I sigh and decide it’s time to take a step back from crunching numbers.
Elsewhere in the saloon, everybody’s loud and wild. Bush has put together a watch party for the latest NFL game. The Superbowl’s coming up, and this game will decide the other team that gets to play.
I don’t even need to step outside of the office to know that Big Eddie’s yelling at the Falcons. Others like Tito and Ozzie are rooting for the 49ers.
Normally, I’d be out there too, having a beer and enjoying the game. But being prez comes with certain responsibilities. It’s not all perks and glory.
It’s a lot of hard work. A lot of pressure making sure everything runs like a well-oiled machine. People look to you for things. They expect leadership. Answers to questions they ask and problems they have.
You have to maintain a certain level of strength and confidence, otherwise you lose people. Your club loses its influence and dominance.
I grew up admiring the culture. I didn’t have a father in the club like some guys—I didn’t have a father at all growing up—but I was best friends with the kids who did have Steel Kings fordads. From the time I could ride a bicycle, I was imagining it was a motorcycle and I was a Steel King myself.
When I was finally old enough, it became my whole world. The thing I devoted my life to.
Everything else came second. That included my marriage and family…
There’s a knock on the office door. I’ve gotten up from the desk to give my eyes a break, peering out the window at the street outside. The lot’s full of bikes. Even the curb is lined with them, telling me we really do got a full house tonight.
Almost everybody’s here for the watch party.
“Come in.”
The door cracks open, and Cash slips inside.
“How’s the game?” I ask.
“Falcons are getting murdered. Ed’s about to break into tears.”
I cut him a sideways grin. “He’ll survive. It’s been decades since they’ve even made it this far.”
He laughs. “Tell him that. But I’m here to tell you something. You’ve got a visitor.”
“This better not be some prank to get me onto the floor to watch the game.”
“Pretty sure you’ll want to talk with this person in the office. Privately.”
It’s all Cash says before he draws the door open wider, and I recognize the ginger in a long, woolly cardigan.
Rachel mutters athank youto Cash and then crosses the threshold into the room, clutching her large sack of a purse like she hasn’t been here a thousand times before.
She was once an old lady. Once helped put together events for the club.
There’s a moment of tense, uncertain silence between us once Cash closes the door and we’re left alone.
In the aftermath of our divorce, it’s what we’ve become. Strangers who no longer know how to act around each other.
The girl I fell in love with when I was twenty-one, who smelled like vanilla and tasted like cherry ChapStick, vanished a long time ago.
A part of me will always love Rachel. She was my wife for over twenty years. She’ll always be the mother of my children. There’s a certain level of care and protection that I’ll always afford her.
But there’s no going back. I can’t look at her without thinking about the afternoon I fell out of love with her. It was a single moment there’s no turning back from.
We’ve come too far, hurt each other too many times, made some mistakes that are irrevocable.
She’s cognizant of it too. I can see the subtle twist of bitterness pulling at her lips as she glances around the clubhouse, her normally bright green eyes dimmer than usual. She looks at the Steel Saloon and sees the place her husband devoted himself to for years; she can’t help thinking about how she’d always been second place.
I drag my gaze away from hers, returning it to the window, then ask what she’s doing here.
