Jaxon wiped his face, then jerked his chin. “Drink?”
“Way ahead of you.” Ravage headed downstairs to Deep Dive. “Sometimes a man needs more than fists to quiet his head.”
Ravage sat at the bar and ordered a beer. Jaxon got a root beer. He had a feeling he’d need a clear head for this. For a while, they talked about nothing. Music. The town. Random bullshit. It was easy. Unexpectedly easy, because Ravage didn’t look at him like the others did. Ravage didn’t see Jaxon’s past first. He didn’t see the failure. Ravage just saw him.
“You're thinking about leaving.” Ravage hadn’t asked a question. He’d made a statement.
Jaxon stilled. Was he that easy to read? He shrugged. “Maybe. Sometimes.”
“Where would you go?”
“Anywhere, if the time came. It wouldn’t matter.”
Ravage nodded slowly. “And you’d leave her here.”
Ravage got straight to the point, now didn’t he? Jaxon’s jaw tightened. “Don’t start. I don’t know you, and you sure as hell don’t know me.” The biker didn’t get to have an opinion on something that mattered this much.
Ravage just stared back at him before taking another drag on his beer. “Not starting anything. Just asking. And I know you better than you think.”
Jaxon stared at the bottle in his hand. “Oh, really? And how is that?”
“You’ll see. For now, let’s just say it’s true.”
Jaxon gave Ravage a dismissive shrug. “If you say so.”
Ravage snorted. “I know you don’t think you fit here anymore.”
Jaxon looked up. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. How the hell did he know what Jaxon was thinking? “What if I do?”
“You think it’s them?”
Jaxon frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Ravage took another pull from his beer. “You think everyone else changed?”
Jaxon didn’t answer.
Ravage met his gaze. “It’s no one but you, bud.”
“No shit,” Jaxon said quietly. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”
Ravage nodded. “If it’s you, then leaving won’t help. Maybe not fitting where you used to… that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Jaxon huffed. “Damn sure feels like it.” It felt like he’d lost a lot more than he gained.
“Life is change, man. You have to play the cards you’re dealt.”
Jaxon studied him. What did this guy know about what he was going through? “You ever not fit with your MC brothers? Or anywhere?” he demanded.
Ravage smirked. “All the time.” Jaxon almost smiled, but then Ravage said, “I let a woman I cared about walk away from me once. Back when I was a dumb fuck like you.”
Jaxon stilled, while Ravage’s voice went deeper. “She disappeared. I thought she’d left me. I thought I’d give her time, go talk to her when she’d had time to miss me. It was a stupid, asshole thing to do.”
Jaxon’s chest tightened, not liking the direction Ravage’s story was headed.
“Once I’d decided she’d missed me long enough, I went back.” Ravage said, “It was too late. Someone else had snatched her away from me. I thought she’d chosen money and an easy life over me, so I walked away again. Later, I realized I was wrong, and she hadn’tchosenshit. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say that feeling sorry for myself caused her a lot of pain that could have been avoided.”
The silence stretched out longer than was comfortable as Ravage took another pull on his beer. Finally, he added, “Life’s too short to count on second chances.”