Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
Chapter Seven
Chase
“Where’s Cotton?” I was surprised when Tool approached me, a frown on his face.
“She’s moving into our new house in the neighborhood. What’s up?” I didn’t like the frown on the other man’s face.
“She was right. The brakes went to the floor when she tried to stop. I owe that girl an apology. You too, brother.” I’d never seen Tool look so out of sorts. He was pacing back and forth when I found him in the garage, muttering to himself. Fixing the Fiesta hadn’t been top on the list of priorities, so it had been a couple days before anyone had gotten around to looking at it. Now, it seemed like there was definitely something more important that we’d first thought.
“Hum… is it finally time to retire that abomination of color?” I couldn’t help the grin on my face. We all complained about it being too girly of a car to belong to an MC but Angel refused to let us get rid of it entirely. Since it was technically still her car, there wasn’t much we could do. Cain always looked put out when someone mentioned getting rid of it, like he commiserated but I suspected it was a source of great amusement to him.
“No,” Tool said, becoming more agitated. “This was my fault.”
“What?” That surprised me. And took away any amusement I’d first felt. Accidents were one thing. Something preventable was a different bird altogether. “How is it your fault?”
“Thing didn’t have no brake fluid. I’m surprised she didn’t notice the light on the dashboard. Probably did and just didn’t know what it was.” He looked up at me with a stricken expression. “Chase, I’m sorry. I have no idea how I missed that. I always inspect all the fluid levels, but somehow, I just missed this. I even had the maintenance sticker on the car and my log book marked as having checked it.”
My first instinct was to beat the man’s face in, but Tool was nothing if not a thorough, highly competent mechanic. He and Carnage kept every single vehicle in the club in top-notch working order. Even though it could have ended differently, I tried my best to stifle my anger.
“I’m sure it’s not something that will ever happen again.” I knew a muscle in my jaw ticked, but Tool didn’t push back. The man was likely beating himself up more than I ever could.
“No, Chase. It won’t.” He sighed. “I’m gonna have Carnage bring every vehicle I serviced in the last few weeks, startin’ with the ol’ ladies. We’re gonna go over everything together. Just to make sure.”
I sighed, trying to rein it and look at the situation logically. “It was an accident, Tool. No one’s perfect.”
“It’s not an accident that should have happened. There are checklists for a reason. For some reason, I marked the brake fluid as being OK when I didn’t do it.” He scrubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “I don’t know how I missed the brakes. Stupid ass mistake that could have gotten your girl killed. Or someone else.”
“Yeah.” I shook my head, taking a deep breath for control. “It could have.” It was a dick thing to say, but I left Tool after that. I was about to lose my temper and I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t at least think about it before I beat the fuck out of him. If there was one thing I’d learned from Cotton it was to not judge people based on one incident. I’d known Tool for years. The man was excellent at his job. If he hadn’t been, Cain would never have given him the position as club mechanic. Everyone had off days. I still didn’t like it. I was going to have to think about this one for a while.
It had been two days since Cotton’s accident, and I still wasn’t over it. Though I tried to not think about it, every time I thought about her going out without me, I nearly had a panic attack. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her or thought she wasn’t capable of doing things by herself. Everyone had to learn how to fucking drive sometime in their life. With learning came mishaps, most of them minor. Like this one. It could have been way worse than it had turned out. No. It was that I hated not being there to protect her. To be fair, she didn’t seem to want me out of her sight much either. I’d only left today because I felt like a pussy. She hadn’t said anything, but I could tell she didn’t like not going with me.
While I tried to rationalize my actions by telling myself she needed some time to herself so she didn’t feel like she was smothered or trading one prison for another, I still hated every single second of it. So, instead of doing the other errands I had planned on doing, I found myself headed back to the little house we’d claimed within the club property.