Scrap: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Romance Read online

  SCRAP

  A STEEL BONES MOTORCYCLE CLUB ROMANCE

  CATE C. WELLS

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Cate C. Wells. All rights reserved.

  Cover art and design by Clarise Tan of CT Cover Creations.

  Proofreading by Nevada Martinez.

  Special thanks to Jean McConnell of The Word Forager, and as always, Louisa.

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  CHAPTER 1

  CRISTA

  Scrap Allenbach is getting out of jail today.

  My stupid body’s gone haywire. I’m sweating down my back, and my face is so hot, I’m probably as red as a baboon’s ass.

  Everyone’s staring, which doesn’t help. After all, I’m the reason Scrap’s been upstate for the past ten years.

  The Steel Bones clubhouse is crazy, prospects moving furniture to lay out the dance floor, sweetbutts scrubbing down the tables, old ladies banging around in the kitchen. It’s not even ten in the morning, and a third keg’s already been tapped. It’s a huge celebration.

  I think I’m gonna puke.

  Everyone’s acting like they’re not watching me blow up balloons. Fay-Lee’s been hovering around, all skinny-ass mama hen, as if I’m finally gonna crack and lose my mind. I’m not. I might melt into a puddle of embarrassment right here by the bar, but I’ll keep it together. I always—mostly—do.

  And as if all the eyeballs weren’t enough, Harper Ruth is hovering around.

  Harper is Heavy’s sister, and Heavy’s the president. She sees herself as some kind of Wendy to the Steel Bones’ Lost Boys. She’s protective, and I get that, but I wish she’d back off. I’m not going to do whatever it is she thinks I’m going to do. She should know that by now. I serve drinks, keep my head down. I’m not going to ruin Scrap’s homecoming. Not on purpose, anyway.

  Still, she’s swinging her lady dick around, making sure I know my place, which is kind of a joke since I’ve pretty much worn a hole in my place so deep, I couldn’t get out if I tried. I hang around in the background, keep the bar stocked, run errands. Try not to ruin any more lives.

  “Do you think we need to bring in more pussy?” Harper bares her teeth, her version of a smile, and gauges me with her weird, gray shark eyes.

  I keep my head down and press the nozzle on the helium tank. “Sure. Why not?”

  I tie off a balloon and hand it to Fay-Lee. This morning, Fay-Lee’s in charge of adding the string, and if I’m not mistaken, my mom has asked her to keep an eye on me. Girl’s been up my ass all morning.

  Harper clicks her fancy pen. “Ten years is a long dry spell. Maybe I should call The White Van, have them close up the place for the night, send all the girls over.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, then.” Harper scrawls on her clipboard with a flourish. “I’ll call over now. Unless….” She cocks her head, waiting.

  I say nothing and push the button on the tank of air and a bright pink balloon swells up bigger than my head.

  Harper keeps going. The woman does not know when to quit. Probably makes her a great lawyer. Definitely makes her an asshole.

  “I know a lot of the girls want to give our boy a welcome home he won’t forget. If that’s gonna be a problem, just—"

  My stomach tightens, and the old scars twinge. My whole body is radiating heat. It’s a special kind of hell when everyone thinks they know your business, and everyone’s got it all wrong.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “It isn’t?” Harper raises an eyebrow.

  I look to Fay-Lee for backup, but she shrugs. I guess that’s fair. I don’t talk about Scrap. No one really knows what our deal is.

  Including me.

  But the last thing I want to do right now—or ever—is to talk about it with Harper Ruth. It’s hard enough to wrap my brain around the fact that soon, Scrap Allenbach and I are going to be in the same room together for the first time in ten years.

  Heavy, my dad, and a few other brothers are picking him up right now. They’re taking him to Heavy’s cabin for some downtime before they bring him to the clubhouse for the party. The party’s supposed to be a surprise. My guess is someone’s gonna blow that in the first five minutes.

  Scrap’s going to be here in a few hours, and we’re going to see each other, and then—

  Then what?

