"Denny. It's Tex."
"Big Tex! How's the rebuild going? I heard y'all got hit hard."
"We're getting there. Listen, I need a big favor. I've got a bike that needs to come off my hands. A Sportster. No questions."
Silence for a beat. Denny's been doing this long enough to know what "no questions" means.
"What year?"
"Not sure. It's a rebuild. Carburetor work. It's in decent shape."
"Where is it?"
"Second floor of the bar. I need it gone tonight if possible."
"Tonight works. I'll bring the trailer. After closing?"
"That'll work. Come to the back. I'll have the bay door open."
"You got it, brother. I'll have it in pieces by sunrise. Parts go to three different states. By next week, that bike never existed. Save me some ribs."
"Always."
And just like that, it's settled. That's the biker code. You need a favor, you get a favor. Nobody writes anything down. Nobody asks questions. The IRS would have a stroke if they saw how business gets conducted in this community. Handshakes and barbecue and the understanding that what happens in the shop stays in the shop. Denny once made an entire Harley-Davidson Fat Boy disappear in forty-eight hours and the only evidence it ever existed was a grease stain on his garage floor and a satisfied customer who paid in cash and venison jerky.
I hang up and lean against the wall. By tomorrow morning, the Sportster will be components. Frame cut apart. Engine disassembled. Serial numbers ground down to nothing. Fenders going to a shop in Mississippi. Exhaust to someone in Georgia. Wheels to Louisiana. Ron Jackson's motorcycle scattered across the Southeast in pieces so small and so spread out that it will never be a motorcycle again.
The tracker is already hidden at the impound lot. By tomorrow, there won't be a single piece of evidence connecting Stormy to Alabama. No bike. No GPS. Nothing.
It's not enough.
It won't stop Ron from coming.
But it strips him of his tools. No tracker to follow. No bike to claim. If he shows up at this bar, he shows up with nothing but his word, and his word against ours isn't going to carry far.
Not in this parking lot, surrounded by bikers, a cop named Mickey, and a woman with a cast iron skillet in her soul. Not to mention a man who has been waiting, patiently, for Ron Jackson to make the mistake of showing up.
The back door opens. Stormy comes out, hair damp from the shower, changed into fresh clothes for the shift. He smells like shampoo and the warmth of clean skin. He crosses the deck to me and slides under my arm, fitting himself against my side, his hand finding its way to my back pocket the way it does now, possessive and new.
"Who were you talking to?" he asks.
"Denny Briggs. Old friend of the bar. He's coming by after closing to pick something up."
I feel him go tense against me.
"The bike," he says.
"Yeah, it's time to make it disappear permanently."
His hand tightens in my back pocket. "Thank you."
I pull him closer and press my mouth to the top of his head, breathing in the clean scent of him. He tilts his face up and I kiss him properly, slow and deep. He leans into me and his hands slide up my chest. He grips the collar of my shirt andfor a few seconds we're just two people kissing on a deck with the sun going down.
"Get a room!" Sheila calls out from inside the bar. "Or at least both of you get behind the grill. We open in thirty minutes and nobody's started the coals."
"I swear that woman has a sixth sense for romance and a zero-tolerance policy for it interfering with business operations. I once saw her break up a couple making out in a car in the parking lot by handing them both menus through the window and saying 'if you're going to sit in your car, you're going to eat.' They ordered burgers. They tipped thirty percent. They're regulars now."
We reluctantly break apart. Stormy's cheeks are flushed and his lips are swollen. He's smiling and the sight of him hits me the way it hits me every single time, like a rogue wave I didn't see coming that knocks me off my feet.
