Page 2

ONE

LITTLE FOOT

FIVE YEARS LATER

Play stupid games win stupid prizes

It’s the kind of night that tastes like trouble—sweaty bar, stale beer, too-loud music, neon flickering overhead like a dying pulse. Toon and I are sitting at a high-top near the corner of the room, beers half-drained, our cuts on our backs like a piece of armor.

The place is packed. Friday crowd outside Charlotte. Every table is full, bodies pressed together, women laughing too loud, men trying too hard. The kind of place the Catawba Hellions roll into and immediately own. People shift when we walk in, some because they recognize the patch, others because they can feel it. The weight of who we are. What we stand for. Kings of the Carolinas.

Toon slaps his hand down on the table. “You see the rack on that brunette by the jukebox? Jesus, brother.”

I glance over. Yeah, she’s hot. So is the blonde she’s with. Tight dresses, high heels, lips like candy. Five years ago, I’d already be walking over. Hell, even a year ago. Tonight, I’m just… tired.

“Not feeling it?” Toon asks, eyebrow cocked. Sometimes I swear he does this to fuck a woman out of his system. But he never gives a single clue as to who it is.

I shrug. “They look like the kind that post your ass on the gram after.”

He laughs. “Man, when’d you get so jaded?”

I tip back the bottle. “Around the time I realized having a full rocker doesn’t mean shit if your own family still looks at you sideways.”

Toon’s grin fades. “Axel still riding your ass?”

“He’s cooled down. But I see it. Feel it from him. That doubt. Like he’s waiting for me to fuck up.”

“Shooter too?”

“Shooter’s worse. Says all the right shit, but his eyes are always looking past me. Like I’m still the kid with something to prove.”

Toon leans back, tapping ash from his smoke into an empty shot glass. “Maybe you’re seeing this shit wrong. Maybe they see the change, the way you’ve slowed down. They just don’t know how to tell you.”

“I got the same blood in my veins.”

I take a shot, letting the amber liquid burn all the way down.

“Dads are different man.”

“I don’t want him to be a dad,” I say, jaw tight. “I want him to see me as a Hellion. A brother. Someone who earned their seat.”

Toon nods slow. “I get it.”

He does. Toon is from the Haywood’s Landing chapter, but he’s been in Catawba a few years now most folks forget he ever started somewhere else. He was one of the few that treated me like a man back when I was still wearing the bottom rocker of shame. That counts for something.

“I thought getting patched in would fix it,” I mutter.

“It never does,” he says. “It just gives you more to carry.”

We finish our beers and make our move. While I don’t find chasing tail as fun as it once was, I am a man. Sex is sex and no sex is ever bad sex as long as I can bust a nut.

The women are exactly what they present—flirty, fake, and ready for a night that means nothing in the morning. We slide in smooth. Toon leans into the brunette, his hand already resting on her hip like he owns it. The blonde sizes me up and smiles, dragging her finger along my forearm.

“You’re a Hellion?”

I smirk. “Darlin’, I am the Hellion… for you for tonight.”

She giggles and presses closer. I let her. I let the act take over. The charm. The swagger. The carefully constructed mask of a man who doesn’t give a damn.

But inside, I still hear Axel’s voice. “ You’re not ready .” Even now, five years later, full patch on my back, that shit still echoes. When will it stop eating at me?

The night dissolves into shots, music, and the kind of flirtation that’s more about momentum than chemistry. I laugh at the right moments, I touch her in all the places that make her lean in closer, and when we finally pile into a cab and head toward a nearby motel, it’s all on autopilot.

The motel is a dump, but it’s familiar. Cheap furniture. The hum of a wall unit. The kind of place where no one asks questions. We split one room—two beds, no boundaries.

Clothes fly. Bodies move. It’s wild, messy, and loud. Exactly what it’s supposed to be.

Except it’s not enough.

The blonde falls asleep on her side of the bed, hair tangled, lipstick smeared. I sit up, sweating, staring at the ceiling. My patch lies on the chair, catching the glow of the parking lot light leaking through the blinds.

It should feel like everything I ever wanted.

Instead, it feels like nothing. I grab my jeans and slip out onto the motel balcony. The night’s heavy with Carolina humidity. I light a cigarette, the end flaring red as I lean on the rusted rail. The parking lot is nearly empty. A couple cars. Our bikes.

