Page 65 of One In Vermillion

Which was a valid question except I hadn’t really been thinking about the house, other than in terms of the amount of sledgehammer work and some sideline annoyance at having to travel to another bed to get Liz. “The house is great.”

One of the Wolves had been staring at our table a bit too much. I tensed as he got up and walked over. He was younger than the others with long blond hair. He wore a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off under his vest, revealing solid muscles but no tattoos. He had a wicked, old scar on the right side of his face from the edge of his eye to chin. He stopped about five feet away, and if not for the criminal biker gang colors and look that said he’d cut your heart out if you stared at him wrong, I would’ve sworn he was nervous .

“Excuse me,” he said. His voice held a hint of Appalachia. He licked his lips. “I don’t mean to intrude, but are you Patsy. of Patsy’s Parts?”

“Be cool,” Ken said to Will, who had half risen out of his seat.

Patsy forced a smile. “Yes.”

The Wolf was referring to videos Patsy had made when she was seventeen, wearing skimpy bikinis, talking about auto parts and how they worked while promoting the family garage and pretty much saving the place by generating a lot of online sales for said parts. She’d stopped doing it years ago. But men have strong memories about young women in almost-not-there-bikinis. Some even cared about parts. Auto parts.

“Oh, man,” the Wolf said. “I love your videos.” He realized that Will and Ken were glaring at him, and he put his hands up, calloused from hard work and stained with grease and oil and wrench time. “No, no, no. Not like that.” He smiled at Patsy and I noticed even Liz was paying attention to him. “I mean the way you explained things. It’s why I got into working on cars and bikes. I mean, it made so much sense when you talked about how each part worked and how it fit into the entire system. That was the wild part. How it all comes together. Blew my fucking mind.” He stopped. “Sorry for the language, ma'am. But that all these pieces put together could produce so much power.” He shook his head in awe.

I figured he’d probably seen those videos when he was, what, fourteen? I’m sure he hadn’t noticed what she was wearing, or the lack thereof. Right. He’d been full of raging hormones. Still was.

He reached up and pulled on a thin steel chain around his neck, revealing a medallion and a thumb drive with a Harley crest on it. “I’ve got every episode on thumb drive along with every Harley tech manual.”

I thought that was a little creepy, although the tech manuals were a good idea, but Will perked up. “Is that Saint Eligius?” he asked, indicating the medallion.

The Wolf nodded. “Sure is.”

“Patron saint of mechanics,” Will explained to those who didn’t know, which was everyone but him, Patsy, and the Wolf.

Andalsoa bit creepy. Personally, I was a fan of Saint Jude from my Catholic upbringing and schooling. The patron saint of lost causes.

“Could I, uh, like, get an autograph?” He pulled a piece of paper out his vest pocket and produced a pen.

Patsy’s smile had changed to a genuine one. “Sure.”

He made his way around the table to her and knelt, holding out the paper and pen. “They call me Lobo. Could you sign it to me?”

“Nice to meet you,” Patsy said. “What’s your real name?”

He frowned, as if having a hard time recalling. “Logan.”

“I like that name a lot better,” Patsy said, smiling down at him, and I could swear he blushed.

I relaxed and leaned back in my seat. Patsy signed and then began talking to Lobo-Logan. The world was at peace. Sort of like Pearl Harbor pre-dawn on December 7, 1941.

Then a Wolf at the far table stood and grabbed his crotch. “Hey Patsy. When you’re done with Lobo, I’ve got a part you can play with.” His fellow bikers laughed.

“Ignore them,” Ken said, tiredly. “You can’t deal with people like that.”

I glanced across Liz at Jason. He raised an eyebrow in question, indicating he wasn’t quite buying into Ken’s pacifist philosophy.

Lobo stood and glared at the asshole. “Shut the fuck up.”

The guy, surprisingly, sat back down.

But, of course, someone else took it as a challenge.

“Fuck you, Lobo, and your little hard-on,” one of the older Wolves taunted.

But Jill went over to their table and warned them and there was no follow-up, and Lobo/Logan apologized profusely, and Patsy patted his hand, so things calmed down.

I sipped on my Coke and didn’t get involved in any of the conversations. I noticed that Jason also wasn’t the chatty type. He listened to Liz about the cabin and nodded politely, but he was glancing over at the Wolves and the construction workers as often as I was. Lobo had pulled up a chair and was actually discussing auto parts with Patsy and Will. Because that’s who they were. I’m sure Saint Eligius’s halo, who the nuns had never mentioned, was glowing brighter.

Jason and I watched Ken’s partner, Neil, coming back from the bathroom when one of the Wolves moved to intercept. I started to get up, but Ken shook his head. “He can handle himself.”

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