Page 37

(Creature)

“Who taught you about bikes?” Scout asked, tongue poking out from between his lips, his chin resting on Axel’s shoulder, hands covering Axel’s as they turned the stick to roast Axel’s hotdog.

Seeing the way they fit together and the relaxed ease with which they interacted left Carl eager to learn how else they matched up.

“Oh man, those are hard to find,” Scout declared. “I’ve only seen a handful. One was painted that old-school cherry cola hue, with sparkles in the paint that shimmered when the sun hit. I loved digging for parts for that thing.”

“I know the color,” Carl admitted. “Hard to find these days, unfortunately, but you’ll have the chance to work on a few once you start at the shop.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup, we’ve got a few we service regularly, including a restoration project I did a few years back out of the garage here. That was before we decided to open the shop,” Carl explained. “Might have played a factor in opening it too, considering how paranoid outsiders make some of my club brothers.”

“Yeah, I get the feeling customers wouldn’t really be welcome at the compound, especially with that security system,” Axel pointed out. “Just trying to bring Saint’s patch back was scary as fuck.”

“But you did it,” Scout pointed out as they rotated the hot dog again.

“Had to. It was important.”

“Yeah,” Scout replied. “I’d have done it too.”

“And probably swaggered up like the barbed wire at the top of the gate was dental floss or something.”

“Naa, man, I was fuckin’ terrified when Teddy brought me here, even after spending a year hanging with the Hounds,” Scout admitted.

“Wait, what?”

“Dude, we rolled up, I took one look and told Teddy that I was good. Didn’t need a job, didn’t need a place to crash, was just gonna slink on back to the campground while the getting was good.”

“So, how’d he convince you to come in?” Axel asked.

“Baited me.”

Axel cocked his head and looked skeptical. “How?”

“By looking disappointed and telling me he’d pegged me wrong,” Scout said as they drew the hot dog out of the flames.

Scout held the stick while Axel pulled his hotdog off, blowing on his fingers and shaking them once he got it on the plate.

“Singed them a little, did you?” Carl asked as Scout captured Axel’s fingers and sucked on them until Axel started laughing.

“Okay, okay, I think I’m good,” Axel muttered, though he was slow about easing his fingers from Scout’s mouth.

The looks they shot one another were even more heated than the ones they shared back in their bedroom.

As he watched them with the firelight flickering over them and shadows dancing along their skin, he wondered what they’d look like sprawled out together in the living room, arms and limbs entwined as the three of them watched a movie together.

“You sure?” Scout asked, chuckling before finally scooting away when Axel nudged him a little.

“Can’t eat my hotdog with you sucking on my fingers like that,” Axel grumbled.

“Why not? Can’t you multitask?”

Snorting, Carl shook his head as he listened to them banter while he mixed ketchup and barbecue sauce in a paper cup for Scout, who’d picked up one of the sticks they’d sharpened so he could start roasting his hotdog.

“Not when you’re being distracting,” Axel grumbled, but he was grinning as he said it and followed up his statement by sticking his tongue out at Scout, who just smirked.

“You haven’t seen me start to be distracting,” Scout replied as he held his hot dog over the flames.

If this was any indication of how they’d be with one another, then Carl was going to love having them around.

Hell, he was already enjoying not just the company but the questions they asked and the way they wanted to know him.

That Scout had asked his given name, something few of his previous lovers had ever done, had been pleasantly unexpected and showed that he was interested in more than something fleeting.

How Kong couldn’t see that, or the way Scout soaked up praise and affection, was beyond him, but Carl planned to lavish them both with it.

In the hospital, as he’d listened to Scout and his old man interact, he’d witnessed the closeness between them, and Sawyer too.

The young man was nothing like Carl or Mark had expected, given his history with the Hounds and the fight club.

Like Scout, he’d just been doing everything he could think of to earn the money they’d needed to get their old man out of debt.

Considering some of the other reasons people crossed over onto the wrong side of the law, theirs was truly an honorable one.

Hearing Sawyer willingly declare that he was heading back home to stay with their father and help run the salvage yard just as soon as he was released from the hospital was a relief.

