The sun over Amarillo was already beating down like a hammer when the Feral Eclipse tour bus rolled off I-40, the skyline giving way to low industrial buildings and wide, open skies that stretched until they disappeared. Dust kicked up behind them as Diesel turned onto a cracked service road with the casual ease of a man who could drive by smell alone.
He didn’t say much. He never did. But Thane noticed the way his grip shifted on the wheel as the turnoff came into view—subtle, reverent, like crossing an invisible threshold.
The shop appeared like something conjured from an oil-stained memory: “Buckner & Sons Custom Auto” painted in peeling red letters on the front of a cinderblock garage. The gravel lot was packed with pickups, welders, half-built dune buggies, and what might have once been a helicopter blade mounted like a weather vane. A battered smoker sat belching fragrant wood smoke out the side bay. Someone inside was blasting Stevie Ray Vaughan through old speakers so loud the bus windows vibrated.
Gabriel stood at the stairwell, nose twitching. “This smells like heaven. Grease, mesquite, and bad decisions.”
Diesel slowed the bus and dropped it into park with a sigh.
Cassie stepped up behind him. “You okay?”
He nodded once. “Been a while.”
The garage door rattled up with a scream of metal.
Out stepped a mountain of a man—barrel-chested, long gray ponytail, grease-streaked work shirt, and the grin of someone who could rebuild a V8 and win a bar fight before lunch.
“You finally brought the circus home!” he shouted.
Diesel stepped down off the bus and immediately disappeared into a bear hug.
“That’s my brother Jake,” Diesel muttered to the crew once he could breathe again. “Oldest. And loudest.”
Jake turned to the pack with wide eyes. “So these are the wolves, huh? Damn, y’all are taller than on the internet.”
Mark gave a nod. “We get that a lot.”
Within five minutes, the garage had transformed from a working auto shop into a full-blown BBQ party. Tables were dragged out, folding chairs unfolded, a cooler the size of a coffin was stocked with soda and local beer. Diesel’s nieces and nephews—some actual, some honorary—swarmed Gabriel like sugar-hyped velociraptors. Jonah was already holding two hot dogs and a wrench. Maya was arguing with someone’s aunt over cornbread technique. Cassie had somehow been roped into DJ duties on an aux cord plugged into a stereo older than her.
And Diesel?
He stood near the back of the lot, flipping ribs on the grill with tongs in one hand and a koozie-wrapped soda in the other, watching it all unfold like a man witnessing a dream he’d never dared speak out loud.
Thane stepped up beside him.
“Nice spot,” he said.
Diesel shrugged. “It’s not much. But it’s where I learned to fix things. To drive. To listen.”
He flipped a rack of ribs with practiced grace. “After the fire took Mom and Dad, Jake kept the shop going. Took care of me. Kept me outta trouble.”
Thane didn’t speak. Just let the moment breathe.
Diesel added, “Thought about coming back here after y’all got famous. But I figured… maybe my road had more miles left in it.”
“You’re not done driving,” Thane said.
Diesel smiled. “Not by a long shot.”
Later that evening, as the sun dipped and cicadas started tuning up for their nightly set, the pack gathered around the smoker, swapping stories and talking nonsense while Diesel’s people laughed and passed around paper plates stacked too high.
One of the kids asked if Gabriel was a real werewolf.
Gabriel looked dead serious and said, “Only during full moons, Fridays, and lunch rush.”
The kid screamed. Everyone howled.
Jake raised a can and toasted. “To my little brother—still big as a truck, still can’t dance worth a damn, and somehow driving rockstars across the country like it’s normal.”
Diesel tipped his soda in reply. “To home. And the roads that brought us back to it.”
The pack clinked cans and bottles, fur and hands crossing over ribs and laughter.
That night, under a string of garage lights and stars too big for the city, Thane found Diesel sitting alone on the back steps, drink in hand, watching the fireflies drift.
“Too quiet?” Thane asked.
Diesel shook his head. “Just… real.”
He looked back at the lit-up garage full of joy and family and wolves and said, “Never thought I’d bring a band of misfit werewolves here and have it feel like this.”
Thane sat beside him. “That’s the thing about found family. It tends to sneak up on you.”
They sat in silence for a while—two men shaped by different kinds of work, different kinds of weight—just watching the sky change.
And then, from inside the garage, came the distinct sound of Gabriel attempting karaoke.
Diesel sighed. “…That’s gonna break a speaker, isn’t it?”
Thane stood, already heading for the door. “Only if we’re lucky.”