Page 36 of Fox (Road Rebels MC 4)
Rolling myself underneath this fucking car for the third time that week had me fuming. What the fuck did this customer expect from us? If you didn’t take care of your shit, then it would constantly break down. With cars, you gotta change the fluids, change the oil, and maintenance the damn thing. When you ride a used car hard, you gotta make sure you know what you’re doing. It wasn’t my damn fault the customer wanted to drag race with some fucked up hooptie. And it sure as hell wasn’t my job to fix it up.
I was a mechanic. Not a chop shop.
“Third time this week,” Colt said. “That’s fucked up.”
“No. What’s fucked up is this guy’s put some bullshit engine with nitro-whatever in it, and it’s wondering why the bottom’s fucking falling out of this thing.”
“You serious?” he asked. “Let me pop the hood. Now I’m curious.”
“If you touch anything and this car collapses on me, you’re the one paying my funeral expenses, asshole.”
“Quit being a pussy. I’m just takin’ a look,” he said.
I heard the hood pop as I continued to fiddle around with shit underneath the car. It was an absolute mess, and I knew it would keep me here later than I wanted to be. I heard Colt whistling as he jostled some things around, trying to figure out what the hell this man had put in this car.
“Okay. Rider, get your ass out from under there.”
“I’m almost done with som-”
“Get your fucking ass out,” he said.
“Shit. What the hell’s wrong with you?” I asked.
I rolled out from underneath the car and held out my arm for Colt. He grabbed me, helping me upright and steadying me on my prosthetic leg.
No matter how long I walked on that damn thing, I still had issues getting myself up on it.
“Take a look and tell me what you see,” Colt said.
“Another one of those tests?” I asked.
“Just fucking do it.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes before I dipped my head into the car. I saw a suped-up engine and some bullshit that didn’t need to be there. I saw piped flowing every which way and a cracked radiator reservoir that would have to be fixed as well. Oil was leaking underneath the bottom of the car now, which made me grateful Colt asked me to roll out.
But then I saw what Colt was seeing, and I groaned.
“You fucking kidding me?” I asked. “We’re gonna have to report this, aren’t we?”
“Hell no. Gearshift Mechanic Shop doesn’t need any police poking around in here. Not with its association with the club. But, we are gonna alert the customer that we know about it and tell them to take their fucking bullshit elsewhere,” Colt said.
“You want me to do it? Or are you gonna?” I asked.
“I’ll do it. You just close it up and roll it out. Don’t start it. Don’t play with it. And you sure as hell don’t steal it.”
“Not a fucking problem.”
Every once in a while, people thought they could pull the wool over our eyes. Even though the mechanic shop was associated with The Fallen Reapers Motorcycle Club, the club ran everything legitimately. It was their only source of legal business, so they made sure to keep it that way. But there were people in the community who lived in the shadows and fraternized in the underground world that thought they could bring their bullshit here. They thought that because of our associated with the club, we turned a blind eye to when their cars and shit brought trouble into our place.
Like having a fucking storage compartment underneath the hood filled with heroin.
I slammed the car hood down and opened the driver’s side door. I slipped the car into neutral, pushing it out towards the parking lot. I had half a mind to push the fucking thing right into oncoming traffic, but I resisted the urge. I was still trying to get in good with the group so I could talk to them about becoming a prospect.
I wanted to be a part of The Fallen Reapers MC.
I parked the car and looked up just in time to see Colt throwing some skinny little asshole out onto his face. They were yelling at one another as I walked back into the shop, grinning and shaking my head. Colt was trying to send a message. Prove a point with that scrawny little kid. Gearshift Mechanics wasn’t to be messed with. Even though it was associated with a club, everything that came out of that shop was legit.
And no one was going to try and ruin that.
“You good?” I asked.
“Helped blow off some steam. Good news for you, though. That was your last customer for the day,” Colt said.
“Ah, the non-paying customer.”
“Oh, no. I made him pay up. He signed the bill to be done. Not our fault we came across drugs in his car. He paid for the work we quoted him on, and I told him to let that be a lesson. You’re getting paid. I don’t run my shop like that.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I need all the money I can get.”
“Saving up for a surgery or something?”
“Hell yeah, I am. My V.A. benefits will take fucking forever to kick in, and I’m sick of the scars running down my face. I can always get them to reimburse me, even if it is a year from now.”
“You’d think the government would treat you better after having you getting blown up off overseas.”
“You’d think,” I said with a huff.
“You comin’ out with the guys tonight?” he asked.
“Didn’t know the guys were going out. What time?”
“The usual. Eight.”
“At the bar, we usually go to?” I asked.
“Yep. That’s the one.”
“I’ll be there, then. Gonna go home and scrub this grease off first. Shit stinks.”
“Maybe that’s just your upper lip,” he said.
The two of us chuckled as I threw my rag over my shoulder. I started for my locker, getting my shit out of it so I could head home. Going out with the guys gave me the perfect opportunity to talk to them about becoming a prospect. It took me months to cope with the fact that an I.E.D. blew me on my ass in the field, leaving me with a scared reminder of the explosion and shrapnel all over the side of my body. The scars just snaked up my neck and went down my torso, so I was able to hide them depending on what I was wearing. But it took me even longer to cope with no longer being in the military in the first place. Everywhere I went, people treated me like I was damaged. Women would thank me for my service while children stared at my scars poking out from underneath my shirt. Men would shake my hand and pat my back will giving me some bullshit sympathetic look.
It was disgusting. I hated being treated like I was broken.
Restaurants offered me discounts, and bars handed me free drinks. And it was good for a while until I took advantage of all the free shit. I tacked on forty pounds and tried to find solace at the bottom of a bottle, but that shit didn’t work.
It wasn’t until Colt stepped in that I got my act together.
He offered me a job at his mechanic shop. Nothing special, just fixing up cars and doing oil changes. It gave me a purpose instead of sitting around and stuffing my face with all the free food I could find. My need for alcohol was replaced with a need for oil on my shirts, but that wasn’t why I stayed. My friendship with Colt spanned across years. We knew each other well, and he knew the toll of the scars took on me. But he also knew how important it was for me to be treated as if nothing had happened.
That was what the entire club did. They treated me like I was a regular man. They didn’t stare at my scars, they didn’t ask me dumbass questions like ‘what happened?’ or ‘how does it feel?’. When I was around them, it was like my issues didn’t exist. Like I was a whole man instead of a mutilated one.
It was some pussy shit, but it was the truth.
I had worked for the mechanic shop for a little over a year now, and I was ready to talk to the guys about joining up. I spent over a year proving myself to the club, and I felt like I deserved a shot at becoming a prospect. They were the only family I had now. They had taken me in
when I had nowhere else to go and pulled me from the darkness when I didn’t even know I was slipping into it.
And I figured my military skills would be helpful for the other side of their business.
