Chapter 2: Homecoming

Welcome home, here’s a divorce. Can I get a beer? – Riffraff 

It was not the homecoming that Riffraff had wanted. But it was the one he got.

His grandfather met him at the airport. He went to the house that his wife lived in. The door was opened by a blonde man in a polo and khakis. 

“I’m looking for my wife?” he told the stranger who nodded.

“Honey,” the man called over his shoulder, “he’s here.”

A moment later, his very pregnant wife came around the corner. Riffraff hadn’t seen her in over a year.

“I’m guessing that it’s not mine.” Riffraff said dryly. 

“It wasn’t working between us.” She said. 

“I got out of the army for you.” Riffraff pointed out. “You couldn’t handle being married to a soldier, remember?”

“What did you want me to say?” she demanded angrily. 

“How about, I don’t want to be married to you?” he suggested. “Can I at least see my daughter?”

“She’s not here. I’ll tell her you stopped by.”  She handed him some papers.

“What’s this?” he asked even though he could tell that they were divorce papers. He wanted her to say it. 

“Just sign them.”

“Sign what?” he asked crossing his arms. 

“Just sign the papers.”

“If you think that I’m going to sign some random papers, you’ve got to be out of your mind.”

“You know what they are.”  The man said. 

“This is between me and my wife. I don’t know who you are, but I think it’s time for you to leave my house.”

“It’s not your house.”  He bowed up to Riffraff. 

“No?” Riffraff gave him an angry glare. “Then whose name is on the VA loan for it? It sure as hell isn’t yours.”

His angry eyes then focused on his wife who would not even look at him. “Is this why you suddenly decided that we needed a house? What about five months ago? You thought, I’ll get Riff to buy me a house for my new life and he’ll just walk away and everything will be good. Is that what you seriously thought?”

Riffraff grabbed the papers and stalked back to the pickup where his grandfather still sat. He jerked open the door and threw his bag in the floor as he climbed in.

“I need a lawyer.”

“Thought you might. You have an appointment tomorrow morning.” Rafe said putting the pickup in gear and heading for the Shack. “Your Nan is planning a surprise party and we’re early. Let’s go get you a beer and in a better mood.”

Sinner’s Shack, or simply The Shack, was bought by the Devil’s Saints MC the year before his daughter was born. The unfinished hotel lost its funding when the highway expansion fell through. At the time, the club was growing and heavy in the gun and drug trade. Four years ago, Sinner and the majority of his family, along with other members and their families were gunned down by the Brotherhood. 

Riffraff had been stationed in California at the time. Crystal had eagerly gone to California and Hawaii. The other duty stations she had no desire to go to. If he was honest with himself, the warning signs had been there for a long time. But he saw what his grandparents had and wanted the same thing. Past tense. Wanted. Now, he just wants to provide for his daughter and hang out with his brothers and friends. 

The welcome at the clubhouse was much better than the one he had just been at. Riffraff played a few rounds of pool with his brothers, had several beers and had no regrets taking a bunny up to his room. Or the blow job he got in the back hallway. 

He was in a much better mood when he walked into his childhood home. Balloons and a large welcome home banner greeted him at the front door. His ten year old daughter ran out to meet him. 

“I missed you, daddy!” Angel jumped up into his arms and wrapped herself around him. 

“I missed you too, baby girl.” He hugged her tightly to him and simply savored the feel of his daughter in his arms. 

Riffraff knew that he and Crystal were not going to make it. They were on borrowed time as it was. But, when she had suggested buying the house, he thought that they were going to try to work it out.

When he had come home to sign the papers on the house, she had been out of town with a family emergency. He now wondered if there actually had been an emergency. 

It worked out in his favor because now it was just his name on the house. He had no problem providing his soon to be ex wife and daughter with a house. But he’d be damned if he was going to be manipulated into buying a house for her new family. 

As the sun went down, Riffraff sat on the back patio with Angel asleep in his lap. Rafe and Nan walked out to join him. His grandfather handed him a beer and took a seat at the table.

“I’m sorry about Crystal.” Nan whispered. 

“I half expected the divorce. Not the man who was already in my place.” He admitted. 

“What are you going to do?” 

“Cranks already told me I had a job at Wilson’s. I’ll go talk to him tomorrow.”

“I meant about the divorce.”

“I’m going to give her a divorce. But I’m also getting my house. I figure I’ll rent it to her. The mortgage payment and whatever I have to pay in child support.”

“Your daughter lives there too.” Rafe pointed out. 

“Which is why I’m not going to evict them.” He kissed the top of Angel’s head. “It’ll be her house when she grows up.”

“You’re not going to live there? It’s yours, you could.” Nan said softly. 

“There’s no way that I would live in a house that she picked for her new family.”