Toon steps out beside me a minute later, hair damp, jeans half-zipped. “She asleep?”

“Like the dead.”

He lights up too. “You look like you didn’t even enjoy it.”

“I didn’t.”

He exhales smoke. “Something’s eating at you. Release is still release, brother.”

“You ever wonder if this is it? Just bars, bikes, bullshit?”

“You sound like a man having a quarter-life crisis.”

“I’m serious, Toon.”

He leans against the rail. “You got patched in. You’re in good standing. Rex has your back. Hell, Axel’s trusts you with everything. You’re the only one doubting your place. What’s it take? What’s missing?”

I let the question hang.

What is missing? What will it take? The truth is, I don’t know.

There’s a hole inside me, one that patching in didn’t fill. One that even Shooter’s praise can’t cover over. Maybe it’s respect. Maybe it’s just purpose. But whatever it is, it sure as hell isn’t in this motel room.

“I just want to matter,” I say finally.

“You do.”

“But do I? Not to them.”

Toon sighs. “You’re looking at this all wrong. They do trust you. They just don’t say it. This club? It’s not about words. It’s about actions. About knowing your brother will take a bullet for you without hesitation.”

“I would.”

“I know. And they know too. You’ll see.”

I nod, grinding the cigarette under my boot.

Inside, the blonde stirs. I don’t want to go back in and pretend to sleep. I want to ride. I want the wind. I don’t want pretend. I want real.

Toon looks at me, reading my thoughts like a damn book. “Wanna roll out?”

I grin. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Without waking the women, we gear up and roll out just before dawn. The sky bleeds pale pink over the Carolina treetops, and the road ahead is wide open.

I twist the throttle, the engine screaming beneath me. I don’t know where I’m going. But I know I can’t stay still. Somewhere between Charlotte and nowhere, I let my thoughts run wild with the road under me. What would it take to really be seen? To not just wear the patch, but to be it? I ride harder. And I realize—I need something bigger. Something wild.

What that something is, I have no clue. We ride for miles, the sun crawling up over the horizon like it’s reluctant to start another day. There’s something cleansing about it—about being on the road before the world wakes up. The way the wind whips across my skin, the rumble of the Harley-Davidson beneath me, it’s the only time I feel like I’m not being judged. Out here, no one gives a shit about who your father is or how many years it took you to earn your patch. The road doesn’t care about bloodlines or club politics. It only cares if you survive the next mile.

We stop at a gas station in some nowhere town. Toon fills his tank while I lean against the pump, sipping a flat coffee from a machine that probably predates cellphones. A woman in a stained apron eyes us from inside the store, like she’s deciding whether to call the cops or offer us a breakfast menu.

“You ever think about transferring?” Toon asks casually.

I blink. “What?”

“To Haywood’s Landing. Or South Carolina.”

I laugh, short and bitter. “You serious?”

“Dead. You’d get a fresh start. Guys there don’t give a damn who your dad is. You’d be judged on who you are, not what shadow you were born under.”

It’s tempting. Too tempting.

But I shake my head. “No. If I leave now, it’ll feel like I ran.”

Toon shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe it’ll look like you finally stepped out of line to walk your own.”

We don’t say much else after that. Not for a while.

The next night, back at the Catawba compound, the parking lot is alive. Bikes lined up in neat rows. Music spilling from the clubhouse. Somebody’s grilling, and the smell of charcoal cooking burgers and oil fills the air. It should feel like home.

It doesn’t.

Axel’s standing near the garage, arms folded, laughing at something Rex just said. I catch his eye. He nods. Nothing more. No “hey, good to see you.” No “how was the ride?”

Just a nod.

This is how it’s been between us since the hotel room where he shattered my trust. Is it me causing the distance? Or does he still have this doubt inside him about me? I don’t know.

More importantly, I don’t care.

Once my damn idol, now he’s nothing more than a shadow of my past. I don’t want to be like Axel “Double” Crews anymore. I want to be me in all my mistakes.

Andrew “Little Foot” Jenkins.

I don’t want to be Shooter’s son. I don’t want to be Andrea’s twin. I want to be myself and accepted for it. And anyone who can’t accept it, well just like Axel they can get a nod and I’ll keep on moving.

