Seasons of Change (6 page)

“It’s protection money, sweetheart. That’s what you pay us for, for your own protection,” Blondie explains, speaking slowly as if he thinks I’m completely crazy, which I suppose I might seem to be to them.

“Protection from
whom?
” I ask, pulling myself up to my full height, ignoring Big George tugging on my uniform with his good hand, trying to get me to shut up.

“From us, hot lips, protection from us,” Blondie says menacingly as he and Baldy turn and walk out of the diner.

Without even giving them a second thought, I reach for my cell and dial 911. “Ambulance please,” I say, and stop when I see George shaking his head again and again. “You need an ambulance big guy. That hand is going to need stitches,” I point out.

“Hang up the phone, Aimee,” George says between gritted teeth as he looks down at the towel covering his injured hand. “No ambulance, no hospitals,” he tells me and the look in his eyes tells me that there isn’t going to be any persuading him.

“You’re as stubborn as a mule, G,” I tell him. “You head into the kitchen, I’ll grab the first aid kit,” I instruct, pushing him in the direction of the back room.

As I rifle around in the cubby-holes underneath the counter, my eyes travel to the table that the cops are sat at, still doing great impressions of ostriches, sticking their heads in the dirt and ignoring everything around them. “You should be ashamed to wear that uniform.” I veritably spit the words out at them and they have the decency at least to look embarrassed before I sweep out into the kitchen cursing.

I do my best to patch George’s hand up, and once the bleeding has stopped it’s easier to see that the cut isn’t all that bad. It’s going to be painful for a few days, but it didn’t look like the knife had done any permanent damage. He can still move all of his fingers and that’s about as far as my medical expertise goes.

“When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut, Aimee?” Big George asks, shaking his head in mock despair at me.

“When someone else starts speaking up,” I tell him without missing a beat as I wrap the gauze around his hand. It’s not neat, but it’ll do. “What happens now?” I ask, not really wanting to hear the answer.

“Well, I show Dick the message that they wanted to send,” George sighs, waving his bandaged hand at me, “And then he either comes up with the cash or I reckon the Angels will burn this place to the ground.” He says it as nonchalantly as if he were talking about the weather.

“And does he have the money?” I ask, wondering at how the man is always so unbelievably calm. Whatever it is that he puts in his coffee, I decide that I might need some.

“You see how many customers come in, the prices we charge and the percentage that the Angels take,” George reasons, tilting his head at me. “What do you think?”

“I think there’s no way he can come up with the kind of cash they want,” I reply, the enormity of what I’m saying dawning on me. If there’s no diner, there’s no job—not for me, not for Suzie, and not for George, and it’s not like Painted Rock is overflowing with employment opportunities. If the Angels are going to torch Sunny Side Up, then I need to be out of this town before that happens.

“Bingo,” George says. “Now why don’t you grab that bottle of whiskey and bring it back here and pour us a couple of glasses. I think we could both do with a drink,” he suggests.

I don’t bother to tell him that I don’t touch the hard stuff—it’s something he already knows. But I figure he’s right. If there was ever a time to become a serious drinker, now would be it. As I head out to the front of the diner, I watch as the cops leave their cash on the table and I can see they’ve left a bigger tip than necessary. As if that’s going to make all the difference.

Most of the cops in this town are dirty, getting pay-offs from the Angels left, right, and center to keep them sweet and in line. I want to shout after them that it’s because of people like them that this town is in the state that it’s in. But it wouldn’t make any difference—it’s not like I’d be telling them something they didn’t already know anyway. They walk out, studiously avoiding eye contact, leaving the diner empty except for an older guy who is nursing a coffee like he’s afraid of what’s going to happen when he finishes it.

George and I hang out in the kitchen, him virtually downing the whisky shots I’m pouring while I take small sips, wondering why people decide to drink this stuff when it tastes like liquid fire running down your throat. I don’t ask why George refused to go to the hospital to fix his hand—I already know.

One night when I’d asked him why he doesn’t date, he’d confided to me that he had been married once. He didn’t go into a whole heap of detail, but he told me that she’d been in accident, he’d taken her to hospital, and she’d died there. Since then, he doesn’t go to the doctor and he avoids hospitals like the plague.

