Violet leans into me. “I really hate you.”
I offer the tire to Chevy and he stays solid, glowering at Violet before shouldering the tire and heading for the truck. When Stone and Chevy are out of hearing range, I step into her space, uncaring that she’s praying for my death. “You might not want our help, but your mom and your brother do. And if you can’t behave like a sane person around Chevy, then fake it with silence. The truck, Violet. Now.”
“You’re an asshole, Oz.”
I shrug. “Not the first girl who’s called me that today.”
“It should upset you that you’re being called that.” Violet tenses like she’s willing to take a swing. In response, I cross my arms over my chest and plant my feet. History has taught me that she owns a mean right hook. “It should make you wonder what it is about yourself that people can’t stand.”
“Truth doesn’t bother me.”
“Normal people would be bothered that everyone thinks they’re crazy and an asshole and an outlaw, but you’re more than happy to live in your sick world of whatever you say goes.”
“It’s a family, and it’s your family.”
“We are not related!” A wildness strikes her eyes as tears line the edges. “I don’t want to be a part of your family because your family kills!”
To keep from reminding her that her father died when a pickup hit him while he was driving without a helmet, I breathe deeply. “Our family is the type that fixes tires and offers help. Come or don’t come, but I’m taking your brother with me. He looks like he needs a damn meal.”
“I’m not one of you anymore.” Her voice cracks. “I’m no longer fourteen and I’m not a follower like all of you. I don’t listen to you and ask how high when you say jump.”
I turn my back to her and go for the truck. “Razor is the oldest of us. He’s the leader.”
“You’re wrong,” she calls out. “It was you we followed, but I stopped and Brandon’s going to stop and soon it’ll all stop.”
“You don’t make any sense.”
“I do. You know I do.”
She doesn’t and I continue walking so I won’t chew her out for breaking the heart of my best friend and for making her mother and brother feel guilty for welcoming the club’s help. I chased snakes out of the barn with her when we were seven. At eight, with Chevy’s help and a baseball bat, we scared away the monsters under her bed.
Me, her, Chevy and Razor—we were tight.
Were is a son-of-a-bitch word.
Chevy watches us from the front of the truck and Stone stands in the bed with his hands resting on the roof of the cab.
A twig snaps behind me and footsteps pad against the dirt. I swing into the driver’s side and Emily has the good sense to stay silent as Chevy opens the passenger side. He offers his hand to Violet to assist her up the two-foot lift.
Instead of accepting, she grasps the console and hauls herself up with a struggle. Chevy waits, but the stone set of his face tells me we’ll be throwing a few beers back soon in the interest of forgetting Violet’s name.
Once she’s in, Chevy closes the door and joins Stone in the bed of the truck. Two taps on the roof and I rev the engine.
With a fourteen-year-old in the back, I move along at thirty and the truck gently jostles from side to side. This time, Emily’s not crashing into me, but I’d prefer her soft body pressing against mine instead of the awkward, heavy silence.
The trees create a green canopy and we’re surrounded by dark shade. In the rearview mirror, my best friend stares out into nothingness.
“You could be nicer to him.” I typically would never toss around our business in front of a stranger, but Emily will be leaving in a few weeks and she won’t follow the conversation. This might be the only time Violet and I will be alone together.
“I could,” Violet says as she stares into the same void Chevy does. “But where would that get any of us?”
The club is a blessing and Violet treats it as a curse. This family, this brotherhood, it’s not the enemy. The enemy is the outside forces attempting to shake us up or take us down.
Those forces are people like Violet or people like Emily who watch a few TV shows and think we’re thugs. It’s law enforcement who believe anyone with a biker cut runs guns, drugs or women. Or worse, what threaten us are diseases like the one that ravages the woman I consider a grandmother. Diseases like cancer.
A burning in my throat causes me to shove those thoughts away.
The overhead canopy gives way and sunlight streams into the truck when I ease onto the long driveway that leads to the clubhouse then farther down to my home. I’m not sure who nicknamed it Thunder Road or why, but the name stuck. Violet lifts her hands into a ray of light bouncing off the side mirror. Something her dad used to do.