He walked out.
Door slammed.
Tommy started after him.
Graham caught his arm.
“Don’t.”
“He deserves—”
“He deserves time.”
Tommy looked toward the door.
Graham said:
“He spent his last year watching Bull get weaker.”
“Bull was angry at everything.”
“Age.”
“His heart.”
“The club changing.”
“You.”
“Derek inherited all of it because anger was the last language they shared.”
Tommy’s face softened.
“He was what, seventeen when I left?”
“About.”
Tommy sat again.
Cassie looked at Maria.
Maria wiped her eyes.
“This is bigger than your project now.”
Cassie whispered:
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Good.”
Maria looked around.
“Means you didn’t manufacture it.”
Later, after most members had gone, Cassie found Graham and Tommy in the garage.
An old Sportster sat between them.
The same motorcycle had been gathering dust for months.
Graham held a wrench.
Tommy was leaning over the carburetor.
Neither talked much.
They did not need to.
Tools moved between them without questions.
Graham reached.
Tommy handed him exactly what he wanted.
Thirty years of muscle memory remained under fifteen years of anger.
Cassie stayed in the doorway.
Graham murmured something.
Tommy laughed.
Not politely.
A real laugh.
Then Graham’s shoulders began shaking.
Cassie thought at first he was laughing too.
He wasn’t.
Tommy put down the tool.
Reached around the back of Graham’s neck.
The two men stood close.
No speech.
No dramatic apology.
Just two aging friends holding each other beside a motorcycle that had not started in years.
Cassie quietly stepped away.
For the first time since beginning the project, she did not reach for her notebook.
Some things were history.
Some things were evidence.
Some things were not hers.
Outside, Derek sat on his motorcycle.
Helmet resting across his thighs.
Cassie approached slowly.
He saw her.
“Come to interview the angry son?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She stood several feet away.
Derek stared at the parking lot.
“My dad hated him.”
“Tommy?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe.”
Derek looked at her sharply.
“What does that mean?”
“It means hate is usually more complicated when people knew each other for twenty years.”
“You seventeen-year-olds all philosophers now?”
“No.”
Cassie sat on the curb.
“Mostly idiots.”
Derek almost smiled.
Then his face tightened.
“My dad spent his last year angry.”
“At Tommy?”
“At everything.”
He rubbed the helmet.
“Couldn’t ride much after the heart attack.”
“He hated people helping him.”
“He hated getting old.”
“He hated the outreach program because it felt like proof the club wasn’t his anymore.”
Cassie listened.
“I thought if I kept being angry at Tommy, I was keeping Dad’s side alive.”
“Maybe.”
Derek looked over.
“That’s not helpful.”
Cassie shrugged.
“Maybe honoring him doesn’t mean freezing him at his worst.”
Derek stared.
She immediately wondered if she had gone too far.
Then he looked back toward the clubhouse.
“You really are Graham’s kid.”