He figures the doctors just pretend to know what the hell they’re talking about, when really they have no idea and they’re just trying to play God. I’d tried to reason with him, asking whether or not, if he had a car accident, he would want to go to the hospital. George had replied without even having to think about it. He had said that he would rather die on the street than in a white building with people poking and prodding at him like an experiment.

“How long?” George asks eventually and I know exactly what he’s talking about.

“Fifteen days and counting,” I tell him sadly. Every few hours brings Jake’s birthday closer.

“You got enough saved to get out before then?” he asks innocently, and I do a double-take, wondering if I’ve heard him correctly.

“How do you know about that?” I ask, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice.

“I’m big, not stupid,
guapa
.” George lets out a low rumble of a laugh. But his eyes are kind as he says, “You and that boy of yours should get as far away from here as you can as soon as possible.”

“He’s not my boy,” I tell him, and try to pretend that it doesn’t hurt me to say. “Besides, he has other plans,” I add, staring down into the amber-colored liquid in the glass.

“Plans change, Aimee, especially when feelings get in the way,” the big man says wisely, and I wonder, not for the first time, what his life was like in Mexico before he came here. Something tells me that he wasn’t a fry cook.

“What feelings?” I ask him as I take a long swig from my glass and try not to cough it all up as it burns the back of my throat. “We’re just friends,” I assure him.

“
Mhm
,” George replies noncommittally, giving me the one-eyebrow-raised look that’s the visual equivalent of saying “whatever you say.” The bell on the diner door dings and that’s my cue to get back to work. “Saved by the bell,” he says enigmatically, clearly enjoying teasing me.

“Right, well I better go get those nice men some menus,” I say with a pasted on shit-eating grin and false cheer that makes George splutter out the whisky he had just sipped, which in turn makes me burst out laughing.

After the dramatic events of the night it feels good to laugh, especially when I can’t help but feel like there’s not going to be much to laugh about for long.

As always, I arrive at The Hideaway before Jake does. Even though neither of us were twenty-one, Painted Rock bars never checked ID's. Not since the Bleeding Angels came. I always joked that he would be late to his own funeral. I even keep reminding myself that I should really start turning up an hour
after
we’ve agreed to meet, and maybe then we’d actually arrive at the same time. But lateness isn’t in my nature. Besides, the bar isn’t a bad place to kill time; especially with how limited the options are in Painted Rock.

The Hideaway is one of only two bars in town, the other being the biker bar, Wheels, where no one in their right mind would go unless they were either the girlfriend of one of the bikers or were looking for a fight. I’d never been to Wheels and I had no intention of changing that anytime soon. I wonder if that’s where Suzie is right now.

It was one of the strange features that had become so normal in this town: you
might
find a group of bikers at The Hideaway, but you
never
found non-bikers at ‘Wheels’. The Bleeding Angels could go where they want, when they want, take what they want, do what they want. There was no one to challenge them. Not anymore.

I cast a look around the place as I walk in and head straight for the bar. It’s kind of a dive, but it has a certain charm about it despite the sticky floors. “Hey Noah,” I say as I hop up onto one of the stools and greet the owner.

“How’s it going, Aimee?” he asks back.

Noah was born and bred in Painted Rock, so he knows everyone and everything that goes on in this town. Although he’s no fan of the Bleeding Angels, he knows that it wouldn’t be anywhere near worth his while to do anything about them, just like everyone else.

If you wanted to know anything about Painted Rock, anything that’s going on that may not necessarily be public, Noah was your man. He could find out whatever it is that you want to know—for a fee, of course. Just like everything else in this town, information can be bought. I wonder how responsible Noah feels for some of the beatings—or, I should say,
examples
—that have occurred in Painted Rock over the years.

Sometimes someone lets slip how much they hate the Bleeding Angels when they’ve had a few drinks, or maybe confides to their drinking buddy that they haven’t handed over all the cash for their “protection” that month—that they’d kept some back. A few days later, that someone disappears only to be found barely alive by the roadside with drag-marks up and down their bodies.