The last thing he ever wanted to see was Scout terrified the way he’d been in the alley when he’d feared his brother was dying.

The grit and determination he’d shown in putting Sawyer on the bike and trying to push it to the hospital had been beyond anything he’d ever seen, and he’d seen a lot in his thirty-seven years.

And then there was Axel, holding things together for his old man in a shitty situation no kid should ever have to try and work through.

Hearing Axel back at the house, sharing a good memory of the family he’d had before his mother had died, left Carl longing to give him more moments like that, to replace the bad ones that had come afterward.

He could already see how good they were for one another.

When he passed Scout his dip, the younger man’s face lit up as he eagerly snatched up his freshly cooked hot dog and immediately yelped when he did the same thing Axel had and singed his fingers.

Now it was Axel’s turn to grab Scout’s hand and suck on the digits he’d burned, which turned into a stare-down as Scout maneuvered the cup onto the plate, picked up the hotdog with his other hand, dipped it, then sucked off the sauce, smirking when Axel sucked his fingers deeper.

“See, multitasking,” Scout murmured before doing it again.

Carl was grateful for loose-fitting board shorts because, damn, their flirting was hot as fuck. “Now that’s the kind of multitasking I can get behind.”

“Don’t worry, I can multitask when I’m building something too,” Scout insisted as he finally turned his attention towards his hot dog rather than driving them all out of their minds.

“As long as you don’t feel like you have to prove something to me, because you don’t,” Carl told him. “Don’t want you going in there trying to push yourself to do too much too fast ‘cause I will stick your ass in the office if I feel like you’re overdoing it.”

“And risk me reorganizing the place like I did to my old man’s?” Scout teased. “Bring it on.”

Carl’s jaw dropped at hearing that, and for once, he couldn’t think of a single daggon thing to say to a smirking Scout, who picked that moment to dip his hotdog in the sauce and bring it to his lips, eyeing him the whole time.

Cocking his head, Carl studied him, an image slowly taking shape in his mind, along with a thought.

“You don’t handle being still well, do you?” Carl asked as Scout finished his hotdog and fished another one from the pack to roast.

“Not in the slightest,” Scout admitted. “When I broke my ankle trying to leap between cars in the scrapyard, Pops made me work in the office so I’d sit my ass down somewhere he could keep an eye on me.

Fortunately for me, there was a rolling chair in there, and he was super busy that day, between recycling and the city dragging in junk from an old lot the owner refused to clean up.

So I spun around the office getting all the invoices filed and the parts requests updated and cataloged in a book so they weren’t just random slips of paper stuck to the corkboard. ”

Stroking his chin, Carl regarded him thoughtfully. “When you’re fully healed, we’re going to explore some fun ways of getting you to stay exactly where I put you.”

“Promise?”

Snorting, Carl slapped a hand in front of his eyes while Axel sputtered, soda dripping from his bottom lip, which he quickly wiped away with the back of his hand.

“You are going to keep me on my toes, aren’t you?” Carl asked.

“For as long as you’re loving every minute of it.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“And what are you gonna hold me to?” Axel asked as he glanced from Carl to Scout, who’d turned and was eyeing him like he was coming up with some creative ideas of his own.

“I’d like to hold you hostage on the couch,” Scout said. “Preferably with my head in your lap while we watch a movie.”

“Are you getting tired?” Carl asked.

“Not now that we’re sitting, but earlier, in the water, yeah, a little,” Scout admitted.

“And you said nothing because….”

“I was enjoying the water.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“I try to be.”

“I want you both to always try your best to be that way with me,” Carl stated.

“I know shit happens, but I’ve got a few hard and fast rules about not deliberately putting yourselves in danger or concealing it from me if you get hurt.

Now, that last part is honestly more important than the first. If you fucked around and did something, fine, we can talk about why when you’re ready, but if you got hurt in the process and I find out later, or you try to work past it and make yourself worse, then there will be repercussions. ”

“What, um, what kind of repercussions?” Axel asked.

“The kind that will leave you tied to a chair watching us have all the fun,” Carl threatened.

“You don’t spank?” Axel blurted, worrying his lower lip.