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Cox was their mechanic and kept SBC’s equipment running. But he was shaking his head. “I don’t want to run a fuckin’ business, with fuckin’ customers. I hate people. Last thing I need is to get an earful from some farmer thinking his sixty-year-old rust bucket he ain’t gave oil in three years should run like it just came off the showroom.” He tossed an aggressively dismissive arm at Mel. “You do it. Open an electrical shop.”
“We’re all busy, we all got plenty of work,” Badger cut in, defusing the argument before it sparked. “And we’d need to think long and hard before we took on another business ourselves.”
Mel wasn’t done yet. “Bart? You worked there. And you’re ... personable, I guess is the word. You aren’t some sour fuck like Cox.” Mel’s grin was mostly friendly, with a touch of ice around the edges. Cox flipped him off.
Bart made a face. “I don’t know. My next birthday, I’m fifty-five. I’d rather slow down than speed up. I sure as hell don’t want the eighty-hour weeks of starting a business like that.”
“This is getting a fuck ton bigger than I expected,” Badger said. “I opened the topic to decide if we wanted new people building here, not to expand our own work. But ... is there interest in that? Show of hands—who wants to consider taking on that property ourselves?”
Sixteen men wore the Flaming Mane. Sixteen men sat around the magic table. Eight of them raised their hands. A perfect split. Zaxx’s hand was up; he liked the idea of opening the repair shop a lot more than bringing in a strip mall.
Badger had not raised his hand. As president of an even-numbered club, he had the power to vote a second time to break a tie, but Zaxx had never seen him use it. He didn’t use it now.
Instead, he laughed. “Well, that’s a lot of fuckin’ help. Okay. We don’t have a yes or a no. So let’s do this: Dom, Bart, I want you to do some research, a viability study or whatever it’s called, on what a strip mall might look like if we did one our way, and also look into what we’d need to get Keyes open again—and Kel, work with them. How much money can we afford to put into a new business, how long before we see a profit, all that money shit. I need a first-look view by Wednesday.” When the three men he’d addressed nodded, Badger said, “Okay, that’s the new business. Now let’s talk regular business. We got a couple new protection contracts, and we need to set the schedule for winding up our sites before the winter shuts us down. Then I got a honey-do list from Adrienne and Lilli for the Harvest Festival next month.”
While his brothers groaned good-heartedly, Zaxx shifted in his seat, trying not to let his leg bounce. Now that the one slightly interesting agenda item was over, he was almost too restless to keep his seat.
Keep meetings were usually dull as fuck. Leather-clad board meetings, all about work schedules and other shit like this. Even the mess around Bill Danvers and all he’d done was now considered finished business, never mentioned, and they were back to droning on about contracts and schedules.
It was almost impossible to imagine what the Keep had been like when club business was routinely conducted in blood and bullets, or to imagine that the stories of those days could be true.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gia poured hot water from the new electric kettle into a cup, drowning an ‘Irish Breakfast’ tea bag. While that steeped, she poured herself some coffee and added a drizzle of caramel. The toaster popped, and Zaxx pushed behind her to reach it and grab his English muffins.
“Do we still have that apple butter Ms. Freeman gave us?” he asked, pushing behind her again as he went to the fridge to find the answer himself.
Gia closed her eyes and dug up a fresh batch of patience. Ms. Freeman had given Gia a big jar of apple butter as a thank-you for Gia going over to help her collect her goats when one of the big storms of the past couple weeks had dropped a tree onto the goat-pen fence.
It was not ‘their’ apple butter; Ms. Freeman had not given it to ‘them.’
But she was being ungenerous and nitpicky, so she gathered some patience and finished making her coffee. He walked behind her again, going for a knife for the apple butter, and he paused and kissed her head. That little twist of irritation broke apart, and she leaned back into him for a second.
She really enjoyed about ninety-five percent of being with Zaxx. Ninety-eight percent, even. He was kind, and he had a good sense of humor. He paid attention to what was going on in the world, and he built informed opinions. He wasn’t ‘book smart,’ but he was intelligent and curious, and he didn’t get bent about not knowing things she knew. Instead, he asked questions and learned. They had great, deep, lively conversations on the regular.
He was also perfect-looking, in her eyes, and the best sex she’d ever had—like, in an entirely new division. They had a great time together every time they were together.
Except for one thing, which probably should have been a teensy, tiny, insignificant thing, but it was not. In fact, it was growing. Steadily.
That thing was space and privacy. Gia needed both, from everyone, and there had been a few instances when it was clear that Zaxx needed some of his own. This tiny house was rad ... for one person. For two, it was crowded. When those two liked—no, needed—to be alone sometimes, and one of them absolutely needed alone time to work, a lack of privacy and space became a bigger and bigger problem.
Every time that little twitch of impatience struck her, she felt like a shit about it, though.
Zaxx was living in the clubhouse because he hadn’t been able to stay in the house where, one) he’d found his sister bloody and battered after a vicious attack; two) his sister’s attackers had broken in to cause even more harm, including three) killing his dog; and four) Gia had killed them both and been shot by one of them.
Of course he couldn’t live there anymore. Since then, he’d lived at the clubhouse—but actually, he really was living here. About five nights a week, he slept here.
At night, Gia loved it. Sleeping with him was a comfort and a delight. In the evening, when they were settled together watching television or talking, she also loved it. When they were moving around, though, every day brought at least one moment like this one, when she was right on the edge of saying something snappish and/or shitty about his constant presence in arm’s reach. He was gone most of most days, working, but even so, she felt crowded.
It was the house, not the man. That truth had kept her mouth shut so far. But it was becoming too big a problem to keep quiet about.
Zaxx hadn’t said it, but Gia knew: despite the crowding, he wanted to live here. Officially. He was waiting for the invitation.
Gia could imagine living with Zaxx. She did imagine living with him. But not in this tiny house. However, she couldn’t abandon this house that her parents had built for her only a few months ago. Not now; not for a long while.
She understood herself very well, and she knew that these little moments of impatience would become bigger moments of resentment, ever growing until they consumed her and throttled all the good feelings she had for him. The few serious relationships she’d started before had all died when she’d begun feeling constrained.
This tiny house was a huge problem, because the good feelings Gia had for Zaxx were very, very good. She was in love with him. She didn’t know how they would work long-term, but she wanted to find the way to do it.
