Page 10 of Torn
“Well, yeah, of course he will.”
“Chloe says it’s a good idea anyway, though, because guys don’t like to wear condoms.”
My jaw clenches so hard I’m afraid I’m going to crack a molar. “Listen to me, Kenzi. There’s a lot more to sex than just getting pregnant. There’re all sorts of diseases you can get.” She stares at me, wide-eyed. “When you start having sex, you better make the guy wear a condom until you’re damn sure you can trust him. I don’t give a fuck if some little douchebag doesn’t like the way it feels. You stand your ground and make him, okay?”
“Okay.”
“If anyone tries to pull that shit with you, I’ll put them in a fucking hole, Kenzi.”
I end the conversation by standing and taking our plates over to the sink. “I better get going. I should have been at the shop hours ago. I’ll see you tonight? About six?”
“Sounds good.” She stares out the window, lost in her thoughts.
“And wash my sweatshirt!” I yell over my shoulder on my way out the door.
As I drive to the bike shop, my mind keeps wandering back to the conversation I just had with Kenzi. Maybe I should have said more. Or nothing at all. I’ve always tried to be there for her, but I sure as hell don’t know how to give sex advice to a teenage girl who’s on the verge of giving up her virginity. The mere thought of it makes me feel sick. I can’t even get my own shit together when it comes to dating.
She always comes to me when she needs to talk, though. Or when she’s scared. Or has something exciting to share.
It really should come as no surprise since my name was the first word she ever said.
Now it’s like we’re verbally bonded.
The motorcycle shop is already open and blaring with the racket of heavy metal music and air tools when I get there. My brother Tanner usually opens the shop and I close, because he’s a morning person and I’m usually up late at night rescuing lost pets. You think I’m kidding? I’m not.
The shop belonged to my father, Thomas Grace, who lived, breathed, and ate bikes, and he passed that passion down to his boys. The only thing he loved more than riding was my mom.And his kids, of course. But Mom came first, and that’s the way it should be.
That changed twelve years ago when my dad dropped dead of a heart attack.Bam. Gone.
Being the oldest, I had no choice but to step up and take care of the family business, my mom, my four younger brothers, and my little sister. Six sets of eyes all looking at me to put us back together again. This went down just two months before the band’s big break, first major tour, and a record deal. I had to bail out of the band that Asher, Ember, and I started years before and watch from the sidelines as they became rich, famous rock stars. Meanwhile, my guitar ended up in a closet collecting dust and my dreams slowly faded away. But hey, I get a royalty check since I wrote some of the songs on the first album.
In the blink of an eye, I went from being a wild musician living on the road out of an old suitcase, partying hard without a care in the world, to having to be the responsible one.
Life is funny like that.
I enter through the back door of the shop, where my brothers Tanner, Taran, and Tristan are busy working in their areas. Tanner and Taran mostly do engine rebuilds, and Tristan does all our custom airbrushing and pinstriping. We have another mechanic, Sled, who works part-time. I mostly work on the older, vintage bike restorations. Dad’s strict rule was we only sell and work on cruisers—no racing bikes. To this day, I’ve made sure we held up that rule. No race bikes. No scooters. Ever.
And yeah, my mom had a thing about the letter T and giving us unique names when she named all of us.
Every day starts the same for me at the shop, and it’s the part I hate the most because I have to hole up in my office and go through the mail, sort out the bills and purchase orders, and setthe schedule for the upcoming work. I fucking despise paperwork, but my dad did this all himself, so I figure I should, too.
After I finish the paperwork bullshit, I switch gears and focus on my role as head of Devils’ Wolves MC and Pet Rescue—run by myself, my brothers, and a few other bikers. Devils’ Wolves was my brainchild about five years ago, fueled by my deep respect for two things that my parents instilled in us: the love of pets and motorcycles. That, and a bout of insomnia, is how I came up with the perfect plan to actually do something with my life that made me feel like I had some purpose again.
My mother runs Wolfy’s Place, a pet shelter and sanctuary in town that operates twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And while taking in strays, getting them medical attention, and adopting them out is great, I wanted to find the ones that were too lost to be seen, save the ones that were being abused, and basically fuck up the people who were hurting them. Like the assholes who run underground dogfighting rings. Or the old ladies who go out of their minds and hoard two hundred cats in their dilapidated houses. Okay, so I don’t fuck up old ladies, but I do go in there and use my charm to get those cats out before they start eating each other.
We use the club to run charity events and rides to raise money to support our rescue equipment, and we donate a portion of the funds to Wolfy’s Place. So, it’s a win-win.
It also coaxes Tyler to come out of his house hidden in the woods. Just like the lost, scared, and abused dogs, he’ll only come out in the dark when no one can see him. Or hear him. My brother Ty has a special gift for being able to creep around the woods unheard and unseen. Stalking, hunting, and capturing are his specialty, second to his ability to get in and out of houses without making a sound or getting caught. And that’s how my brotherhas saved over fifty pets—and how he’s put several animal offenders in the hospital after nearly beating them to death. To say he likes to inflict pain and suffering would be an understatement.
I haven’t seen Ty in the daylight in years, and he’s said less than ten words in that time. We communicate solely through text messages and meet in the parking lot of the shelter late at night when he has a captured dog or cat to drop off.
Every month I deposit money into his bank account. Partly because he deserves profits from the family business, and partly from my own guilt over what happened to him.
I shove that thought down into my chest with the rest of my mistakes and regrets.
Last night’s recorded video feeds from my night-vision cameras on the trails didn’t catch anything and neither did my feeding traps. A few weeks ago, a limping dog was seen several times roaming that area by the river. I’ve caught him on the feeds a few times, sniffing at the cage, wanting to go in and grab that food, but he’s leery and won’t go in. Sometimes they’d rather starve than give in and get caught, and that’s a position I can respect. Freedom to do what we want, even for a short time, can be worth the pain and suffering we have to endure to have it.
Just as I’m about to go out to the shop to start doing some real work, my phone rings.