Chapter 5: Porch Conversation
The afternoon heat radiated off the metal roof of the trailer, turning the small wooden porch into an oven. I didn't turn around when he told me to leave. Instead, I climbed the two splintered wooden steps of the trailer he had dragged onto the edge of the quarry property and sat down on the edge of the small deck, letting my legs dangle over the side.
Jax let out a long, slow breath, running a hand through his long dark hair before pushing it back from his forehead. For a moment, he looked like he might pick me up by the collar of my jacket and toss me back into the dust. But he just sighed, walked over to a battered metal cooler sitting beside the trailer door, and kicked it open with the toe of his boot. He pulled out a sweating bottle of soda, popped the cap off with an old church key on his key ring, and held it out toward me without a word.
I hesitated, then reached out and took the cold glass bottle from his hand. The condensation felt good against my warm fingers.
“You're stubborn,” Jax said, leaning his hip against the aluminum siding of the trailer and crossing his arms over his chest. “Must take after your mother.”
“You knew her a long time ago,” I said, taking a small sip of the soda. The sweet, sharp taste stung the back of my throat.
“Too long,” Jax replied, his voice dropping into a register that felt distant, almost like he was talking to someone who wasn't there. He stared out across the expanse of white gravel toward the distant tree line where the shadow of the quarry wall was beginning to lengthen. “Back when this whole valley was just open range and dirt roads that washed out every time it rained. Before the highway came through and turned this place into a truck stop.”
“Why did you leave?” I asked, turning my head to look up at him. The question had been sitting in my chest since I found the birth registry at the county office, a hard knot that wouldn't dissolve. “Mom said you packed up your truck before I was born. She said you didn't even know.”
Jax’s jaw tightened, the muscle ticking once beneath his heavy beard. He looked down at his boots, his large, tattooed hands clenching into loose fists at his sides before slowly relaxing again. The toughness he wore like armor around the other bikers seemed to slip away here in the shade of the trailer, leaving something raw and exposed underneath.
“I knew,” Jax said softly, the confession dropping into the space between us like a heavy stone.
The words hung in the dry air, and my breath caught. I stopped swinging my legs, the bottle of soda growing warm in my grip.
“You knew?” I whispered.
“I knew she was carrying you,” Jax said, not looking at me now, his eyes fixed on the distant line of trucks crawling along the interstate. “And I knew I wasn't fit to be near a cradle. I was twenty years old, riding a piece-of-junk motorcycle that broke down every ten miles, and my own father’s name didn't mean anything in this county except trouble at the courthouse. I figured the best thing I could do for Sarah, and for whatever kid she was having, was to disappear before I messed things up any worse than I already had.”
“Mom didn't say you were trouble,” I said, my voice barely louder than the hum of the distant generator. “She just said you were gone.”
“She was being kind,” Jax muttered, a bitter little smile touching the corner of his mouth. He pushed off the trailer wall and took a step toward me, crouching down so his eyes were level with mine. The scent of motor oil and old leather surrounded him, familiar and steady. He reached out with one large, scarred hand and hesitatingly touched the brim of my jacket. “You shouldn't have come here, Leo. People around here like their stories simple. They see a biker and they see a ghost. They don't want to see what's underneath.”
“I’m not scared of ghosts,” I said, holding his gaze, refusing to blink.
Jax looked at me for a long, silent moment, searching my face as if he were trying to find every year he had missed carved into my features. Then, slowly, a strange, weary tenderness softened the hard lines around his mouth. He gave my shoulder a brief, awkward squeeze—a gesture so restrained it felt heavy with years of silence—before standing back up.
“Get back to town before dark,” Jax said, his voice returning to its normal gravelly tone as he turned toward the door of the trailer. “Your mother’s going to be looking for you. And don't go wandering back into this camp alone.”
“Are you going to be at the diner tomorrow?” I asked, standing up from the porch steps.
Jax paused with his hand on the rusted metal doorknob, his shoulders rising and falling in a deep, slow breath. He didn't turn around.
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“The coffee there's too hot,” he said quietly, “but the service is decent.”
Then he pulled the door open and stepped inside, the latch clicking shut behind him with a dry, final sound that left me standing alone in the afternoon heat.
