He hates me. That burning look is hate and regret that a dumbass thing he did when he was barely drinking age, trying to be a hero, cost him his entire twenties. Maybe he hates himself.
God, he must wish that I wasn’t here. I know the feeling; there’s no part of me that wants to be here now, the star of some sick and twisted reality show.
I duck my eyes, focusing on the limes, absolving him of any obligation to speak to me, wishing hard as hell that he lets himself be carried off by the crowd of well-wishers.
Since I’ve got my head down, I don’t see him close the distance between us, but I can feel his presence like a drop in the barometric pressure. My head starts pounding in tandem with my heart, and my hands shake. Then his hands are over mine, quick and steady, and he takes the knife, setting it across the corner of the cutting board.
“You gonna lose a finger.” His voice is low, and it’s careful, too. Like he’s hiding something.
I swallow and my gaze darts up, dragged by some kind of compulsion, even though I’m sweating bullets, and all I want to do is run and hide. I feel so wrong. So big and awkward-shaped and gross.
I force myself to say it. “Hi, Scrap.”
“Hi.”
There’s a bar between us, and he’s giving me space, a foot or so, but he’s still too close. And it’s not just him, he’s brought company, flashes of sights and smells that burst into the periphery of my awareness and recede, burning me like embers flung from a fire. Gasoline and piss. Cold concrete. Copper. Muted sunshine through clouded, yellowed glass.
I whimper low in my throat, and Scrap’s whole demeanor changes. He straightens, his stance widening. Those blank, blue eyes darken and grow wary.
“Hey now….” It’s what a movie cowboy says to a skittish horse.
I’m flustered, unsteady on my feet, and I don’t know what to do, what to say. I fumble for a plastic tub and drop the lime wedges in.
He stands there. Waiting.
Everyone around us is standing there, waiting.
What does he want? I’ve got nothing.
He clears his throat. “Can I have a beer?”
Oh. Fuck. My gaze flies up.
His lips curve. Bemused. Distracting.
“Oh. Sorry. Yeah.” I blink, searching, as if this isn’t my job, and I don’t know where everything is. “Do you want a draft?”
“Bottle’s fine.”
“Bud?”
“That’d be fine.”
I grab one, slide it to him, my fingers working on muscle memory, which is a good thing ‘cause I can’t stop alternating between taking him in and desperately staring at anything else. The initial shock is gone, the memories shoved back down, and I’m overwhelmed and embarrassed and, strangely, completely…fascinated.
He’s so tall.
He’s still standing, and the bar that hits me above the waist hardly comes up past his hips. He’s wearing brand new jeans and a gray T-shirt with the Steel Bones Construction logo on the breast. The shirt’s tight, especially where his biceps and pecs strain at the fabric. My breath shallows. Shit. Am I panicking? No. This isn’t panic. This is…I don’t even know.
I sneak a glance up at Scrap again. He was always tall and built, but now he dominates the space, and he’s ripped, with the body of a boxer. An athlete. He’s honed, even more than Forty who spends hours at the gym every day.
A sick feeling roils my stomach. Oh, fuck. He’s ripped because he’s had nothing else to do with his days except workout. Not this whole time while I’ve been eating my feelings and hiding in my e-reader—
I force down the wave of guilt, search for something to say. Come up with nothing.
“You cut your hair.” His voice gives nothing away, but still when I look up, his gaze hits me, socks me right in the gut. Now I can see what those carefully blank eyes were hiding. Oh, fuck. Why didn’t I recognize it off the bat? I should have; it’s not like I don’t see it all day, every day.
Scrap Allenbach doesn’t feel hate or regret. That’s pity in his eyes. Disappointment. Disgust.
My heart sinks. My fingers fly up to my short bob, drop again. I used to have hair down to my butt. After the attack, they had to shave part to stitch the gash in my head, and when Mom “evened it out” in rehab, she made such a mess, it was easier to chop it all off. Now, I keep it short so I don’t look like I used to. For safety.
