What if she wanted to leave this all behind?
Mad Dog shrugged. "I'm not accusing anyone of anything, Veep," he said, emphasizing the last word, a reminder of my position in the club. "I'm just saying that you might get a little pressure to reevaluate your priorities. Hell, maybe you have already. You've not been around the club as much any more, skipped the last run. Shit, man, we had to fine you for that. It's never happened before."
"I was visiting Dani," I said. "It was her fucking college graduation. It was a legitimate reason to not go on the run."
"Of course," Mad Dog said. "But you've been absent more lately. Some have started to question your loyalty to the club."
"Some?" I asked. "You mean, you have started to question it."
"I know you're loyal to the club, Blaze," Mad Dog said. "Because I know that if you weren't, it would be detrimental to your health. And to Dani's."
"Is that a fucking threat?" My blood was boiling.
Mad Dog leaned forward, blowing smoke across the desk. "You know I don't make threats, Veep," he said. "I'm reminding you of your obligations."
"Noted," I said. "My loyalty is intact. And there's no problem with Dani."
"Great," Mad Dog said. "Then there's no problem."
That wasn't true, I thought. There was a big fucking problem.
I left Mad Dog's office wanting to punch someone. Where the fuck did Mad Dog get off, calling me down here for a meeting about some shit like that? I knew it was something fucked up when he wanted to meet, when we had church tomorrow anyway.
Something was going on. There was more to this; I just knew it. Something I was being shut out of.
God, I needed a drink.
I passed the bar, calling to the Prospect working. "Prospect."
He turned. "Yes, sir?"
"A shot. Jack."
"Yes, sir." He slid it across the bar, and I tossed it back.
"Do you want another one?" he asked.
Yes. I opened my mouth to say it, then stopped. No, I didn't need another shot. I reminded myself I needed to drive home, see Dani. She hadn't said anything about my boozing, but all the same, I kept finding myself doing these fucking healthy things since being with her, like not partying and drinking so much.
"Nah," I said. "I'm good."
I walked outside to the back, behind the clubhouse, to the garage. I always came out here when shit got crazy in the main house, on party nights even more so. It was quiet and smelled like grease - my kind of heaven. I sat back on one of the mechanics benches, rested my head against the wall. I could go home and see Dani-and I should. But I needed to think.
Shit with Mad Dog wasn't copacetic anymore. I knew things had shifted between us. I had never been that close to him - that was Axe's role, though I never got the feeling that Axe was a hundred percent behind Mad Dog, even back in the good days. But now I was beginning to feel like I had somehow wandered into Mad Dog's sights, some kind of target. It wasn't a good feeling.
I must have dozed off, but I jerked awake to the sound of footsteps in the garage. I looked up to see Axe pulling up a bucket and overturning it, taking a seat on the makeshift chair. "Rough night?" I asked. Axe reeked of liquor and smoke. Probably a mixture of * in there, too. Lately he was banging anything that moved, some really crazy bitches.
"Not bad," Axe said. "You just got back from seeing Dani?"
I shook my head. "She's back here now. At my place. Not at Stanford. Graduated last week." I didn't add, You would know that if you weren't at the bottom of a bottle lately. The thought was immediately followed by a pang of guilt. Axe used to be a close ally, a good friend. I'd been spending more and more time away, had missed all the signs of his downward spiral.
Did his downward spiral include being loyal to whatever Mad Dog was planning? I'd been gone a lot over the past year. Could I trust him?
"Sorry, man," Axe said. "I didn't realize she was back in town."
I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes for a minute, thinking. I wanted to talk to Axe about the shit with Mad Dog. I wanted to talk to him about how I'd felt about the club lately. But, hell, I didn't know exactly how I felt about the club lately. Disillusioned? I wasn't sure. Maybe this wasn't the right place for me anymore.
"You ever think about having a family?" I asked, my eyes still half-closed, the question casual. Or casual-sounding.
"Used to," Axe said. "Not anymore."
No kidding, I thought. With the way he was running around, the women he was screwing, I was kind of surprised he hadn't knocked up some chick already. "Because of the club?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said. "It's not like you're ever going to get the white picket fence and shit, doing this."
I knew that, didn't I? In my gut, I knew you couldn't have both. But I asked the question anyway, still seeking Axe's advice, hoping I'd reach the old Axe, the one who used to be in control. "You think you can have both?"