Chapter 5: A Night on the Porch
The sun dipped entirely below the jagged peaks of the mountain range, plunging the dusty town into a deep, freezing twilight. The garage had grown bitterly cold once Jax killed the overhead fluorescent lights, leaving only a single yellow bulb burning over the workbench. We hadn't talked much more after my outburst; he had gone back to wrenching on the bike with a furious intensity, while I sat nursing the last warm sips of my soda, feeling the familiar, hollow ache of exhaustion settle deep into my bones.
When Jax finally wiped his hands clean for the last time and clicked the deadbolt on the side door, he didn't tell me to walk home alone. Instead, he motioned with a flick of his heavy chin toward the battered pickup truck parked out front—a primer-gray Ford with a dented tailgate and a faded bumper sticker from a music festival that had happened before I was even born.
“Get in,” he grunted, pulling his keys from his vest pocket. “It’s freezing out here, and I’m not in the mood to explain to the local sheriff why there’s a stray kid wandering the highway after dark.”
I climbed up onto the sticky vinyl bench seat, pulling my worn jacket tightly around my shoulders as the old engine wheezed, coughed, and finally roared to life with a deafening rattle that shook the entire cab. We drove in absolute silence through the dimly lit streets of the mountain town, past boarded-up storefronts and flickering neon diner signs, the tires crunching loudly over loose gravel as Jax turned off toward the old motel on the edge of the woods where the club members stayed during the rally.
The motel was a horseshoe-shaped relic of the 1970s, with peeling turquoise paint and flickering bug-zappers humming softly outside the numbered doors. Jax pulled the truck up to Room 14, killed the engine, and sat there for a long moment in the dark, staring through the cracked windshield at the dark line of pine trees looming behind the property.
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“You can crash on the spare cot inside,” Jax said gruffly, turning the key to shut off the electrical panel completely. “Don't touch my gear, don't touch my bike, and don't ask any more questions tonight.”
I followed him inside the small, stuffy room, which smelled faintly of stale beer, laundry detergent, and leather. I curled up on the narrow cot near the window, using my old jacket as a makeshift pillow while Jax sat at a small wobbly table in the corner, methodically cleaning a heavy leather riding whip under the dim light of a desk lamp. Outside, the wind howled through the pines, rattling the loose windowpane, but for the first time in weeks, I didn't feel entirely invisible.