  My stomach flops like a fish on a hook. I fumble the knot I’m trying to tie, and a balloon takes off squealing and farting across the room. Fay-Lee snorts, and a prospect leaps for it, missing and crashing onto a pool table. Brothers howl, all boisterous and day-drunk.

  At my feet, my dog Frances harrumphs and rolls over to his other side. Frances is a mostly bloodhound mix who is not now—and has never been—impressed, amused, or interested. He’s the freakin’ best.

  I rub my sweaty palms on my jeans and snag another balloon from the pack.

  “I know you and him were never really…?” Harper waits, letting the silence drag out. She should know better. I’m Crista Holt. Master of awkward silences. The walking, talking cautionary tale.

  You know how many times I’ve strolled into a room, and it instantly gets quiet? How many times someone has said something totally innocuous—about Route 12 or Ernestine’s hernia surgery or something—and everyone goes mute? Walking in my shoes sucks. My life is like one long cell phone call, interrupted by a series of tunnels.

  “The last thing I’d want to do is make this harder…”

  Oh, Lord, make it stop. Harper can’t really think I’m worried about Scrap Allenbach and a bunch of strippers, can she? What about me says Back off my man? I can’t even talk to a man I don’t know. I can hardly talk to anyone.

  “Whatever you want to do, Harper.”

  “But—”

  “Last one.” I tie off the balloon and hand it to Fay-Lee. “You need anything else?”

  Harper narrows her eyes. I stare back, carefully blank.

  “No. I guess I’ve got this handled.”

  “All right then.” I nod at Fay-Lee and bail for the kitchen.

  Frances waits until I’m halfway across the room, and then he lumbers to his paws so dramatically and resentfully he should win an Emmy. I swear he’s rolling his eyes behind my back. He’ll perk up when he realizes where I’m headed. He’s a treat whore, and the old ladies spoil him rotten.

  Harper’s never stepped foot in the kitchen once that I’ve seen, and I need a break. Besides, based on the number of brothers who’ve shown this early, I also need to bring more stock up from the back. I filled the shelves last night, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a few boxes of extra liquor tucked under the bar. This is looking like the kind of rager that can go two, maybe three days.

  My dad Pig Iron is the club treasurer. Technically, he’s in charge of the books and the bar. In reality, my mom Deb runs the numbers, and I manage the bar. Dad basically pours drinks for the ladies when he feels like it and keeps his weed i
n the garnish fridge.

  I’m not complaining. It’s a good job for me, the clubhouse being one of the few places I know I’m safe, where I’m comfortable. I grew up here, climbing on the tire playset the brothers built in the yard.

  When the kitchen doors swing shut behind me and Frances, some of the weight lifts from the stares and the fact that—fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck—Scrap Allenbach’s coming home today. It’s hot in here, and loud, and it feels like home. My mom’s at the industrial stove, messin’ around with her girls, Aunt Shirl and Ernestine.

  My mom’s like this short, round red onion, tucked between Aunt Shirl’s skinny carrot and Ernestine’s huge, hair-sprayed broccoli head.

  “There’s my sweet baby!” Ernestine bends to scratch Frances behind the ears.

  “Dogs don’t belong in a kitchen,” my mom mutters, stirring peppers in a cast iron skillet.

  “They let Pig Iron in here,” Aunt Shirl says and high fives Ernestine who’s returned to her place at the stove. Aunt Shirl sniffs Ernestine’s pot and then rummages in some jars on the counter.

  “You put that bay leaf in my sauce, I’ll beat your ass.” Ernestine blocks Aunt Shirl with a big wooden spoon.

  Aunt Shirl rolls her eyes. “Ain’t nobody wanna touch your nasty sauce.”

  “That’s not what Twitch used to say back in the day.” Ernestine smirks. She loves bringing up how she used to bang my Uncle Twitch before he met my Aunt Shirl.

  Mom snorts. “Ernestine, you still braggin’ on dick you bagged during the Nixon administration?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Now what would Grinder think about that?” Aunt Shirl tastes her own sauce and drops the bay leaf back into the jar.

