Always Someone’s Monster (Battle Crows MC 1)

It was one of the biggest bowls I’d ever seen, and when I filled it up, it took a quarter of the food in the metal trash can to do it.

After placing his food bowl on the ground, I gave one last glance at the now closed garage door before locking the door tight.

I felt just as at home in Clem’s dad’s house as I did in my own dad’s house.

After looking through the fridge and settling on leftovers—what looked like chicken potpie without the crust, because Haggard likely ate the crust and then left all the other shit to be eaten later—I threw the bowl into the microwave.

Then I started stripping out of my clothes.

I was no longer in my chicken boots, but I had on my really nice black yoga pants that passed off as dress pants, a nice button-down flowy black top, and a bra that I hated with the fire of a thousand suns.

Once all of that was off, I walked into the laundry room to look for a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

Luckily, Clem and I were close to the same size.

I could go out to get my bag from the car, but then I’d have to go outside, and something about outside—and the open garage door—had freaked me out slightly. So borrowing Clem’s clothes it was.

At least, that’d been my intention when I walked in the door to the laundry room.

Clem split her time between her mom’s condo and her dad’s place. She could afford a place of her own, yet her parents worked so much there really was no reason for her to get her own place when she practically had two all to herself.

Even Boston, her brother, kept weird hours. When he wasn’t going to school or practice, he was in his room doing weird teenage boy shit.

But this week, he was visiting friends of his that’d moved away when he was younger. He was in Broken Bow with them for the next week.

My eyes lit on Boston’s t-shirt, an Intercourse Baseball t-shirt from school. Then my gaze lit on all of Clem’s clothes that were hanging up on a rack beside the dryer.

But, as if that’d been my brain’s subconscious intention all along, my gaze went to the opposite side of the laundry room where the dirty clothes were.

The hampers that were along the back wall that held baskets almost overflowing with clothes.

I swallowed hard and walked toward it, slowly picking through basket one of three.

The basket that held all of Haggard’s clothes.

The first thing I pulled out was a pair of jeans.

They weren’t covered in dirt and grime—as some of his stuff was that I saw him wearing.

They were just a dirty pair of jeans that’d been worn and discarded for the wash.

The next thing that I found was a gray t-shirt.

The one that I loved seeing on him.

One that when he was wearing it, I could do nothing but stare at his wide, defined chest.

I licked my lips and pulled it out of the wash, holding it up for inspection.

The t-shirt was obviously worn, wrinkled, and…

I brought it up to my face and inhaled deeply.

The scent of Haggard entered my lungs, and I closed my eyes as I breathed in his woodsy scent.

There was something about Haggard’s scent that had my synapses firing.

My nipples pebbled, and my toes curled.

Something between his Old Spice deodorant—that, yes, I literally snooped to find one night after staying with Clem—and his natural scent.

But this day, ohhh, this day? The day he’d worn this plain gray t-shirt, he’d put on cologne.

The cologne.

The cologne that I’d bought him because the scent had reminded me of him.

Savage by Dior.

It’d cost me sixty-eight dollars. Sixty-eight dollars of my hard-earned babysitting money that I’d spent an entire night with three asshole children to get.

I’d given it to him one Christmas, and he’d smiled and said thank you when I said ‘the name reminded me of him.’

I inhaled again, loving the smell of him paired with that cologne.

It made me feel like I’d been with him when he wore that shirt.

“Oh, shit,” I said as I slipped into the shirt. “I’m so going to hell.”

Going to hell for coveting my best friend’s father. My father’s best friend. At least one of them.

Haggard, Taos, and my dad had become friends when they were younger. Taos and my dad had stayed friends while Haggard had stayed more in the background. At least, he had until Clem and I had met when we were in the fourth grade.

From then on, Clem and I were inseparable, and Haggard had come back into the fold.

At least, mostly.

Haggard was friends with Taos and my dad, about as much as a criminal biker could be with two police officers.

Though they made it work.

They did a lot of looking the other way, according to my dad.