Page 22 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Candace

“We’re having a ride in a couple of weeks. You should come,” Maggie says as I reach for another cinnamon roll. They’re warm, soft, gooey; exactly the kind of thing that should be comforting.

But nothing feels comforting right now.

The scent of cinnamon and sugar curls up from the plate, stirring a memory I can’t hold on to. Sweet. Heavy. Too much. My stomach tightens as if it knows better than to let it in.

My fingers tap a slow, silent beat against the plate. A rhythm without a song. A habit I thought I’d broken.

I tear off a piece and chew slowly, nodding as though I’m listening, but I’m not. My mind’s a million miles away.

When I was little, I used to watch the bikes ride out from the upstairs window—lined up, roaring with the weight of thunder rolling down the street.

There was something magical about it, as though they belonged to another world entirely.

A world where people had each other’s backs. Where your name meant something.

Back then, I’d dream of being one of them. Of someone lifting me onto the back of a bike and taking me away from everything.

The first and only time Dad let me ride with him, I must’ve been nine or ten.

He had this old Harley he’d rebuilt himself.

Painted it a dark green that shimmered with an oily sheen in the sun.

He told me to hold on tight, then took us out on the back roads, just the two of us.

No chaos or bar tabs. No screaming. Just wind in my face and his voice in my ear saying, “See, baby girl? This is freedom.”

For a minute, I believed him.

The hum of that engine used to settle something in me. Now, that sound just feels more like a warning. A reminder that the man who once made me feel safe on the back of his bike is the same one who hasn’t looked at me the same in years. I’m not sure when exactly I stopped feeling safe at all.

I glance up and catch a flicker of something across the room. Knox and Sloane standing near the food table but not quite together. They’re close, but not touching. Sloane says something without meeting his eye, and he just nods. I clock it and look away.

They look as though a thousand unspoken things sit between them. Yet neither of them walks away. It hits me harder than it should. That kind of loyalty. That kind of quiet, tangled tether. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that.

“I don’t think so, Mags.” The words feel thick, as if I’m swallowing something I don’t want to say. I hate how it stings. Hate that I even considered saying yes.

Before I know it, I’m shoving the chair back and standing. “I need to go.”

The words leave my mouth too fast, too sharp, as though if I don’t get out of here now, I’ll shatter. My pulse drums in my ears, hot and frantic. Maggie doesn’t argue. She just picks up the tray of cinnamon rolls and pushes them toward me.

“Take them.”

I shake my head. I don’t deserve that kindness. Not when all I’ve done is keep my distance.

“Take them,” she says again, but this time her voice is softer. Warmer. As if she sees straight through every wall I’ve tried to keep up today.

My chest squeezes. I nod, but I can’t speak. My throat is too tight as my hands tremble when I take the foil tray as though it might burn me. My armor is cracked wide open, and I hate it.

I came here to keep the peace. To do the right thing. For my dad, for James, maybe even for Malachi. But everything today has reminded me how much I don’t belong here.

The worst part?

I want to. To feel a part of this.

I want to joke with Maggie the way I used to. To lean into James’s hugs without pulling away too soon. I want to sit on the porch with the old ladies and listen to their stories and laughter, not feel as though I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But how can I, when everything that’s ruined my life is tied up in this place?

My father’s downward spiral started here.

My stolen future, my shattered credit, the quiet lies I only just uncovered.

They all trace back to this world. To this patch.

He didn’t just drink away our stability; he stole my identity.

Opened accounts in my name before I was old enough to understand what that meant.

Ruined my credit before I even had a chance to build it.

It’s why I couldn’t open a bank account.

Why every dollar I earned had to be hidden in cash, buried as contraband in my own bedroom.

Because trusting him, or anything with his name on it, meant gambling everything.

And yet…

I still ache to be seen by him. To be claimed by something. To not be alone.

What kind of masochist does that make me?

I clutch the tray tighter and walk out without another word before I can change my mind and do something stupid. Such as stay.

Because for half a second, I would have. If Malachi had said the right thing while looking at me the way he did earlier, maybe asked me to? God, I don’t even know. But I would’ve stayed.