That was one of the Bleeding Angels’ favorite ways to send out a message to the people of Painted Rock. Nothing quite says “don’t fuck with us” like being dragged behind a motorbike along desert roads.

“You know, same old, same old,” I say to Noah, shrugging my shoulders, thinking that the story of what happened to Big George in the diner the night before had probably already done the rounds.

I wait for Noah to try to get more information, to find out something that he may be able to use later on. He’s not a bad guy; he’s just trying to make his way in the world like everyone else. He’s trading on the commodities that he can—no more, no less than that.

“How’s Big George?” Noah asks, looking at me from underneath his bushy eyebrows, confirming that he’s already heard the news from the local gossip-mongers.

“He’ll be fine,” I tell him calmly, not wanting to go into the nitty gritty of it.

You learn to be careful what you say and to be careful who you say it to. To be honest, I don’t even want to think about the events of the night before or how things could have got even more out of hand than they already had. The thought of those bikers and the way they actually seemed to enjoy hurting George and scaring me makes me feel physically sick.

It had been a while since I’d witnessed, or even been involved in, a run-in like that between the Angels and us normal people. I’d almost forgotten how easy it was for them to act like they were the law in this town.

It’s the sense of entitlement that always gets to me, like they truly believed that we should all just sit back and let them do whatever they want. It makes me so mad, but that’s how things are and they don’t show signs of changing anytime soon. My dad had always taught me that “might doesn’t make right,” but over the years the Angels had managed to disprove that theory pretty effectively.

Noah seems to read my thoughts and gives me a “chin up” kind of smile. “What’ll it be then, kid?” he asks, nodding helloes as a few regulars drift into the bar.

“I’ll have a beer Noah, thanks,” I tell him. Although Noah runs a reputable business, he’s never been overly concerned with enforcing the minimum legal drinking age. It was one of the few things in the lawlessness of Painted Rock that actually worked out for me.

“Sorry I’m late, what I miss?” Jake asks, breathing a little heavily like he’s been running as he pulls up a bar stool next to me.

“You’re always late,” I remind him, nodding my thanks to Noah as he passes me a cold one and Jake signals for another. “If you weren’t late it would be a miracle, and since we’re all out of miracles in this town, here we are,” I take my first swig and savor the cool liquid as it hits the back of my throat.

“But aren’t I worth waiting for?” Jake teases, his dark eyes mischievous, and I try not to read too much into his words.

“One day you’re going to turn up and I’ll have taken off already and it’ll serve you right, Jake Summers,” I tell him forcefully, but the smile on my face tells him I’m joking.

“You’d never leave me, would you Aimee?” he asks teasingly, and our eyes lock for a few seconds before what he’s said sinks in and the awkwardness of the moment is instantly palpable. That’s exactly what he’d been telling me to do—to leave him behind. “So, what’s new?” Jake asks hurriedly, taking a sip of his beer as he virtually falls over himself trying to change the direction of the conversation.

“What, you mean apart from the craziness of last night? I think that’s all the new news I have,” I tell him, taking another lazy swig of my drink, but I stop when I see the expression on Jake’s face.

“What happened last night?” Jake asks warily, putting down the bottle he’d been holding and fixing me with a stare that makes me squirm in my seat.

“Sorry, I figured you’d already heard. Everyone else in this town already seems to,” I mumble, waving vaguely at the other customers in the bar.

Jake doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me as if to signal me to go on, so I give him the summarized version of the night’s events. I have to take a few deep breaths before I describe how they stabbed George through his left hand and I see it all play out again in front of me. Jake remains silent throughout, listening intently.

“Holy shit,” he breathes once I’ve finished telling the story, save for the last discussion with George.

“You can say that again,” I tell him, taking another long drink of my beer and surprising myself when I find that it’s already empty. I’m not a big drinker, but tonight I feel like I need it; the numbing effect of the alcohol is comforting, like there are too many emotions whirling around my body for me to make sense of.

“Holy shit,” Jake repeats, still stunned by what I’ve told him. “Are you alright?” he asks, concern in his eyes as he looks over me. He holds onto my shoulders, looking me up and down as if I might have visible wounds that I hadn’t bothered to mention.