  “Now why would I care what that cheatin’, no-good, old-ass motherfucker thinks?” Ernestine put Grinder out a few months back. She does it every few years when he goes too far off the chain.

  “That’s not what you were sayin’ when you came by for your binoculars the other day,” I say.

  I can’t help but razz her. Grinder’s been stayin’ in my spare room for the meanwhile, and it’s sad, seeing a man my grandpa’s age crying after a woman. Truth be told, I like having him around, though. For safety.

  “I needed those binoculars.” Ernestine sniffs.

  “Bird watching?” Aunt Shirl says “bird watching” like “bullshit.”

  “Watching that prospect Grinder’s got mowin’ my lawn.” Ernestine shimmies her wide-ass hips, knocking into both Ma and Aunt Shirl ’til they lose their footing. They laugh and shove back.

  “Washington or Boom?” Ma asks.

  “Boom.”

  “That prospect could mow my lawn any day.” Ma fans herself with a dish towel.

  “Ma!”

  Ma shrugs. “What? I ain’t blind. Or dead.”

  I wrap my arms around Ma’s round middle and rest my chin on her shoulder. She lifts a spoon to my lips. “Taste. It need more salt?”

  “Nah. It’s good.”

  “Better than Aunt Shirl’s?”

  “I’d never say that.” Aunt Shirl’s thin line of a mouth almost cracks into a smile. Almost.

  I love these women. Tough as nails, each one. Aunt Shirl was an emergency room nurse. Back in the day, she did a tour in Vietnam. My Uncle Twitch passed a few years ago, so now she takes care of all the old-timers, making sure they get fed, take their meds. Bikers are hard-living and stubborn as hell, so it’s not an easy task.

  Ernestine raised four kids, lost one to the crack epidemic, and then she raised three grandkids as her own, and lost another one to opioids a year or two back. So much loss, but whenever they get together, they’re just like they are now. Two tall and one wide, hootin’ and hollerin’, messin’ with each other and carrying on.

  Survivors.

  I wish I was like them.

  Most days, I don’t feel like a survivor. I feel like a zombie, the leftover pieces of a person who keeps going through sheer momentum and habit, dragged along by other, stronger people. When you live through hell, you’re supposed to come out stronger. Like Rambo.

  Or like Scrap Allenbach who’s comin’ home after doing ten years for me. Dad said it himself, so many times during those first months, those first few years. Since Scrap did what he did, I can move on. Make something of myself. Have a life. I don’t have to live afraid.

  But I do. I have to be afraid every second of the day, I have no choice, and it’s so fucking hard, but I do it. I live like this. I know from the outside, it doesn’t look like much, but I dare anyone to keep the secrets I keep, carry what I carry, and do better.

  I’m twenty-six years old, and I live above my parent’s garage. I tend bar at the MC clubhouse, I run errands to the club’s businesses, not the construction sites but the Autowerks or strip club. I go to doctor’s appointments. I watch my sister Annie’s kids, and I read.

  That’s the perimeter of my life. Books, the club, the doctor’s, home. And sometimes, when I need to look the past in the eye, when the living with it gets to be too much and I have the self-destructive urge to tempt fate, I visit the parking lot of Finnegan’s Ice Cream Parlor, and I stare at a man at a gas station.

  I’ve pulled it up on a map on the internet. The perimeter of my life makes a wonky hexagon.

  Mom buys my groceries when she gets hers from the bulk store near Pyle. I get my books and jeans and hoodies online. In the past ten years, I’ve never been on a date or a vacation or swimming or shopping or dancing at Sawdust on the Floor.

  I know it sounds sad, like I’d have a lot of time on my hands, but it is so hard, so time consuming to walk that perimeter, be vigilant, make sure I’m safe and everything is under control.

  Now Scrap’s coming home, and it doesn’t feel safe, and it sure as hell doesn’t feel like I have things under control.

  The good ol’ trembles start, and under my chest, Mom stiffens. She wraps her arms around mine and rocks slowly, foot to foot. “How ya doin’ baby?”

