Chapter 5 - The Clubhouse
Twenty miles outside of town, past the salvage yards and the abandoned grain elevators, sat a long, low-slung building made of corrugated tin and cinder blocks. It looked like a machine shop from the outside, complete with stacked tires and rusted exhaust pipes leaning against the walls.
Inside, it was another world.
The air smelled of cedar smoke from a massive stone fireplace in the corner, fried bacon, and old paper. A string of yellow Christmas lights hung along the exposed wooden rafters, casting a warm, amber glow over a room lined with battered leather sofas, pool tables, and shelves packed with motorcycle parts and dog-eared paperbacks.
Emma sat wrapped in three oversized wool blankets on a sofa that smelled of woodsmoke and motor oil. A steaming mug of hot cocoa—loaded with three marshmallows that were slowly melting into a white goo—sat on a wooden crate serving as a coffee table.
Across from her sat Tiny—a man who was six-foot-four, weighed three hundred pounds, had a beard down to his belt, and was currently holding a box of Crayola crayons that he must have bought at the 24-hour truck stop down the interstate.
"Now," Tiny said, his voice a deep, rumbling baritone that sounded like a cello being played underwater. "You said you liked flowers, right?"
Emma nodded, taking a small, cautious sip of the cocoa. It was the sweetest thing she had tasted in two years. "My mom had a garden. Before."
"Before what?" Tiny asked gently, carefully pulling a green crayon from the box.
"Before she went to the hospital and didn't come back."
Tiny stopped. He looked down at the green wax cylinder in his massive, grease-stained fingers for a long moment. Then he looked over at the wall behind the sofa—a wall covered not in paint, but in a sprawling, chaotic mural of bikes, skulls, American flags, and... right in the middle, a cluster of bright orange and yellow marigolds drawn with surprising care.
"Your mom would've liked those," Tiny said softly. "The flowers, I mean."
"Clare said they looked like trash," Emma whispered, her eyes dropping back to her cocoa.
"Clare don't know shit about art," a voice said from the doorway.
Bear walked in, shedding his wet vest and hanging it on a peg by the door. He looked tired, but there was a strange, sharp glint in his eye—the look of a man who had just finished a very long negotiation and knew he held all the cards.
"Where is she?" Emma asked, her small body tensing under the blankets.
"She's walking," Bear said, pulling up a wooden stool and sitting down across from her. "Or she will be, once she realizes her car isn't going anywhere. But you ain't going back there, kid."
Emma looked up, her heart doing a strange, fluttering dance in her chest. "My dad... my dad is in Wyoming. He'll be back next week."
"Your dad is in for a rude awakening," Bear said grimly. "Because when we called his cell—yeah, we found his number in your backpack next to your library card—we didn't get voicemail. We got a guy who sounds like he's been living in a motel room for six months while his new girlfriend sells off your mother's things on Facebook Marketplace."
Emma’s breath hitched. She had seen the boxes in the garage last week—the ones with her mother’s dresses, the old porcelain tea set, the framed photographs from the lake. Clare had said they were going to "donate" them.
"They're selling mom's things?" Emma whispered.
May you like
Bear reached out and placed a hand as heavy as a anvil on her small shoulder. It didn't hurt. It felt... solid. Like a mountain that wasn't going anywhere.
"Not anymore they ain't," Bear said. "Boys are already at the house. Clearing out the garage. Bringing everything here."