“I’m fine,” I assure him, trying to ignore how my stomach flips when Jake touches me. “Except for losing all faith in the cops in this town and figuring that common decency has officially left the building, I’m fine.”

“Aimee,” Jake says, fixing me with his serious look. “You need to be more careful. You can’t go around telling people exactly what you think of them and not expect to get a reaction. You were lucky they didn’t hurt you,” he says, his husky voice sounding a little strained.

“They stabbed Big George in the hand,” I point out to him slowly. “What was I supposed to do? Just stand there and not do
anything?
”

“No, but sometimes you have to pick your battles,” Jake tells me, his eyes expressing heated anger.

“Well excuse me for having a bad reaction to some guy who can probably barely spell his own name stabbing my friend,” I say louder than necessary, and immediately regret it when I see Noah making a concerted effort to look like he’s not listening in on our conversation. I take a deep breath, dropping my voice so it’s back to a normal volume. “I thought tonight was meant to be about us
not
fighting anymore,” I remind him pointedly, signaling Noah for another two beers.

“You’re right, you’re right,” Jake tells me, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “This is an argument-free zone.” He gestures at the space between us and the sweet expression on his face inevitably makes my heart hurt.

“Great,” I say, and nod at him in agreement.

“Great,” he repeats, catching my eye and holding my gaze for a fraction of a second longer than is comfortable until I look away, concentrating hard on the design of the label of my beer bottle. “Uh-oh,” Jake says after a few seconds. “Looks like someone’s got an admirer.” He nods indiscreetly in the direction of a guy at the end of the bar. He’s not bad looking, but hooking up with someone couldn’t be any further from my mind at the moment.

“Right. He’s not looking at me, Summers. He’s more likely to be looking at you,” I joke, nudging him gently in the ribs.

“Why do you do that?” Jake asks, turning round to face me again.

“Do what?” I ask, absently peeling off the label of the beer I’m drinking. I remember someone telling me that was a symptom of sexual frustration, so I stop playing with my drink.

“Ignore when someone is paying you a compliment, act like it's impossible that any guy could be interested in you,” he says.

“It was just a joke Jake,” I tell him, feeling uncomfortable under the intensity of his gaze. “It’s nothing to get worked up about.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just it drives me crazy that you can’t see how amazing you are,” he says quickly, and then falls silent. “Aimee,” he continues, putting his big, calloused hand over mine on the bar. “Any guy would give his right arm to be with you,” he assures me, and I can feel myself falling into the dark pools of his eyes.

I don’t say that he, of course, means any guy apart from
him
. Instead I opt for diffusing the situation and putting us firmly back in best friend territory in my brain. Things are much safer that way—safer and much less confusing. “What if he’s left-handed?” I ask jokingly, and I see Jake’s lips quirk up in a smile that he can’t help but let spread across his face.

“Then I guess he’d give his left arm too,” Jake replies, letting out a low laugh.

Our eyes meet again and I recognize that sensation of being pulled towards him, like being close to him is the only place where things make any sense—the only place that I want to be.

I look down at what I’m wearing and suddenly feel very conscious of how short my denim shorts are, and just how much leg they expose. My little camisole top isn’t anything special but right now it feels indecent, like it’s showing a little too much cleavage. This is what being close to Jake has started to do to me—I feel like I have sex on the brain whenever I’m around him. I wonder absently if this must be what it’s like to be a guy.

“For you,” Noah says, interrupting my train of thought and making me blush on impulse. He pushes another beer towards me, winking and smiling like he knows something that I don’t. “From your friend at the end of the bar.” He nods towards the guy that was supposedly checking me out.

“Oh,” I say, surprised and, if I’m being honest, a little flattered. Strange men don’t buy me drinks in bars; it’s really not as if this is something that happens all the time. “Thanks,” I say, holding up the beer to the guy in a salute, giving him a smile.

“Smooth,” Jake says, his voice a little harsher than I’ve been used to hearing it. “The guy’s got a pair of balls on him; how does he know that we’re not on a date? I could be your boyfriend for all he knows, and he’s sitting over there buying you drinks. It’s disrespectful,” he says, shaking his head in disgust, frowning.