“See that angry dude?” Biggs pointed to a clean-shaven, thick-chested guy with his hair brushed back James Dean style. He looked a good bit younger than the other guys, but like he could take them out without breaking a sweat. He was leaning against the front of the porch, his thumbs hooked into his belt. The casual stance contrasted with the threatening look in his eyes. “That’s Axel during those rough years I told you about, after that motorcycle accident. He did a lot of bad shit for good reasons, and sometimes he did bad shit for bad reasons. But God help the men who ran red lights in front of him. He’d catch up to them, haul their asses out of their cars, and teach ’em a lesson.”

If cancer were a person, Diesel would’ve done the same thing to it.

“It took a lot of years, but eventually he learned to harness that rage and channel it elsewhere.” Biggs nodded as he spoke, as if he were reminding himself as well. “Riding the open road and working on motorcycles and cars was the only thing that calmed the beast.”

“I get that.”

“Unfortunately, son, I believe you do, and I’m sorry about that. I know how hard it was to watch your mom let go. I was there with Axel when he took his last breath, and I swear he took a few of my years with him when he went.”

Diesel clenched his jaw, knowing that feeling all too well.

“But you’ve found someone to fill that hole your mama left behind, and that’s a blessed thing. Axel never let himself find true happiness. That was a damn shame because he really pulled himself together and became one of the best men I ever knew. He was the VP of the club and took over when I had my stroke, and he was more of a mentor to Bear than I could ever be.”

Biggs set the picture down, and as they looked through others taken around the same time, he told more stories about his family and longtime friends. Diesel was floored by the depths of his relationships. Biggs had decades of memories collected while building a life where everyone in it mattered. Diesel thought about how Tracey had embraced their friends as family and had wasted no time getting to know her stepfather and stepsisters and putting up their pictures. It was crazy how a few pictures had kept those people, and the time they’d shared, in the forefront of his mind. Seeing them had made him long for pictures of his mother and their life together.