Back when I visited Scrap upstate, I was wearing hats twenty-four/seven. He must remember my hair long and wavy. And me thin and pretty and sixteen. He must remember—
Scrap pressing down on my chest, pinning me hard to the floor, staunching the blood with his body, Dad cupping my cheek, crying. Men shouting. Gasoline and piss. Concrete. Yellowed glass.
My brain glitches, a lightning bolt blinding and deafening me with a crack that sends my body into overdrive as the past plows into the present. I brace for impact, forcing my body to stay in place, stay upright. I’m an old pro at this. I can ride a flashback like a killer wave.
“Why’d you cut your hair?” Scrap can’t tell he’s talking to a rip in time.
I fight back, shove at the memories so hard, drag in a desperate breath. Why did I cut my hair? Is that what he wants to know?
I have to answer, but I’m having trouble calling up words, there’s too much shit loose and ricocheting in my brain.
Scrap’s sweeping me with his gaze, and the pity and the disappointment is so damn obvious now, my skin crawls. He notices me bracing and pulling myself back together. And now he’s taking in my ratty old hoodie, holes worn in the cuffs so I can slip my thumbs through, my baggy jeans, my scuffed boots.
I know I dress butch. I have my reasons. And nobody cares or even notices anymore—not even Dad—but Scrap Allenbach looks at me like I’m wrong somehow. Like I’ve offended his fashion sense.
Yeah, I’m fucking wrong. I’m not the sixteen-year-old band geek he crushed on anymore, the girl who painted her toes and wore sandals almost year-round, who braided her long hair for the ride home on the back of his bobber.
I haven’t been her in ten years. If he’d been around, he’d know. If he hadn’t told me to leave and never come back that day at SCI Wayne, he’d know.
“Why is it your business?” There’s anger in my voice. Where did that come from? That’s not me, but I can’t tamp it down. Not when he’s looking at me like I somehow let him down while a tornado swirls inside me, trying to suck me up into the past.
Scrap lowers his beer and rests his hands, calmly, deliberately, on the bar. His blue eyes heat—is he angry, too?—and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, all deadly serious.
“Crista.” He says my name soft, but there’s criticism in it, a chiding, and I don’t know what he wants.
My chest squeezes. The more I cast around for something to say, the more lost I feel.
“What? What do you want from me?” Again, there’s an uncharacteristic harshness in my voice, and I don’t mean it, but from the corner of my eye, I see that Harper and Heavy overhear. Heavy grimaces, and Harper snarls.
“Nothin’, babe. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Scrap drums his fingers a few times on the bar, and then he grabs his beer. “Guess I’ll leave you be.”
I nod.
He waits a second.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
He turns and walks away.
CHAPTER 4
CRISTA
As Scrap stalks off, I nod ‘cause that’s all I can do. I grab another lime, but my hands are stupid. I can’t think of what to do. I end up staring at the cutting board like an idiot.
Mom starts asking for drink orders, and Annie grabs my hand, and I follow her, numb, down the corridor to the annex. On the way, I overhear some sweetbutts too drunk to whisper.
“Do you think she’s losing it?”
“Nah. When she’s about to lose it, she gets all spastic.”
“Shit, a man does that for you…You kind of think she could have pulled it together, welcome h
im home right, you know?”
My gut clenches. I stop in my tracks, but Annie yanks me forward.
I hear, “She’s just totally fucked up. Wouldn’t you be? I mean, damn. Poor woman.” And then one of them notices me and shushes the others.
“Ignore it,” Annie hisses, shooting them the look of death, and leads me off to Mom’s office at the end of the hall. She drags me inside, shoves me toward Mom’s desk chair, and then she goes rooting around in Mom’s desk.
I stand there, seething. I hate pity. People can say what they want, think what they want, but they can shove their pity up their asses. No one knows what it takes to live like this. They think we’re safe, and they have no idea that safety is never anything but an illusion.
God, I wish I hadn’t taken Frances home earlier. Frances understands. He’s seen me hyperventilate at the front door. Walk through it anyway and force myself to the car, step by step, open the door, key in the lock, buckle up, put it in reverse, all while forcing breath in and out, sweating bullets, and fighting the terror shakes. Frances has seen it all, and he just rolls his eyes.
