Page 26 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Candace

I didn’t know what I pictured when Sloane said girls’ night, but it damn sure wasn’t this. The clubhouse doesn’t feel the way it should. It’s too warm. Too bright. Too… soft.

My ribs tighten, bracing for an impact that never comes. The ache isn’t sharp. It’s the bruised kind, the kind that throbs beneath the skin, unfinished and unresolved. My lungs hesitate, untrusting of the air here.

Candles flicker in old mason jars, casting pools of golden light across scarred bar tops and dented stools, as though the place is trying on someone else’s skin and somehow pulling it off.

The usual scent of motor oil, sweat, and stale whiskey is softened beneath layers of vanilla, melted sugar, and something vaguely herbal.

Maybe sage or eucalyptus. There’s a diffuser humming on the bar next to a bottle of Fireball, two opposites sharing space for the night.

It smells of the first breath after a storm. A hint that home might be possible.

Throw blankets in chaotic colors have been draped over every surface—couches, bar stools, even the pool table.

There are mismatched pillows piled high, some with sequins, others with flamingos or skulls.

A dozen empty or half-empty wine bottles line the top of the bar, trophies in glass form.

Darla’s cookies sit in a vintage cake dome that looks hilariously out of place and perfectly right all at once.

And the music. It’s not the usual rebel rock or outlaw country that defines this place.

Tonight, it’s all girl anthems. Soft rock and moody alt-pop bleeding into the occasional Taylor Swift or Alanis Morissette banger.

One second it’s Florence + The Machine, the next it’s Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel a Woman” blaring while Ruby spins in a circle, waving a bottle of tequila held high in triumph.

The bass hums underfoot, pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

My pulse syncs with it before I can stop it. My fingers twitch, remembering a rhythm they haven’t played in months.

They’ve turned the clubhouse into a sanctuary. Not just theirs, but ours.

And I didn’t realize it could be that. I didn’t think a place this rough could shift its bones so completely; become soft without losing its edge. A kind of holy chaos. A spell cast to make it suddenly okay to exhale.

My fingers twitch at my sides, restless. They’re chasing the shape of a melody. The ghost of a chorus catches behind my teeth, but I don’t let it out. Not yet.

I stand just inside the threshold, stunned. My boots rooted to the floorboards. One step, and the spell might break.

This place used to belong to the men. To the club. The Outsiders and their leather and their code and their beer-stained loyalty. But tonight, it belongs to the women who’ve carved out space between the cracks. Somehow, impossibly… it feels safer than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

But I still don’t know what to do with it. My body doesn’t know how to sit in safety without preparing for the sharp turn. I have no idea how to soften without flinching. Because safety has never lasted long in my life. And softness? It’s a luxury I was taught not to trust.

My throat tightens. My thumb taps a nervous, silent beat against my thigh. The same pattern I used to drum against the guitar I pawned to cover rent six months ago. The same rhythm I tapped while waiting in ERs and parking lots and silence.

Ruby’s already got me by the wrist, tugging me toward the storm of music, blankets, and glittered liquor bottles.

“Shot o’clock, Candy Cane!” she yells. “Let’s go! Just tits, tequila, and trash talk!”

I wince at the nickname, but let her drag me anyway. She doesn’t mean anything by it. Ruby’s never needed permission to rename people. She decides you’re hers and that’s that. It’s how we became friends. Or rather, how she decided we were.

And for once, I don’t resist.

I take the damn shot. The glass is warm in my hand, condensation clinging like a second skin.

For a second, I don’t feel out of place at all.

She shoves a glass into my hand before I can protest. “You’re late. That means double.”

“Oh my God,” I mutter, but I toss it back. It burns. Sharp. Cleansing. The tequila hits my throat with the sting of a slap and settles low in my chest, blooming heat through the hollow parts I usually keep locked up tight. For a moment, I don’t feel cracked. Just flushed. Present. Here.

Frankie lounges nearby, her black combat boots kicked up on the edge of the pool table, owning the whole damn world.

The candlelight catches the silver rings on her fingers. They look almost ancient. Rings that seem to remember things we’ve all tried to forget. My gaze lingers on them longer than it should. Something about the way they gleam, mirroring back everything but the living, makes my spine prickle.

“We’re starting with exes and ending in unresolved childhood trauma,” she calls, flipping a bottle cap into a Solo cup with eerie accuracy. “You in?”

I should say no. I should walk away. But something inside me, something tired of always being tired, laughs. Quiet, but real. The sound surprises me. It feels like an exhale I forgot I needed.

