Page 78 of Dozer

And the fact he doesn’t enjoy it but has still done an exceptional job spoke well of his work ethic.

“I had the idea prospects who can’t work on bikes and cars get sent there to work, and we’d get different jobs if we get patched in.”

“We go where we’re needed, and when we have a big order and I’m not assigned somewhere else, I get sent to help slaughter, too.”

“Right, and fill-in is more than fine, but if ya’ll vote me in, it’ll be good if another prospect can come in and learn, so I can do something else as my regular job.”

That wasn’t good. We thought we’d found our new butcher. I spoke carefully, gauging his scent and expression as I told him, “You’re the butcher our people are used to seeing when they drop by to pick up their steaks or whatever. You may not realize it, but it’s put you ahead of the game politically. Aaron Drake knows you by name. The Amakhosi’s lionesses, the ones who personally shop for him, know you by name. As a prospect, you have casual access to supernatural royalty that most patched members would have trouble acquiring.”

He sighed. “I mean, if you patch me in to keep me as an employee, and you won’t if I don’t want to do the job, then I’ll do it for however long you need me to. It’s just, I was kind of hoping to move to something else, but I get that we all go where we’re needed, and I don’t have any other marketable skills.”

His words were truth. We’d need some more conversation about it, but he meant it that being voted in was more important than what job he ended up doing. “Good to know — both that you aren’t happy with the job, and that you’ll keep doing it anyway.”

Once we were back, I put him back on duty at the gate, and I made my way inside. Brain was inside, and I motioned him towards the conference room. I closed the door, and the sounds in the clubhouse went away, but I put some music on anyway before I told him what I’d learned.

“Damn, I thought Shaggy fit into the butcher job. How did we miss that?”

“I think it’s because he thought it was a short-term thing, the shit-job prospects get, but they grow out of once they’re patched.”

He sighed. “Yeah. I can see that. Not sure it changes my vote, but it’s gonna make me rethink it.”

We don’t just vote people in because we like them, we also have to need them. They need to fill a spot in our organization that needs filling. We’re a club, but we’re also a whole bunch of businesses who need loyal employees, and there’s no one more loyal than someone oathed in to an MC, someone who’s officially part of the family.

Viper is our only employee who doesn’t hold down a regular job with us, but he patrols and fills in when needed, and he takes off his day job the three days around the full moon and works fifteen-hour shifts for us on those days. We’d have that from Shaggy, too, since he’s an owl, but we’d all assumed he was going to be our permanent full-time retail butcher. We don’t sell to the public, we’re set up kind of like Costco, so you have to be a member to buy from us, and we don’t offer memberships to just anyone. We don’t have enough cattle to sell to just anyone, and we only sell beef from cattle we’ve raised. It’s why we can demand such a high price for our beef.

“Right there with you, but the fact he’s an owl and not a wolf is a definite plus,” I told him.

“You sure about spending a week with the new wolves, if we vote to give them the option?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t argue and didn’t ask again, though his scent told me he wished I’d change my mind.

I drank a few beers in the clubhouse, but watching the ol’ladies cutting up without my little flower with them hurt my heart, so I went to my room,changedto wolf, jumped on my bed, and brooded until we fell asleep.

Chapter 58

Daisy

I didn’t realize I was keeping myself nonstop busy until I ran out of things to do.

And then I started missing Dozer even though I was mad at him. Truth be told, I was mad because he’d hurt me, and I wasn’t sure how to get past it.

Champ was awesome, though. A few days after we got him, people came and fenced in part of the backyard, and then I could play with him when he wasn’t on the leash. I still walked him on the leash a lot, though, because it’s apparently important to get them used to it when they’re small enough to still handle, before they get big. There are some odd little trails in the woods, and we walked them during the day, but it’s too creepy outside at night for that. At night, it feels like a forbidden forest, with the moonlight making sinister shadows, and the trees seem alive. Not just alive, which of course they are, but sentient.

So, I just walked him ten feet outside the door at night for him to do his business. I hated having to go outside at night without Dozer. I know the neighborhood is supposed to be safe, but I grew up in a city and it’s just woods back there. More than woods.Forest. And, I can’t say this enough, a forbidden forest. Was that because I knew there might be werewolves and other animals who were monsters running around in it? Was it my imagination running away? Probably, but still, I just walked Champ right outside the back door at night.

I wished Champ could sleep with me, but I had to watch him every second he was out of his crate, or he ate stuff. And by stuff, I mean he ate a pillow when I went to the bathroom. I came back and there was fluffeverywhere. Including in his mouth. He also chomped on a leg of a table in the game room downstairs.Oops. I bought baby gates, so he had to stay in the room I was in. I could close the door when I was in the bedroom, but that didn’t work when I was downstairs, or in the kitchen, or in the living room.

I was only supposed to weigh four times a week, but I weighed every damned day,andI noted it in my spreadsheet. It was online now, and I wondered if he was keeping track of it. Without Dozer around to feed me, I forgot to eat a lot, and my weight went below what’s acceptable. I wore shorts that were supposed to be snug, and they were loose, so I decided maybe I should fix myself some bacon and eggs, but his bacon tastes so much better. It isn’t bad when I cook it, and he’s showed me how to do it like him, but it still tastes better when he cooks it.

Dozer texted me on Tuesday and told me he’d be going out of town for a week, leaving early the next morning, and asked if I could meet him for dinner at this little bistro place I’d mentioned wanting to try out, but he’d said he didn’t do frou-frou food. It hadn’t been a big deal, because we’d gone somewhere nice and it’d been fine, but I guess he thought this would add to the apology.

But the thing is, I didn’t want to be the one making the decisions. Ilikedthe way Dozer took control.

They won’t feed you enough. Plus, I don’t want to have to deal with parking downtown. I’ll meet you at Golden Corral at six.

I looked at my phone nearly four minutes, and he didn’t respond. I set it to the side, and two minutes later, it dinged, and I leaned sideways to look at it.

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