SEVEN

Dog

Jesus fuck, I had to get out of there. She’s always been an entitled bitch, but this past year has definitely erased that attitude right out of her. She’s every part the Mel I remember, yet a totally new person at the same time. Inch by inch, hour by hour, she’s showing just how human she is.

She’s hurt, and fuck it all if that feeling didn’t resonate throughout me as I picked her up off the landing. I know how it burns, the twist of injustice as the reality sets in.

Someone you love is gone. Every last thing you said to them plays through your mind. The way you treated them over the years: the times you weren’t as grateful as you perhaps should have been, the times you didn’t give them the last donut in the box, the times you argued until they relented and let you watch the channel you chose—pathetic shit like that.

It burns, all of it. Because no matter what you do, there’s no going back and fixing things now.

At least with Mom, I had the chance to tell her I loved her as she slipped away. Mel didn’t even get that. She got nothing.

It sucks.

“Where you headed?” Fingers, our mechanic, asks as I mount my bike.

I know he doesn’t inquire to be nosey; he simply wants to make conversation.

“Not sure yet.” Might go get something to eat. Might keep on going until I find myself on the doorstep of one of our offsite members. Maybe even stretch it as far as our associate, Bronx, down in Kansas City.

I just need away from here until I work out why the need to impress that princess upstairs burns at me like a smoldering ember stuck against my skin.

What does she matter to a clown like me? I joined this club as a way to stick it to my old man, to show the fucker his glass towers and business suits mean nothing to me. To show him I’m not my brother—I want to be free to live my life how I choose.

I need to remember that.

I didn’t come here looking for anything other than a bit of fun, and that woman up there? Well shit, she commands something that’s on a whole other plane than what I usually offer to the muffler bunnies that tumble through our gates on a weekend. It was that exact realization that got me in the shit the first time she friend-zoned me, and it’s that realization that reminds me my fantasies of snaring a president’s daughter were nothing but that—dreams.

I made my peace with getting what I could as her friend years ago. No need to fuck it all up now because my dick’s as hard as steel from the thrill of seeing her alive and kicking.

“Well,” Fingers says, breaking my daze. “Let me know when you’re next in for a while because you’re overdue a service.”

“Sure thing.” I spark the engine to life to cut off any further conversation and idle out into the yard.

The prospects already wheel the gate open as I approach, which is unusual—I soon see why.

Callum rides in, rolling to a stop beside me after he spots me heading the opposite way.

“Where you headed?” he shouts over the thump of his engine.

Do I need to start posting bulletins or some shit? “Out.”

“Yeah, but where?”

I roll my eyes and answer. “I don’t know.”

“Hungry?”

“Sure.”

I scowl into my side mirror as he turns around behind me, and then gestures for me to follow. The whole eight miles to the diner we frequent, I spend plotting ways to shake him the minute we arrive.

What the fuck is his deal? He wanted something from me, he could have waited until I got back.

Locals eye us disinterestedly as we back the bikes to the curb, and switch off. They’re used to us coming here; our members as much of a fixture as the worn red vinyl seats around the tables.

“Can I ask what the buddy-up is for?” I set my helmet on the handlebars, winking at a cute brunette who blatantly eyes me through the window of the diner.

“I’ve been meaning to have a word with you for a few days,” Callum says, sparking up a smoke. “Want one?” He offers his pack my way, and I take a stick.

His flame licks the end of my cigarette. “What about?”

“King said you still haven’t detailed your next of kin.”

Bingo. There it is. The integral missing piece that’ll ruin the entire puzzle. “So?”

“So, square that shit up, brother.”

I know why he’s been tasked with it; I’ve danced around the subject with King since I was patched in almost a year ago. He holds records on all of us, just in case.

All of us, except me: Koen von Essen.

“Why are you worried about it?” Callum asks, smoke curling around his fingers as he takes a drag.

He shows no sign of emotion as I catch his eye, my frown giving away everything he needs to know. How long did I think I could hide this for?

“If anything happened to me,” I explain, “there’s nobody who would care.”

“Hey,” Callum says with a twist of his lips. “You’re not the first orphan we’ve had. If that’s the case, just let him know.”

“Yeah, sure.” Why didn’t I think of that as an excuse? Easy enough.

“He needs your social security, too.”

“Why?” That I can’t explain away so easily.

“If you want a steady income, he has to put you through the books, man.”

Shit. I forgot about that. I asked King a few months back, when work started getting quiet after Sawyer took out Carlos, if there was any chance of above-the-board employment. I’m not averse to breaking the law, but when the cash jobs are few and far between, a man needs something else to fund his lifestyle choices.

“Yeah, okay.” I flick the cigarette more times than necessary, staring down at my boots.

“What’s up, man?”

I don’t need to look at Callum to know how he currently eyeballs me.

“Nothing. I literally just forgot.” I suck hard on the smoke a few times to finish it off and then stomp it out under my boot. “We gonna eat or what?”

“Yeah, sure,” he grumbles, stamping out his own cigarette.

I blitz into the diner first, narrowly missing bowling over a mom and her little boy in my haste.

“Shit. I’m sorry.” I lift both hands and back up a couple of steps, showing I mean no harm.

“Don’t sweat it.”

Holy shit. Didn’t pick the tidy brunette as a mom. “If you’re sure.”

Callum clips me around the head on his way past. “Watch where you’re goin’, dipshit.”

The mom eyes him as he glides past between us toward the counter. “He always that rude to you?”

“It’s how he shows love,” I tease, giving her a wink. Better calm that shit down before she thinks you’ve got Tourette’s.

“Catch you around then.” She looks down to her boy, tugging on his hand a little. “Come on, buddy.”

I appreciate the view as she leaves, her ass encased in a nice pair of tight black shorts. Yet, there’s no drive to chase her down, attempt to get a number. I’m curious, but I’m not keen.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

A downtrodden club princess, is what.

“What you havin’?” Callum asks as I come to a stop beside him.

“Usual.”

He orders for the both of us while I pick a table. A young girl eyeballs me while her parents engage in a heated debate across the booth from each other. I give her a mock salute, earning a smile as Callum sits down to my right.

“Makin’ friends again already?”

“I can’t help my naturally magnetic charm,” I tease.

He shakes his head, choosing to focus on the phone in his hand. “One day you’re gonna grow up, brother, and you won’t know what the fuck to do with yourself.”

I laugh, although on the inside it’s the exact opposite. He’s hit the nail on the head; everyone thinks I clown around because I’m some juvenile punk looking for attention. Maybe I am aiming for the limelight, but only because when you blind people with your outlandish behavior they tend to overlook the truth that’s right in front of their eyes.

I grew up a long time ago—way before any kid should have to.

“What does this one tell you, Koen?” My father jabs his finger at the table on the bottom of the stock market pages in the newspaper.

I study the graphs, the worm, and the historic figures detailed below. “Average price?”

“But for what?”

The longer I look at the table, the less sense it makes.

“Answer, boy. Time is precious.”

“I don’t know.”

He sighs, snapping the paper shut with such force the gust of wind it creates shifts the hair out of my eyes. “If you want to be of any use to me, you need to know this, Koen. No more Nintendo until you can explain every table on the page to me.”

How could I learn something I never had a passion for? Analyzing figures, working out patterns—it bored me. My hands itched to be used for something more tangible. My lungs ached for the crisp scent of pine on a damp spring morning. All I wanted to do was run through the fields between home and school, losing myself in the forest beyond until the sun shrank behind the hills.

I wanted to be a kid.

Yet he wanted a protégé.