Page 8 of Scar

Really?

We used to know each other. Was that all? I couldn’t believe my ears.

“I need to sit down. The little fellow is kinda heavy….” She moved towards the table I was sitting at, and this was when I saw the baby. It had been eighteen months and six days since I last saw her. I couldn’t stop counting the days, because it was the worst mistake of my life. I thought about her every second of the day, and the only thing she could say was that we just knew each other?

“Do you want anything to eat? Scar here can make a mean steak.”

She nodded her head, but at Dad and completely ignored me. I strutted in the other direction and decided I would make her steak. Seeing as she was good buddies with Dad, he could serve it to her.

I headed to the kitchen and got to work. The lunch crowd had left and soon the pre-dinner crowd would be coming in. I loved my time in the kitchen. I’d never experimented cooking, until Andrea let me give her a hand. Since then we’ve had MCs from other gangs come here because they think Gordon Ramsey’s my best friend.

“Why do you have to be so pig headed some times? You get that from your mother, God rest her soul.”

I hated when he brought up her name for so many reasons. They say that it’s wrong to talk ill of the dead, which was why he’d said it like that.

I looked up just as the steak was ready and the chips were good to be served. I was going to put a bit of my “picante” spice on them, then decided against it. I knew Mel hated anything spicy. I didn’t have to act like a shit, but I couldn’t help it. I ignored my Dad as he came up to me with that, “Don’t be an Ass” look on his face.

“She is homeless, has nowhere to stay, and I can tell the way you went all goofy on her that you were more than friends back in Oregon Anyway, I’ve offered her a helping hand.”

I didn’t answer. I decided to be the shit he was accusing me off, and put picante on the fries with salad, and the steak.

I shoved the plate in his hand and he looked at me.

“You’re not…”

“Hell no! I’m going out for a smoke, and…”

Shit, I couldn’t even think about what I was going to do. Because my mind was all over the place.

“How old is that baby?”

Dad paused at the door. “Dunno, around six months. Maybe older, he’s not walking yet, but he’s sitting up. I’m not an expert on babies.”

I nodded as I reached for the door. Sure, I didn’t have to go out and smoke, we weren’t fucking saints. Half the guys smoked at the pool table and the rest of the club had clean air, so Andrea loved to call it. She was an ex smoker and proud of it.

We were trying to be respectful and we didn’t want the cops closing us down just for smoking indoors, so the pool area had a false roof, so even if it was inside, it appeared to be outside, so they couldn’t get us for breaking the law on a little technicality.

I decided to enter from the back, and listen to what she had to say to them.

“Damn girl, it’s like you haven’t eaten all week.”

She shrugged. “This is the first proper meal that I’ve had in nearly a month.”

“It looks like it has been a lot longer than that. Why were you going to that motel?”

She consumed her last bite and then sunk in her chair. The she remembered about her baby, as she checked in on him in the car seat. She seemed more relaxed seeing him entertain himself with a little toy.

“I’m going to find a cheap motel, so I can see if I can find a job and then I’ll take it from there.”

Shit, she was homeless. Some things hadn’t changed, because the Melinda I knew always avoided answering the question when things were bad.

I wanted to ask her, but then I couldn’t talk to her. Just seeing her hit me with a wave of guilt. I’d left town in pursuit of Dad. Once Mom died, and I found him I tried to find her, but she disappeared and no one told me her whereabouts. It was evident how many friends she really had, because they all said she disappeared. Now I had a feeling it was to do with her new man and the little fellow. I could imagine Mel’s dad throwing a fit about a teen pregnancy, he wasn’t thrilled about me going to Harvard and Mel going to community college.

“Bullshit!” Greyson said, refusing to let Mel leave the club and find somewhere else to live.

What?

Why are they running around her as if she’s their best friend?

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