Cody could see into the room before they got there. It was a square, glass fishbowl kind of room. Macy was sitting in a chair at the side of the bed. She looked even more pale and drawn than she had four hours ago. Jimmy lay in the bed, hooked up to IVs and wires that made colorful waves on monitors above the bed. Cody could see that one of his legs was in a brace or maybe a cast, but he couldn’t see Jimmy’s face or the rest of his body. The nurse left him at the door and Macy looked up as he slid it open. He couldn’t read the look in her eyes, but in his guilty brain it was accusatory. He walked to the other side of the bed and looked down at Jimmy. He had one hell of a black eye and his lips looked swollen and bloody. There were bandages covering almost all of his right arm and that thing on his leg was a cast, not a brace. His eyes were closed and he looked like he was sleeping.

“How is he?”

“They said he’s stable. He just woke up again a few minutes ago and stared at me, but he didn’t say anything.”

“Is that bad, that he’s not staying awake?”

She shrugged. “The doctor said he was awake before and after surgery. He consented to it and he gave them Dax’s number to call, so he was alert and that’s good. He’s on a lot of pain medication, I guess, and the anesthesia is still wearing off, so that’s probably why he’s sleeping.”

“What kind of surgery?”

“He went into a tree. His leg and arm were trapped between the bike and the tree and the gas tank caught fire. His leg was crushed. His arm has first and second degree burns.”

“Shit. Where did the accident happen?”

She looked like she wanted to tell him to fuck off. She was tired, that much was obvious. She looked mentally exhausted. But each time he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay he had to remind himself that Jimmy’s accident wasn’t his fault and that he was still pissed at Macy for never telling him that she was pregnant with his child. “On that first curve on the way into town. They said he took it too fast.”

“Where in the hell was he going?”

She sighed. “It was after our blow-up last night. He was probably headed to Spirits to get drunk. That’s usually where he goes after we get into a fight. Did Dax come back?”

“No. He had a business thing out of town. I doubt he’ll be back until tomorrow.”

“Jimmy was supposed to ride out with them this morning.”

“Yeah, me too.” Cody said. He thought about that first ride when he and Jimmy almost seemed to be trying to get past all the bullshit. And then at the barbecue things hadn’t been bad either. But the breaking point for Jimmy had been finding out Cody and Macy had sex. Cody found that slightly ironic.

“Jimmy loves being part of this club, and he can’t wait until he’s full-fledged and not just a prospect.” She was looking at Jimmy’s face as she talked. Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes. “If Dax tells him to do something, he does it, no questions asked.” She looked at Jimmy again and her face grew even sadder as she said, “He’s loyal to a fault…”

“Macy…”

“Don’t, Cody. Just don’t, okay?”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t tell me that this isn’t my fault for not being loyal, because that’s not going to change the truth. Accident or not, he would have gone home and gone to bed with me if I hadn’t stayed behind.”

“I’m in no mood to make you feel better about yourself,” he said, coldly. “But as far as the accident is concerned, it’s just a fact that it wasn’t your fault. I’m beginning to think we all need to learn how to handle our personal responsibility and stop blaming each other for our problems.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” she said. “I stayed to clean, but also because you were on my mind and I was hoping to work it off before going home and going to bed with Jimmy. If I’d just gone with him in the first place, he wouldn’t have walked in on our conversation and he wouldn’t have told…” She stopped and rubbed her temples.

“What, Mace? Go ahead and finish that thought. He wouldn’t have told me about the baby?”

“I never meant for you to find out that way.”

“You never meant for me to find out period.”

“Please, Cody, not now. We talked about it already. I can’t do this right now. That’s in the past. What’s important right now is that Jimmy’s okay.” She reached up and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. Cody hated that he was jealous of her sympathy for Jimmy. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. He did, and he hated that he might have played any part in his old friend’s accident at all. Sure, he was pissed at Jimmy for not coming to see him and for stealing his girl, but he didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. He looked back at them. Macy had slipped her hand into Jimmy’s and she was staring at his face again. Cody wasn’t heartless, but he was human and this was killing him. Imagining them together was one thing, seeing it was too much.