Darla struts by in a cherry red skirt and curled hair that could survive a hurricane.

She looks every bit the 1950s housewife freshly returned from burying her third husband.

She offers me a mimosa in a mason jar with the kind of sharp-smiled confidence that dares me to refuse.

The citrus hits my nose before the glass reaches my lips—bright, fizzy, laced with danger.

For a moment, she reminds me of the women people mistake for decoration. Beautiful. Untouchable. But dangerous in all the right ways.

“Take the drink,” she says. “Or I’ll start singing show tunes.”

“She’ll do it,” Frankie warns. “She knows all of Grease 2 .”

“Don’t tempt me,” Darla purrs.

Sloane watches it all from the couch, beer in one hand, the other wrapped around a blanket with the ease of some chill biker-mom sorceress. “You’re already part of the mess. Might as well sit down.”

So I do. Even though my legs are stiff and my instincts scream that this is dangerous because it’s good. Because I want it. And I don’t know what to do with that.

My body doesn’t know how to rest without bracing. But the couch sinks beneath me with the weight of something that’s been waiting. The pillow smells of cinnamon, shampoo, and lemon-scented cleaner. A domestic kind of rebellion.

My fingers absently trace the rim of the mason jar, tapping a quiet rhythm only I can hear. The beat settles something in my chest, a metronome ticking in the background of all this chaos.

Frankie slides down beside me, her energy quieter but no less sharp. She doesn’t press. Doesn’t pry. Just watches. After a while, her eyes catch on the silver crescent necklace around my throat. Ruby gave it to me years ago. Her expression shifts. Just slightly.

Then she says, “You dream much, Candy?”

I blink. “What?”

Frankie smirks. “Right. Sorry. You just give off vaguely haunted dream girl vibes.”

I stare at her. “Is that a compliment?”

“Absolutely not,” Ruby cackles from across the room, snorting as she nearly spills her drink. Laughter rings out around us—high and reckless and real.

Frankie leans in a little. “Just wondering if your dreams ever feel more like… memories. Out of order. Fractured.”

I blink. “No?”

But a chill skates down my spine anyway.

My shoulders tighten. My breath catches in my throat and sticks there, a secret I don’t want to unpack.

I don’t believe in magic. Not really. But there’s something about the way Frankie looks at me.

Her expression holds the weight of something already known—something I haven’t let myself remember.

She nods with the ease of someone who expected that. Her gaze flickers to the candlelight. “Some truths don’t come all at once.”

What the hell does that mean? I don’t ask. I don’t want to know. But I file it away anyway. She knows something. About this place. About me, maybe.

About him.

The night spins on—chaos wrapped in soft lighting.

There’s a playlist called Hot Girl Meltdown , and someone cranks it until the speakers threaten mutiny.

At one point, Ruby challenges Darla to a dance-off to a remix of “Goodbye Earl” and “Bad Romance.” Frankie steals the last slice of pizza and defends it with the ferocity of a raccoon wielding a switchblade.

Darla throws a pool ball at her and misses. Barely.

“I feel like I walked into a coven that drinks more than it curses,” I mutter.

“Oh, we curse,” Sloane says, eyes twinkling. “We just also make amazing cocktails.”

I didn’t expect to stay long. I thought I’d drink one thing, say one joke, and bolt. But I don’t. I end up curled into the corner of the couch in Malachi’s old hoodie, nursing a warm beer and letting the noise sink into my bones. The fabric carries his scent; soap, leather, and storm winds.

It doesn’t feel like a trap.

It feels like breathing.

Someone puts on a cover of an old acoustic ballad; one I haven’t heard in years.

I used to play it in my room when I still believed music could fix things.

My fingers twitch, muscle memory pulling at the ghost of my guitar.

The ache isn’t just in my hands now. It’s in my throat, behind my eyes, down the length of my spine, a melody trying to claw its way free.

Without thinking, I trace a slow, silent beat against my thigh. A rhythm that used to soothe me when the world spun too fast. When silence got too loud and I needed something steady to hold on to.

Then Frankie flops down beside me, eyes knowing. “You look less murdery.”

“I’m still deciding.”

She grins. “Let me know if you need help burying anything.”

“You’re not supposed to tell people that,” Sloane calls from the bar. “At least not until after the trust fall.”

Laughter bubbles in my throat. I swallow it. But it stays there. Warm. Strange. Dangerous.