Toon claps my shoulder. “I’ll catch you inside.”

I watch him go. Then I light another smoke and lean against my bike, staring up at the sky. What the hell am I doing? This was supposed to be everything. The patch. The respect. The legacy. Instead, I feel more like a ghost than ever.

The night rolls on inside the clubhouse like a freight train—music thumping, beer flowing, voices loud with that gritty edge that only comes from men who’ve seen too much and lived to talk about it. I lean against the bar, half-listening to Rex joke with a couple of the older guys. It should be familiar, comforting even, but it’s not. I nurse my beer and let the noise wash over me.

Axel’s in the back corner, his arm slung around Yesnia, laughing like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He looks relaxed. Happy. Like a man who is sure of where he belongs. I envy the hell out of him for that.

When he catches me watching, he nods again. That same half-assed, obligatory nod. I give one back. That’s how we communicate now—barely.

Rex eventually slaps my shoulder. “You good, kid?”

“Always.”

He narrows his eyes. “Don’t lie to me.”

I force a smirk. “Wouldn’t dare.”

He grunts. “If you need something, you ask. You’re family. Start acting like it.”

His words land heavier than they should. I nod, but it doesn’t sit right. Because if this is what being family feels like—second-guessed, sidelined, doubted—then maybe I don’t want it.

After a while, I step outside to breathe.

The night air hits like a balm to my soul, cool and clean compared to the sweat and smoke inside. I sit on my bike, light another cigarette, and stare at the gravel under my boots.

The memory of the Tail of the Dragon flashes through my head again. That ride. That failure. That voice in my head whispering you’re not ready. I thought it would go away when I got my full rocker.

It didn’t.

It still hasn’t. I flick ash to the ground and grab my phone. I scroll through messages, mostly junk. One from a girl I hooked up with in Asheville. Don’t remember much but she wants another night.

Nope.

Toon steps out of the clubhouse, a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He sees me staring at the night like it owes me something.

“You get quiet, I get nervous,” he says.

I look at him. “You ever pull a move so reckless, it might just be genius?”

He grins. “Brother, that’s my whole personality.”

I don’t share with him my crazy thoughts. How I go from one extreme to the other inside my head on how to stand out. He doesn’t need to know that. I don’t share how when things get quiet inside, I get nervous for myself too. How sometimes I think being reckless is the only way to get seen.

The next morning, I wake before the sun. I swing my legs off the mattress and stare at my boots. The blonde’s still asleep, her breathing shallow and even, the curve of her hip peeking out from under the thin blanket. She looks peaceful. But I feel restless.

After partying at the clubhouse, I took her down the street to the local motel. I don’t share my bed at the compound or my house with one-night stands. The motel room’s quiet except for the low hum of the air unit. I lace up, throw on my cut, and slip outside, the door clicking shut behind me.

The early morning air is crisp, the kind that reminds you life’s still happening, even when you feel stuck in neutral. I hop on my bike and head toward a back road I know, one that winds along with pine trees lining the sides all the way down. There’s no traffic, no noise, just the growl of the engine and the steady thump of my pulse.

I ride hard and fast, letting the machine absorb my frustration. The engine drowns out every voice in my head—Axel, Shooter, even my own. The road is my confessional, my therapy, my escape. It always has been.

Half an hour later, I pull off at a clearing and kill the engine. The sun is just starting to rise, streaking the sky with orange and gold. I sit on my bike, smoke in hand, staring out at the horizon.

After breakfast, I head to the Hellions garage. Axel is there working on a rebuild. He’s relaxed, laughing, loose, and confident. The way he always is.

He glances up at me as I walk by giving me just a nod. No words. I keep going working my way to the back to prep the truck for the transport.

The afternoon comes as Toon and I finish our maintenance on the truck. With grease under my nails, sun shining down on my face, it’s the kind of work day that usually clears my head.

Not today.

I’m restless inside.

“You’re in your head again.” Toon tells me what I already know.

“Maybe I like it there.”

He laughs, “fuckin’ liar.”

“I said maybe,” I joke back.

“Change of scenery. We’ll have a good transport. Come back reset, brother.”

Who knows, maybe? We are set up for a transport and leave in the morning.

Maybe this trip changes my entire outlook.