That’s the appropriate reaction. Don’t pity me. I’m not in bed. I’m not in the ground. I’m not letting one more person suffer for me. Every goddamn day is a victory.
Annie slams a drawer shut and opens another. In her tight black dress with her fake tits hanging out, she looks like a hooker robbing the place. What the hell is she doing?
“Annie?”
Annie holds up a finger. “Wait for it.” She shuffles some papers around, and then she pops up, a joint in one hand and a little orange bottle in the other.
“Good ol’ Deb.” My older sister hoists up her finds in victory. “You want a happy pill, a toke, or both?”
I make myself sit, purposefully unclench my fists.
“I’m good. I’m fine.”
There’s the scrape and hiss of a Bic. The smell of some truly dank weed fills the air, and Annie starts hacking up a lung.
It takes her a good few minutes to wheeze out, “Deb is so retro. Who even rolls joints anymore?”
“You know that’s probably been in there since 1995.” I lean back, let all the stress of the past twenty minutes go.
“Nah.” Annie grins. “I smoked all her nineties weed when I was in high school. Somebody’s definitely had to re-up the old gal in the past few years.”
“Who do you think her hook up is?” This is good. Dumb, distracting conversation.
“Definitely Dad.”
“You think?”
“Nobody wants a mellow Deb more than Dad does.”
Now that’s the truth. Mom is crazy smart and capable—if she were working at a real company instead of Steel Bones, she’d have a corner office—but she’s high strung. A pang of guilt messes with my hard-won equilibrium. Mom’s anxiety probably has a lot to do with what happened to me. The orange bottles didn’t show up until after.
Annie shoves aside a stack of files and sinks onto Ma’s sofa, spinning me in the chair so I face her.
“You freaking out?”
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
“So was it everything you dreamed it’d be?” Annie takes another drag, smacks her red, matte lips, and blows smoke rings in my face.
“Pretty much.” I fan my hand. Shit reeks of skunk. “Are you gonna go home to the kids tonight all buzzed?”
“Of course not. I’m the good parent, remember? I got a babysitter. I’m crashing right here tonight.”
I raise an eyebrow. I’ve been so consumed by my own drama, I didn’t really think about how this club reunion is gonna rock a lot of boats.
“Bullet’s been bunking here, hasn’t he?”
Annie’s face goes defensive. “Yup.” She draws the syllable out until you can hear that deadbeat asshole in it. Also the I’m gonna fuck him anyway for shits and giggles.
“You want to get him naked and seduce him while I steal his wallet?” I waggle my eyebrows.
Annie throws her head back and cracks up. It’s so funny ‘cause we’ve done it before. Twice. It was a bust both times. Dude has dust bunnies in his wallet.
“Goddamn Bullet Nowicki.” My sister sinks back into the sofa, tucking her knobby knees to her chin.
“All cock, no brains.”
“Big dick, small bank account.”
“Great lay, bad choice?”
Annie shrugs. “I don’t know about that. The man makes beautiful babies.”
That he does. My three nieces are perfect blonde-haired, blue-eyed children of the devil.
“He loves those girls to pieces.” I say the thing I always say.
It’s the truth, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. If Mom didn’t garnish Bullet’s dividend from Steel Bones Construction, Annie’s ex would be nine years in arrears for child support. He basically lives at the OTB. He’s addicted to the races and poker—and the lotto, probably—and he’s unlucky to boot.
“Almost as much as he loves the ponies.” Annie sighs, and then she kicks off her high heels and wiggles her toes. They are so long and so gross.
“Quit wavin’ those creepy foot-fingers at me.” I lean back again, cracking my spine. For the first time in weeks, I start to feel okay, here in this dim office, hiding out with my big sister. The good thing about having Annie Holt for a big sister—she’s kind of a human no-judgement zone. Whatever you did, she did worse, and she knew better when she did it.
“So what did he say?”
“He asked for a beer. And he wanted to know why I cut my hair.”
