I shut it and stay standing. He hasn't offered me a chair, and I won't take one uninvited.
"Brick has vouched for you for this club," he says. "That means something. Brick doesn't put his name behind men he isn't sure of, and I've known him long enough to trust his judgement. But vouching gets you in the door. It doesn't keep you here." He folds his hands on the desk. "What happened yesterday in this clubhouse with your girl?"
"It won't happen again, Prez."
"I know it won't, because I'm telling you now that it won't." He holds my eyes and his are level, flat and clear. "I don't know why you did it and I don't need to know. A man's reasons are his own business. But what happens inside this clubhouse is my business, and I won't have female drama and scenes with women crying in my yard. This club doesn't run on that kind of energy."
"Understood, Prez."
"Your personal life stays outside that gate. Whatever's going on with you and whoever, it doesn't come inside. Not the emotion of it, not the fallout of it, not the women involved in it. When you're in here you're a Black Saint first and everything else second. Can you do that?"
My jaw is tight and I keep it tight deliberately. "Yes, Prez."
He looks at me for another moment. The kind of looking that takes inventory. Then he nods, once, and picks up his pen again. "Good. Now get back to the garage. There's a Harley Sportster in bay three that needs the primary chain sorted before noon."
"Yes, Prez."
I turn to go.
"Austin."
I stop with my hand on the door handle.
"What you're feeling right now," Razor says, and his voice has shifted just slightly, not softer exactly, but less formal. "It doesn't go away fast. Don't expect it to. And don't do anything else stupid while you're waiting for it to ease up."
I don't turn around. "No, Prez."
"Good lad. Get out of my office."
I close the door behind me and stand in the corridor for a second with my eyes closed. Through the wall I can hear the garage, the air compressor cycling, the clang of a ratchet on concrete, someone's radio playing something country and scratchy. Real sounds. Present tense sounds. The life I chose.
I push off the wall and go back to work.
I'min the bay working on the Sportster when Seb appears and crouches down beside me with two bottles of water. He passes one through and I take it without stopping what I'm doing.
"How'd it go with Razor?"
"Fine."
"Fine like he gave you a lecture and sent you back to work, or fine like he had Knuckles rough you up a bit first?"
"First one."
"Good." Seb settles against the side of the bay with his water balanced on his knee. "He do that thing where he doesn't raise his voice and somehow it's worse than if he did?"
"Every word of it."
Seb nods like this is exactly what he expected. "He did that to me when I put a prospect from the Eastside chapter through a wall at a party. Didn't shout once. I felt about an inch tall."
I look up from the chain. "What'd you put him through a wall for?"
"He said something about Brick’s old lady. No one does that on my watch." Seb shrugs like the memory of it is mildly embarrassing rather than violent. "Razor's point was that I should've handled it without making a scene at a party where half the town was watching. Same principle as yours, I think."
"Handle it quietly."
"Handle everything quietly. That's what the patch means, apparently. You stop reacting and start deciding." He picks at the label on his water bottle. "I'm still working on that bit."
I turn back to the chain and work for a while without talking. The sun's moved around to come in through the bay doors and it's warm on the back of my neck and the familiar smell of grease and rubber is doing what it always does, making things feel slightly more manageable.