“No wonder they were so expensive and had me sign an adults-only form to rent them. I thought it was just expensive for the holiday. Oh,Häschen. That is…Häschen.Little rabbit.” He started laughing again.
Rena was done. “Tommie, let’s go.”
“I’ll text it to you,” she whispered overly loudly to the guys.
Mateo gave her a thumbs-up.
“Ten more days, Axel Heller. And if I see one more troll doll or one more horny duck, you’re toast.”
Then she got in the car with Tommie and laughed until she cried.
Twenty-One
By Wednesday night, Axel’s nerves were strung tight. The therapy session he’d had the previous day had been hard to handle. The therapist had been quiet, understanding, and extremely easy to open up to. He hadn’t planned on saying much, and he’d ended up saying a lot, learning how much he hadn’t realized he’d held in.
He had an appointment to see her next week as well. But the best thing he’d learned was that what he felt made sense. He wasn’t crazy, and keeping himself apart from the very thing that seemed to be helping—namely, Rena—didn’t make sense.
It was like he had a pass to start living again.
Though he figured Fletcher wouldn’t show until the end of the week, he wasn’t taking any chances. Neither was Ray, apparently. Axel saw Sam, Lou, Foley, Smitty, and Rylan sitting together, and he recognized a bunch of regulars who spent their time between Ray’s and a jail cell, but a lot of the crowd in the bar looked…unfamiliar. Not people he knew, and they all had a vibe that told him he didn’t want to know them. Then he saw Mantego sitting in the back and understood.
Lou had painted Mantego’s car, a cherry Shelby Mustang, and turned the already-classic car into a work of art. And Mantego, as most of those acquainted with Seattle’s underbelly knew, ran a major crime network in the city. Big J said something to the guy that had him laughing.
So, Mantego must have been Big J’s connection, and a big connection it was.
Fletcher had no idea who he’d pissed off.
Axel sat with his guys.
“Rylan, you probably shouldn’t be here,” he said, just in case the law showed up.
“The more the merrier, Boss.” Rylan shrugged. “I like Ray’s, and I don’t like Fletcher’s guys.”
“See, he’s cute and smarter than he looks,” Smitty said under his breath, though Axel heard him.
Rylan blushed under his scowl.
Axel had no urge to know why the hell the two had been so chummy lately.
“Why are you three here?” he asked Lou, Sam, and Foley. “You all have women now, and you don’t come in that much anyway.”
Foley frowned. “We come in enough. This is our place. And we love Rena. What else is there to say?”
Lou said a few words in Spanish. “There’s no place here for Fletcher’s kind. Ray’s belongs to all of us.” He shot Axel a knowing look. “It’s not just you and your girlfriend who have a problem with this asshole.”
“Ah,gut.” Axel tossed back his beer.“Just don’t damage your hands. I need you.”
“So glad to know you care,” Lou muttered, but Axel caught his grin.
He spotted Liam talking with a few big guys with bad reputations. Men who liked to tear apart cars and sell their parts for money for some heavy-hitters who hated cops. “Liam is here?”
“Yeah. We were told to stay away from him.” Foley grinned. “Liam’s still badass. I respect the hell out of him.”
Axel looked around. The bar belonged to all of them labeled by many as outcasts, degenerates, and troublemakers. Axel didn’t see anything wrong with that. He just liked to have a good time. To go to a place where a guy could fight or drink or just forget about things without worrying about a dress code and twenty-dollar cocktails.
Ray’s was all about inclusiveness. So having some dickhead players trying to limit anything rubbed everyone the wrong way.
“I need some air,” he said and left out the front.
