplified in the quiet of the warehouse, my nine millimeter trained on Crunch's head. I nodded toward Tank, who kept his own weapon drawn as he disarmed our brother.
“Shit, man.” Crunch raised his hands slowly while Tank pulled his weapon and stepped away from him. “What the fuck is going on? You know me. The shit that's going down here, it's not right.”
“I know you? Fuck right, I know you. And I should have known not to vouch for you with the club from the very beginning.” Tank was angry, his face red, and he waved his weapon carelessly. It was probably a good idea that I was here. Tank was much too close to Crunch to just do a clean hit.
Hell, I was close to Crunch too, but I had a lot more experience with killing.
That's why Mad Dog had sent me here.
“What you think I did, I didn't do it.” Crunch looked back and forth at us, eyes pleading, but still defiant.
“Fucking steal money from the club? You’re gonna say you weren’t?” I let Tank rant. It probably would have been better to just get it done with, and that's what a good Sergeant-at-Arms would do, but I wasn't exactly a good Sergeant-at-Arms. Not anymore. I had a nagging feeling something about this wasn't right, and I wanted to hear Crunch's side of things before I made a decision. It was my conscience I had to be concerned about, and I