“Why’s that his fuckin’ business?”
“Exactly what I said.”
“You do need to stop having Mom cut it. You look like John Cusack.” Annie squints at me, her blue eyes puffy slits.
“Do not.”
“Do too.” Annie’s snickering, and she must not smoke-up that much anymore, ‘cause the snickering sets her to coughing.
“Say Anything John Cusack or High Fidelity John Cusack?”
“High Fidelity. You’ve got those sad, loser bangs.”
“It’s ‘cause I’m a sad loser.”
“True, true.” Annie shakes her head sadly. “It’s not your fault. You were born that way.”
I kick at Annie’s long legs, but I miss, hit the couch, and roll a few inches back. My chest truly eases for the first time in days. It feels so good to take a deep breath.
“Oh, Annie. It was horrible.” I squeeze my eyes shut.
“It looked awkward as hell.”
“You were watching?”
“Honey, we were all watching. It was like the Bachelor over there. The biker version of the rose ceremony.”
“Must have been disappointing.”
“It would’ve been if I hadn’t betted on painful silence and awkwardness. As it was, I should have doubled-the-fuck down.”
“You always have my back, don’t you?”
She winks. “You know I do.”
“Everyone hates me now, don’t they?” Before he did what he did, Scrap was the low-key, stand-up brother everyone loved. Since he went away, he’s become a legend. A saint, more or less. And I’m the poor, broken bitch who doesn’t ever visit him. Or talk about him.
Annie extends her legs, propping them on my lap, and yawns. She’s always been a lightweight. A few tokes, and her filter’s gone. A few more, and she’ll be out like a light.
“Nobody hates you. You’re the victim, remember?” Yeah, she’s definitely past the point of thinking very hard about what she’s saying. “I mean, survivor.”
“You say that like it’s not a good thing.”
Annie sighs, a loud, inebriated bellow. “It’s hard being the fuck-up when your sister’s…”
“Perfect?”
Annie snorts. “A perfect bitch.”
“I love you, big sister.”
“I don’t know why.” Annie sighs and picks at the paint on her nails.
“’Cause you’re the only one who’s real with me.”
/>
“Seriously?” Annie’s eyes go shiny. Oh, shit. She’s going to cry. I hate maudlin Annie.
“Yeah. A real bitch.” I grin, and she shrieks, digging her toes into my belly, and I slap at her feet, and we laugh until I slip off Mom’s ergonomic chair and fall flat on my ass, and then we hoot so loud I’m surprised no one comes to check out the commotion.
We end up minutes later in a heap together on the floor, panting, Annie’s head propped on my stomach, her heels on the sofa. I poke at her hair-sprayed bangs. They’re fascinating. Like stiffened egg whites.
She jerks her head away and drops it back down, nailing me in the solar plexus. I grunt.
“Oh, shit. Did I hurt you?” She scrambles up to sitting, dopey-eyes wide with alarm.
“I’m fine.”
“Did I hit the Franken-scar?”
“Nope. Lucky for you, fathead.”
Annie snorts and settles back down.
I wish, for the one millionth time, that it wasn’t there. The permanent backdrop to my life. The day I was gutted like a fish.
Doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing, right behind me lurks the worst day of my life. Every memory I have, it’s there, making every good time that came before it a calm before the storm, everything that came after a could-have-never-been.
And so many people have the picture of that day up in their heads, in living color. At least five people I see on a daily basis have seen the inside of my chest cavity. That’s a fact of my life. I haven’t even seen five real live dicks in my life, but there are at least a handful of people out there who know what my spleen looks like.
And me? I’m missing huge chunks. Not of those hours in the garage. I can’t scrub that from my mind. But afterwards. There are days, weeks missing. And it’s like this terrible thing happened, everyone knows about it, no one talks about it, and I’ve spent a decade trying to piece it back together or come to terms with it—whatever that means—or shove it out of my mind. But I can’t. There’s a permanent reminder skulking at the edges of my life, a threat I can never talk about, never escape.
Scrap: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Romance Page 3
