“Then you do it,” Cam growled. “I’m not kissing a bunch of strange women.”
Ratchet blinked. “Why not?”
Specs let out what could only be described as a giggle. “No one wants to kiss me. That’s why I chose the good-looking men of the club. The rest are either married or too old.”
Melter didn’t like that. “Who the fuck are you calling old?”
“All right, pipe down.” Wolf banged the gavel with a loud crack. “Let’s get back to this. If the only men in the kissing booth are Ratchet and Stalemate, let’s nix it and find something else for the club. How ’bout a group ride? Damn, I wish Go-Kart were here. We could use his LED custom work.”
Quillon tapped his fingers on the table. “Why don’t you call the Dragon Runners and see if that guy Dodge is available? He’s the one who does that cool custom painting.”
Wolf raised his brows and pursed his lips in a not-a-bad-idea expression. “Pretty short notice, but I’ll try. What else we got?”
Cam’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He caught Wolf’s eye and pointed to the device, then jerked his head to the building’s exit. Wolf flicked a finger at the door, indicating he could leave.
Cam fully expected the call to be from Sabrina, but an unfamiliar number popped up. No scam alert, so he answered it.
“Hello?”
At first, the caller stayed silent, but then a raspy voice spoke.
“Hey, baby. S’been a while.”
Cam closed his eyes as fear and dread flooded his system. No matter how many times he told her to stop calling him, she always came back eventually. He’d given up hope a long time ago that anything would change, and now this woman no longer had any part in his life, but every so often, she cropped up like a canker sore. Last time she showed up, he had to call the police and have her removed from his front yard. Obviously, she didn’t get the message then. He prayed she would stay away from his house this time around.
“Hello, Tammie.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Sabrina tooka huge cleansing breath of the crisp morning air and let it out slowly. The house she faced differed greatly from Cam’s. It looked like the others in this cluttered row: regimented boxes on a thin strip of land with little to no space between them and their neighbors. This one had the luxury of a narrow drive leading to whatever space sat behind it. The place gave off an air of forgotten neglect. No yard to mow, no plants or anything to make the sparse structure appealing in the least. Her bike had a flat tire this morning, so she’d Ubered to this address. One look at the place and she was ready to go back to her van.
This was where Scrap lived—if it could be called that.
More like this is where Scrap exists.
She inhaled again and marched up to the front door. Peeling gray paint flaked off as she knocked on the wood. The man had gone MIA since his episode at the hospital, and she wasn’t going to make any more futile efforts to corner him at the bar. After Scrap’s collapse, she’d left him alone for a time. Even though she wanted answers, she wouldn’t kick a man when he was down.
Whatever happens, I’m gonna keep my dignity and my integrity,she thought as a gruff “Yeah” came from the house’s interior. One more big breath and she opened the door.
The inside wasn’t much better than the outside. The first floor was an open living area with the kitchen in the back. Beyond that was a bathroom. Narrow stairs led to the upper floor, but by the looks of things, Scrap didn’t go up there much.
He was lying back in a beat-up recliner with several afghans tucked around him. The sallow skin on his face wrinkled as he frowned at her. “What the fuck areyoudoing here?”
Sabrina raised her chin and squared her shoulders, as Ernie taught her to do when she faced an opponent. She looked down at the old man in front of her and had a hard time feeling anything but pity for him.
“I came to get answers. I’m not running away from this, and neither are you.” She broke the stare to take the few steps over the scratched hardwood floor and plop herself onto the ugly plaid sofa. She had to move a pile of mismatched throw pillows and crumpled bedsheets. “When did you get this thing? When Jesus was a child?”
“Get the fuck out of my house.”
“Not until you agree to take the DNA test. I can get one of those mail-order ones from Amazon and have it delivered.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Sabrina glanced around at the ancient furnishings. A floor lamp with a shade yellowed with age, a braided rug with colors so faded they’d gone gray, a set of bookshelves stuffed with stacks of old magazines and a few hardbacks. The only modern piece was the flat-screen Vizio mounted above the bricked-over fireplace. Otherwise, the whole house looked like time stopped circa 1975. “Nice place you have here.”
