Page 54 of Outcast
Holden came storming out of the office, Jose following on his heels with wide eyes. “What the fuck is going on out here?”
Axel turned all his fury in that direction. “You said the old man took out a loan and we’d have to figure out how to pay it. You didn’t sayanythingabout selling parts of the property off!”
Holden sent me a flat look. “What did you tell them?”
“The truth, obviously,” Bailey said. “You said you’d figure it out, and we trust you, so we rolled with it. But you didn’t say it was this bad.”
“I was looking for solutionsfirst,” Holden said. “I would never make a decision to sell the junkyard—” Axel made a growling sound in his throat. “—orthe house without consulting you.”
“Yeah, right. You make decisions all the time without consulting us,” Axel grumbled.
“That’s not?—”
“No, he’s right,” Bailey jumped in. “You didn’t even tell us Gray was coming back!”
“You didn’t even tell us youknewwhy he left,” Axel added.
“Fuck!” I turned and punched the wall, my knuckles busting as they met concrete. I howled with a combination of agony and rage and collapsed to my knees, cradling my hand. “It always comes back to me, doesn’t it? I fucked up too big to ever get past it.”
Axel crouched down beside me, reaching for my wrist. “Are you nuts, man? This isn’t your fault.”
Bailey dropped to his knees on my other side, leaning in to look at my bleeding hand. A sharp, knifing throb had started up. Like someone was stabbing me in the fingers over and over.
“How are you gonna do this bike job with a busted-up hand?”
I dropped my head back against the wall and groaned. “I don’t know.”
“He’s going to need help,” Holden said. “We’ll do it together. We can’t afford to drop the ball. We’re still earning people’s trust.”
“What about this loan bullshit?” Bailey asked. “We can’t sell the house.”
“I know.” Holden sounded tired. “We have some tough choices to make. If we want to save the business,somethingwill have to go. We just can’t make 50K overnight.”
“Building up the bike business is pointless, then,” Axel said in a hollow voice. “It can’t offset that much debt.”
“The loan isn’t the only expense we have to think about,” Holden said quietly. “We’re running on very thin margins. If we don’t expand, there’s really no point to saving the business. We’ll have to sell everything and start over.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” I said tentatively. “A fresh start for everyone.”
Axel dropped my hand with a sound of disgust and got to his feet. “You would say that. You gave up on this place a long time ago.”
“Ax—”
“Don’t bother pretending to debate it,” he said, directing his words to Holden. “I already know I’m going to lose. Why bother saving something that’s for me and some strays, right?” Bitterness tinged his tone. “Gray’s been gone ten years, but his opinion counts for more than mine. And it always has.”
“That’s not true,” Holden started. “I?—”
My brother didn’t stick around. For all the times he’d given me shit for running away, he sure was good at running from his own battles.
Maybe I’d taught him that.
“Fuck,” Holden said. “I better go after him. Do you need the ER?”
I flexed my fingers, swearing loudly as pain rocketed through them. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”
Holden nodded and took off outside to track down Axel. Hopefully, he could reassure him that his needs mattered, too.
“Here.” Jose pushed past Bailey to set a plastic baggie full of ice over my knuckles. “Ice them. Take some painkillers. You’ll survive.”
