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Chapter One
Striker
The smell of fuel, sweat, and smoke perfumes the humid, hot air. Sunrays shine through the open doors at Reid’s Repairs, making the chrome on the bike in front of me shimmer silver and gold. There’s a wrench in my hands and the guts of a fine machine in front of me. It’s the most peaceful my life has been in ages.
Then it ends.
“Hey, Owen, long time no see. Look, I know you want to kill me, and I don’t blame you for that, but remember how I saved your life? I’m here to collect. So, listen, I need you to date my little sister.”
I look up.
Frown. No, something deeper than a frown. If a frown is a furrow in your brow, this is the fucking Marianas Trench.
Because this isn’t how I imagined my Friday afternoon going.
Not hearing that, not seeing him.
“Smokey?”
Still, I don’t turn away from the bike. I keep my focus on it, because maybe I can will him away. I’d wanted to spend the afternoon in quiet, nothing but the sound of the music on the shop’s radio, Rook’s grumbling, and the clanging of tools while I finish rebuilding the transmission of this beautiful black BWM R100 in front of me.
My mouth is barely even open to respond to my old friend’s greeting before the second half of that nonsense hits my ears and knocks my jaw the rest of the way to the floor.
After more than two years of radio silence following an acrimonious parting where I broke his nose and threatened to rip his throat out if I ever saw him again, this is not how I thought I’d be reintroduced to my closest friend from my Marine days: Dixon Green, better known as Smokey.
“You okay, Striker? Look, you know I’m sorry about the way things went down between us. You know I regret it, but I’m here because it’s important,” he says. His eyebrows furrow as he takes in the road name on my cut, and the movement makes the piercing in his left eyebrow glint as the sunlight strikes it.
The piercing’s new, it’s audacious, gaudy, I hate it, and there’s a similar shimmer off the chrome of his bike: a jet black, late 1970s Harley FXS low rider, with large saddlebags that, if I know him, are carrying a highly illegal amount of guns and other weapons, and likely at least one hand grenade. I like the bike. Have always liked the bike. The bike is a family heirloom, stolen by Smokey’s grandfather from a motorcycle collector and passed down from father to son, with accidents and memories scratched into the frame, and the VIN numbers scratched out of it.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, definitely not fine. I swipe some sweat from my forehead. “What the fuck did you say this was about?”
“Are you shocked to see me, or do you have a problem with dating my little sister?”
In the background, near a motorcycle he’s fixing up for some buddy of his up north named Mayhem, I hear Rook cackle like a child hearing his first naughty joke; long, loud, unrestrained. Which irritates me just enough to distract me from my shock, so I focus on wiping off my hands with a rag and then step forward and shake hands with Smokey. There’s no animosity in the handshake, just friendship; beating a man half to death does a lot to kill your anger.
Still, I wonder: is he that desperate for his sister to get a hookup, or does he have some ulterior motive? I never can tell with Smokey, and I know him better than anyone. Well,knewhim. It’s been a while.
Not that I’d mind spending time with Danielle.
Not that I’d expect it from her, either; the last time I saw her, she was wearing cargo shorts and a ratty Motley Crue t-shirt, hollering for her brother and me to slow down our bikes so she could keep up. Boys never seemed to be her interest, except in proving that she could keep up with them, out-wrestle them, or throw harder than them. Most of which she could do with shocking ease.
“How’d you find me, Smokey?”
“Called Nat. She told me where you were. Also told me you’re still living with your grandmother. How’s she doing?”
“Grandma’s fine. Living with her on account of some trouble she went through a while back, she needed some protection.” Which is the truth. She had trouble a while back, but that isn’t the whole story. It isn’t as easy stepping back into the life of a civilian after eight years in hell. “You and Nat still talk?” My eyebrows rise with the question.
“Time to time. Not as much as we used to, but we still do.”
“Really? Even after you…”
“I’ve already apologized to her for that. She’s moved on. Forgiven me. You should, too.” He clears his throat, clearly as uncomfortable saying those things as I am hearing them. As if it’s so easy getting over that kind of betrayal, especially when it hurts the person you’re closest to the most and comes from the person you owe your life to. “That came out wrong. Let me say it again: I’d like it if you could forgive me. I’ve been working on these things, Striker. Even getting help, sometimes, thanks to Nat and Danielle’s encouragement. Not as much as I should, but you know how it is.”
“I do.”
Most help the VA offers comes as fresh-out-of-college shrinks who haven’t seen the shit I’ve seen. How can I expect help from someone who can’t even fucking conceive the horror I’ve witnessed, that I’ve lived through? It’d be like giving moonwalking advice to an astronaut or Michael Jackson.
“Will you hear me out?”