  Aunt Shirl and Ernestine’s faces go grim, and they sway nearer like two tall trees, offering comfort, cover. I let the closeness seep in, let their presence take the weight, again.

  “I’m fine.”

  “No one would blame you if you went home.” Ma cranes her neck to meet my eyes.

  I roll my eyes. “Everyone would blame me.”

  “You don’t owe them anything.”

  “I owe Scrap.” It wasn’t my choice, but all the same. I owe him. “Don’t I?”

  There’s a long moment of silence over the stove while around us in the huge kitchen, the banging and chatter goes on.

  “It was his decision.” Aunt Shirl plunges her spoon into her pot, swirling the thick, red sauce like she means business. “No one asked him to do it.”

  “Especially not in public like that.” Mom sucks the inside of her cheeks. She’s never made any bones about the fact she thinks what Scrap did was stupid. It’s not a popular opinion around here.

  “He’d just lost his parents. And he was so young.” Ernestine sounds like the weary grandma. Scrap’s not her blood, but she considers all the boys hers, especially those like Scrap who were born into the club.

  This is more than people usually say around me. Most of the time, we all sweep what happened out the door when it inevitably shows up. Ignore it like cobwebs up in high corners. That makes it easy for me to keep my secrets, but sometimes, the need to talk about it comes over me like a compulsion.

  I get this insatiable, morbid curiosity, a kind of burning itch where I want to scratch at the past, see what’s underneath, but talking about it hurts Mom more than me, so I don’t ask her. I know I should just be grateful.

  I have my dad because Scrap Allenbach did what he did, so my dad didn’t have to. So I didn’t have to lose anything more than I did on the floor of that gas station. I can never repay him. Not that it matters. He wants nothing from me.

  Back when I was first recovering, when the insomnia was so bad I started hallucinating, Mom thought it�
��d help me to see Scrap. Dad wanted me nowhere near SCI Wayne, but Mom made him take me to visit. She had this idea that seeing him would help, somehow convince my lizard brain that I was safe and let me sleep. It was a fool’s errand. I knew I wasn’t safe.

  Still, Dad drove me the three hours upstate, and I sat behind a thick pane of glass while guards brought in a man I hardly recognized.

  Scrap’s left eye was swollen shut, his lip was split, and he had a cut on his right temple as if someone started carving the letter L on a slant. I was slammed with guilt. My throat closed, my breathing strangled to a wheeze. I had a panic attack in a staticky, plastic chair while Scrap Allenbach told me he didn’t want me there, to never come back.

  “Please. I’m so sorry,” I’d blubbered, snot running from my nose.

  “Not as sorry as I am.” He’d stared at a spot over my shoulder, sharp jaw clenched so tight I could see each cord in his neck, his hands fisted in his lap. If I hadn’t already been so low, the weight of his words would have crushed me to pieces.

  Of course, I never went back. Never asked about him again. Some people in the club think I’m a cold bitch because of it, and I let them. Better than telling them their hero wishes he’d never seen my face.

  “Crista? Crista?”

  Oh, shit. I drifted off. All three ladies have turned away from the stove, worrying at me with their sad eyes and their sad smiles. My skin heats with irritation. I need to pull it together. Freaking them out is the last thing I want to do.

  I shake it off like I always do, smiling to reassure them that what’s broken down in front of their eyes is just fine after all.

  I sheepishly shake my head, and press my forehead to Mom’s. Then I smack a kiss on Aunt Shirl’s cheek and grab the spoon from Ernestine’s hand.

  “Don’t mind me. I’m just spacing out. Now let me try this sauce.” I take a taste of Aunt Shirl’s and screw up my face. “Too much bay leaf.”

  Ernestine hoots, and the ladies erupt in shouts and laughter, happy to be distracted, to keep going on as if this is a happy day. There’s nothing to see here. I’m not a ghost haunting this place. We’re not celebrating the waste of ten years of a man’s life. It’s all fine.