The cinnamon rolls sit on the passenger seat, sweet and warm and unwanted, a damn ghost.

The hum of a tune stirs in my throat. I swallow it down. No lyrics today. Not when the ache feels too raw.

I glance at them again as I turn out of the parking lot, throat burning.

Why did I take them? Why did I let Maggie’s kindness crack me open like that?

I grip the wheel harder, my knuckles aching from how tight I’m holding on. The smell of sugar and cinnamon still lingers in the air, clinging to me, steeped in guilt.

This whole day was a mistake.

And yet, some part of me—some small, traitorous part—whispers that it wasn’t.

That maybe I needed today.

Maybe I wanted it.

I blink hard against the sting behind my eyes.

When I was little, I used to love watching the club’s rides from the porch.

I’d sit cross-legged with a popsicle in one hand and my sketchbook in the other, counting the bikes as they rumbled down the street, thunder in motion.

My dad would wave from the front of the line, proud and tall, a hero pulled straight from a movie.

Sometimes, he’d swing by the house just to pick me up and let me sit on the bike while the engine idled, one arm wrapped around me as he told me stories about the road. He smelled of oil, leather, and something warm. Safe.

That was before everything cracked. Before Mom died. Before the drinks became a second language and the debts piled high enough to bury us both.

Now the bikes just sound a warning. A countdown.

I should’ve never come today. All it did was remind me of how far gone he is. How I’ve been trying to outrun this legacy my whole damn life, only to get pulled back in again and again.

I’m not part of their world. I’m just the leftover damage.

But I think about James’s hug. Maggie’s cinnamon rolls. Even Sloane, who barely knows me but looked at me as if I mattered. As if I was seen.

And Malachi.

The way he watched me as if I was something worth wanting. Something worth knowing.

I hate that part. That I felt it. That I wanted it.

I exhale through my teeth and turn onto my street, forcing myself to shove the longing down deep where it can’t hurt me. But as I pull into the driveway, that quiet little ache refuses to go away.

It lingers in my chest, a bruise echoing with every breath.

When I get home and step into that cold, hollow house taking the stairs two at a time, already reaching for my key, everything inside me halts.

My bedroom door is splintered.

Not cracked. Not chipped.

Splintered.

The rhythm in my head halts. Silence swells, a scream in disguise.

The doorframe is warped where the lock used to hold tight. Jagged wood juts out, broken teeth exposed. The cheap deadbolt I installed myself hangs uselessly from the knob, twisted at an angle that tells me exactly what happened.

He kicked it in.

I stand there, frozen, one hand still on the banister. My heart slams against my ribs, a dull roar pounding in my ears.

It wasn’t just a door.

It was a line.

It was the one thing I thought I could protect—my space, my things, my money.

The day he first pawned our TV, I knew something in him had shifted.

It wasn’t a nice TV, just a secondhand flat screen James helped him haul in when I was twelve.

But it was ours. We’d watch old action movies, karate tournaments, reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger.

It was the one place we still met in the middle.

Him with his beer, me with a bowl of cereal on the floor.

When I came home from school and saw the empty wall, I knew. He didn’t even try to hide it. Just said we “didn’t need it right now.”

That night, I went to the hardware store and bought a deadbolt with the tip money I’d been hoarding in a shoebox under my bed.

I spent the whole night installing it, sweating in silence while he snored on the couch.

Then I pulled up two of the floorboards, cleared out a space, and hid the lockbox I’d bought with Ruby at a pawn shop across town.

My room became the only safe place I had. Now, that safety is shattered.

The doorframe is ruined. The deadbolt hangs crooked, torn from the splintered wood. And the box?

Wide open. Empty.

The cash, the thousands I spent months scraping together, is gone.

That money was my way out. My ticket to a new life. And he took it. He kicked in my door, dug through my things, and stole it. Just so he could hand over some crumpled bills to a club he claims is his family while ignoring the daughter standing right in front of him.

Now I have nothing.

Happy birthday to me.