Chapter Two
“I’m so sorry for taking up your whole afternoon, Elena. My mouth gets away from me sometimes and I didn’t realize how long we’d been gabbing. I’ll make sure to add the time onto your timecard for your first paycheck.”
“Thank you,” Elena said. On one hand, she felt a little bad about accepting the offer. Taffy was so easy to talk to that she’d lost track of the time as well, so she wasn’t the only one to blame. On the other, she knew she was broke as a joke and couldn’t afford to turn away the money dangling in front of her. “That’d be awesome.”
“Well, I’m excited to let the guys know we’re going to have an office assistant again. Not only will they be glad to have someone finally answering the phone with some consistency, but I think you’re going to fit in perfectly around here.”
“I sure hope so,” she said, standing and stretching her sore muscles to work out some of the kinks that had settled in from sitting for so long. When her lower back protested, she stifled a groan. The extra shifts she’d picked up at Medina’s to make up for the deficit between her bank account and the hospital bill were killing her. She hadn’t had a day off in a long while and she was feeling every bit of it.
“Are you sure you can start on Monday? I don’t want to upset anyone at Medina’s by stealing you away without notice. My husbands would never forgive me if I pissed off the owners of their favorite taco shop.”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about Medina’s,” she explained sitting back down. The last thing she wanted Taffy to think was that she'd burn any bridges now that she had a new job. “I’ll actually still be working there around my hours here. Believe me, Mama J and Mr. Medina were the first people I told after Marisol about looking for another job. They knew it was coming though. Especially now that the semester is over, and Marisol needs most of her shifts back.”
“You know, until I saw your last name was Rojas, I thought you were a Medina. You look so much like their daughter.”
“A lot of folks think that Marisol and I are sisters,” Elena shared with a nod. It actually occurred more often than not considering they both rocked the same tanned skin, long curly dark hair, and more curves than most men could handle. The resemblance was definitely there. “I’ve been best friends with ‘Sol since we met in kindergarten and spent more time at their house than I did my own. The Medinas practically raised me.” She paused to snort. “Who am I kidding, they did raise me. I moved in with them when I was fifteen and was treated like one of their own even before that.”
“Really?” Taffy asked, her expression curious.
“Really.” Elena swallowed past the lump in her throat at the reminder of what a dysfunctional family she came from. “I’d spent my birthday with ‘Sol and her family that weekend and when Mr. Medina drove me home the next day, they were gone. They’d packed up everything in our trailer and walked away. No note or nothing.”
“They just left?” Taffy asked horrified, covering her mouth. When Elena nodded, she swallowed hard. “I can’t—you were just a child. That’s awful.”
“No. It was the best thing that could have happened to me,” Elena argued with a shake of her head. She’d thought the same thing at first too before she’d seen the bigger picture. “One of the reasons I was with the Medinas all the time was because they couldn’t handle taking care of a kid to begin with. My dad was a drunk and my mom had demons of her own that she was struggling with. They were both…unwell. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t get taken away from them when I was in grade school with how often I showed up without a coat in the middle of winter. They did me a favor when they disappeared—err, at least that’s how I prefer to look back at it. If they’d stayed around, they would have taken me down with them. I have all the family I need with the Medinas and that’s what’s important.”
“You’re absolutely right. That is what’s important,” Taffy echoed with a thoughtful look on her face. “There is no one way to be a family. Look at us for instance. The Iron Seeds are far from your typical family, but what we have is perfect.”
“It sure seems to be.” Elena bit her lip to keep from saying anything else. There were so many questions that she wanted to ask but she also didn’t want to get fired from a job she hadn’t had a chance to even start, so she kept her lips zipped.
Taffy chuckled and shook a finger in her direction. “C’mon. Don’t be shy. Tell me what you’ve heard and then I’ll fill you in on the real history of the Iron Seeds. You’ll need to know anyways if you’re going to be working here since all the guys are club members.”
“Ummm,” she stalled, trying not to bounce up and down in her chair in excitement thinking about all the tea that was about to be spilled. She loved juicy gossip, and this was the juiciest to be had in their Midwest college town. Everyone tiptoed around talking about the polyamorous proclivities of the MC outright, but they hinted at quite a lot. Most of it was so banana pants that it was beyond laughable. Especially the rumors floating around the church folk. The Irons had the Catholics, Baptists, and even the Episcopalians clutching all of their crosses with their ‘hedonistic ways.’
“C’mon,” Taffy urged with a smile. “Hit me with it.”
“Where should I start?" Elena mumbled to herself as she tried to remember the most recent rumors that had made the rounds. “Pastor Jenkins thinks ya’ll are running a cult out of your compound on the edge of town—a sex cult according to some sermons.”
“A sex cult?” Taffy’s eyes widened comically at hearing that bit of information. “I don’t—I mean—how can? You know what? Never mind. I don’t even want to know.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, wrinkling her nose. “You really don’t. The recordings I watched were disturbing.”
Elena had seen snippets of it online after she’d heard some customers at Medina’s talking about it. She’d almost instantly regretted the decision. She wasn’t sure if Pastor Jenkins normally got that worked up, but the man looked almost feral as he went on a rampage about polyamory being akin to bestiality, somehow trying to form a connection between the two. To say it was uncomfortable to watch would be an understatement. By the end of his sermon, he’d turned bright red and was spitting all over the place like a rabid animal. It was insane.
“Really?” Taffy asked, wrinkling her nose as if she smelled something bad.
“Really,” Elena assured her. “Pastor Jenkins got really…weird,” she finished, for lack of a better word. That was about as far as she wanted to go into what she’d seen and heard. There was no way in hell she was about to tell her new boss that the town pastor thought the Iron Seeds was filled with a bunch of goat fuckers. “Definitely not a fan.”
“He may not be a fan, but he’s certainly a hypocrite. That man has absolutely no problem asking us for donations every time the church needs something.” Taffy made a face, huffing under her breath. “I’m pretty sure the Iron Seeds practically rebuilt that place with all the checks we’ve written. It will serve him right if the next check has ‘donation from sex cult’ noted in the memo line.”
“Knowing Pastor Jenkins, he’ll still cash it,” Elena snorted out on a laugh. Picturing his reaction made her giggle even more. “I like you, Taffy.”
“Why thank you, darling. I like you too.” Taffy winked, propping her elbows up on the desk as she leaned forward. “That’s why I’m going to tell you the real story behind the Iron Seeds and our proclivity for relationships that aren’t necessarily traditional.”
“Unusual business as usual. Got it.” Elena made a mental note to use the word proclivity more often in the future. She got comfortable in the chair. “I’m ready.”