“You’re right. He’s what’s important right now. You stay with him. Dax left me a phone this morning. I’ll leave you the number and you can call me if there’s anything you need or any changes.”

“Call you?” she asked. “Where are you going? How can you just leave?” Cody’s emotions were going crazy. One second he wanted to comfort her and the next he wanted to choke her. If she expected him to hang around while she and Jimmy built a life together when Jimmy got out of the hospital, she had another thing coming as well. Chances were that he’d be becoming a prospect with Cen Cal, and soon.

“He doesn’t want me here, Macy. He doesn’t consider us friends any longer and to be honest, maybe he’s right. It’s been eight years since we’ve seen each other or talked.” He looked at Jimmy’s bruised and swollen face and said, “Maybe we’ve just grown too far apart.”

She didn’t say anything, but she looked like she disagreed. Cody didn’t care what she thought at that moment. He needed to get out of there. He felt like he couldn’t breathe any longer. “Call if you need anything, okay?” She didn’t take her eyes off Jimmy, but she nodded. Cody waited a few beats to see if she’d look up at him. When she didn’t, he wrote his number on the little whiteboard on the wall and then after giving her shoulder a squeeze, he left. He wasn’t sure where he was headed until the minute the taxi dropped him off at the ranch. This was as good a time as any to take care of unfinished business. Dax was out of town; maybe he could get it handled before he got back.

* * *

Cody pulled into the parking lot of a diner a few hours later. It was a hole-in-the-wall in one of the worst areas of Boston. As he slid off the bike he saw a group of teenagers smoking weed a few feet away, watching him. Dax had not only left him with a phone when he dropped him at the hospital, he’d given him three hundred-dollar bills. Cody slipped one out of his pocket and gestured at one of the kids. The kid had long, greasy hair and a bad case of acne. He looked at Cody suspiciously, but the hundred in the big man’s fist drew him in like a magnet.

“What’s up?” the kid asked.

“I’m going to be in this diner for less than an hour. You watch my bike and make sure no one gets anywhere near it and this bill is yours.” The kid looked at the bike and back at the money in Cody’s hand. Finally, he nodded and reached for the bill. “Huh-uh!” Cody drew it back. “You get the money when I get back…if the bike’s in one piece. If it’s been stripped for parts, me and the rest of my club…a bunch of motherfuckers who make me look as innocent as a ten-year-old girl…will find you. Okay?” The kid swallowed hard and nodded. Cody left him there in charge of the bike and went inside. Stitch stuck out like a sore thumb, sitting in a booth near the front window. His long hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he had a dark green skullcap on with black writing that said “Irish Mayhem” all over it. He’d had a beard and mustache when Cody met him the day before. Now he was clean-shaven, and a deep, ugly scar that looked like a cut that had been stitched up by Dr. Frankenstein ran from underneath his right eye all the way down to the corner of his mouth. Cody wondered what Stitch had done to be rewarded with that; at least he knew now where the guy got his name.

“Hey, kid, you made it.”

“Sorry, there was a lot of traffic. I don’t have a license yet and I’m not supposed to be out of the county. Don’t want to get popped.” He slipped into the booth and the waitress, an older lady with pantyhose as saggy as the skin underneath her eyes, came over with the coffeepot. Cody turned his cup over and she filled it.

“You want a menu, hon?”

“No, I’m good, thanks.” Once she was gone Stitch said:

“So…this is about O’Toole, I guess?”

Cody nodded and took a sip of the black coffee. He was exhausted. He hadn’t slept more than an hour all night, and the stress of finding out about Macy and the baby and Jimmy’s accident was all wearing on him. “I want that son of a bitch,” he told Stitch. “I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’m not going to be able to get on with my life knowing that he’s going on with his like nothing happened.”

“Understandable. If it was my brother, I’d feel the same. I’m still a little curious about why you can’t go to your president with this.”

“Like I told you before, Dax has other things going on right now. He’s working on re-organizing the club and as far as our relationship goes…well, it’s complicated.”

“You’re not wearing a patch. Why aren’t you a prospect yet?”

Cody was getting annoyed. He didn’t understand why Stitch gave a shit about his relationship with Dax or the club. He sighed and said, “After my father disappeared, Dax took me in and treated me like I was…his son, I guess. He wasn’t old enough to be my father, but that’s how he’s always treated me. He doesn’t think of me as just another kid that wants to be a prospect. I think, honestly, he’d prefer if I didn’t. We haven’t had a lot of time since I got out to talk about it. He’s been busy with whatever this is that he’s working on with your club and I’ve been busy…just readjusting. So, I haven’t mentioned O’Toole to him and I’d rather not, to be honest.”

Stitch sipped his coffee and listened. When Cody was finished, he said, “That makes more sense, then. You have to understand that I have to be cautious here myself…”

“Let’s be straight with each other, Stitch. There’s something you want out of this. I may be young, and inexperienced, but I’m not stupid. Since you know I just got out and I don’t have any money, there has to be something else. So, why don’t you tell me what you’ll want as payment for helping me get to O’Toole, and I’ll tell you if I can afford it.”

Stitch laughed. “I like you, kid.” Cody didn’t say anything and Stitch went on, “You’re right. Tit for tat, as they say. I think you can afford my terms. I want a meet with one of the Cen Cal Commies.”

“The only one I know is Brew and he’s back out in Cali. I don’t think he has much pull with them.”

“He has pull with one of them. I want to meet Brew Senior. He goes by the name of Scalper. I want a face-to-face with him—just him, alone. Him and his boy are close. If Brew asks him to do it, he will. Once that happens, you get a face-to-face with my uncle, Johnny O’Toole, not surrounded by bodyguards.”

Cody was more than a little suspicious, but at the same time, it was a tempting offer. “Why do you want to meet Brew’s dad? As far as I know he’s just a sergeant at arms.”

“I got some old business with him and I’d like to turn it into new business. Oh, and there’s one other part of the deal.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, I’m guessing you’d rather that my uncle didn’t see you coming.”

“Yeah, I’d rather not walk in on an ambush.”

“I can make that happen…but I want the same in return. Scalper can’t have any idea it’s me he’ll be meeting up with ahead of time. I’m going to savor the look of surprise on the motherfucker’s face when a dead man walks in and takes a seat.” He laughed again. Cody wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even smiling. Stitch was offering him Johnny O’Toole on a silver platter…but at what cost? Fuck.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” Macy was half asleep when she heard Jimmy’s voice and at first she thought she’d imagined it. “Hey, Macy!” She opened her eyes that time to the weak, raspy voice. His eyes were only half opened and he was looking at her through slitted lids.

She sat up and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. “Hey! You’re awake.”

“What are you doing here, Mace?”

“You were in an accident…”

“Yeah. I know. I’m gonna live—too bad for you and Cody, huh?”

“Jimmy, please don’t be this way. Cody was here. He’s worried about you too…”

“I don’t care, Macy. I don’t want the two of you rushing around acting like the best friend and the girlfriend. Cody and I haven’t been best friends for eight years and you stopped being my girlfriend the night you decided to fuck him at Spirits like a common whore.”

Macy stood up. “You know this isn’t an ordinary situation. Yes, I made a mistake by being with Cody…but it wasn’t planned, it just…”

“Unless he slipped in the bathroom and his dick fell into your pussy, I don’t want to hear that it ‘just happened,’ Macy, or that it wasn’t planned, or whatever the fuck. I don’t give a shit. You fucked him, and you’ll do it again and I’ll look like the fucking fool. None of the other guys have girlfriends or old ladies that would even dare think about fucking anyone else. I’m going places with this club and your bullshit is not stopping me. And I have no idea what those fucking tears in your eyes are about. I was never the one you wanted. I was the one that was available. As soon as I saw you look at him in the bar that first day, I knew we were over. I should have ended it before you had the chance to make Dax think I was a weak son of a bitch that can’t control my woman.”

“Is that all this means to you, what Dax and the others think about it?”

“What Dax and the others think of me is all I have, obviously. I thought I had you too—I was wrong. Now, get the fuck out of here and quit pretending you give a shit. I’m done.”

Macy opened her mouth to say something else but decided against it. One thing Jimmy said that was true, and she hadn’t even realized it until Cody was back, was that it would always be Cody in her heart. Whether her head or her heart won out remained to be seen.