Unbeautifully(14)

She nodded.

“You bringin’ Ivy?”

She nodded again.

And, yeah, he was out of shit to say.

“I’m out,” he muttered, sitting up straight. “Got shit to do.”

And he left. Feeling like an asshole.



Feeling a chill that had nothing at all to do with the weather, Eva walked back to Kami with her arms wrapped around herself.

Things were bad, so very bad, and she didn’t know how to fix them. She wasn’t even sure that this time they could be fixed.

Which wasn’t fair. She and Deuce had gone through hell and they deserved some peace. And she wanted that peace with him. All she’d ever wanted was him.

“Aw, Evie,” Kami whispered after taking one look at her, probably seeing on her face how heartbroken she felt. “What are you going to do?”

For a moment she said nothing, just stared down at her daughter, the spitting image of her father with her white-blonde hair, icy blue eyes, and multi-dimpled smile. She viewed Ivy as a gift, the culmination of her and Deuce’s misspent years, the phoenix rising from the ashes of their devastation, the one good that shone so brightly against all the bad, it made the bad bearable.

She shrugged. “I’m going to wait. I’m just going to wait and hope he comes back to me.”

Because he had to come back.

“He’s a proud man, Evie. Men like him, they don’t . . .” Kami trailed off and took a deep breath. “What if he doesn’t get over this, what will you do?”

Eva swallowed hard. He had to come back.

There just wasn’t any other option for her. She loved him too much.





Chapter 6


I wasn’t sure if Ripper was staring at me or glaring at me. Either way, I could feel his gaze burning holes in the back of my head, and because of it I had broken out in a cold sweat during a perfectly mild afternoon.

“You okay?” Eva asked me, touching her palm to my forehead. “You feel clammy.”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Fine,” I choked out.

Fine. I was fine. It was a party and I was perfectly fine. I wasn’t freaking out or anything. So I’d had a one-night stand. What was the big deal? But usually when people had one-night stands, they never saw the person again, right? But those people probably hadn’t had one-night stands with a man fourteen years older than them who worked for their father, a father that would probably, no definitely freak out if he ever found out. So, what was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to act like everything between us was the same as it had been before?

Which had virtually been nothing, aside from an occasional random conversation that happened in passing.

Wat up, Danny girl?

Hey, Ripper.

That’s it, that’s all; no flirting, no overly long chats, and then suddenly we’d had sex and now what?

God, was I supposed to talk to him? And with Nikki here, his once-in-a-while girlfriend, hanging all over him, how could I? Suddenly, I couldn’t understand what Ripper had ever seen in her. Why he’d wasted years being with a club whore. She was fake and trashy and wore horrible clothing that did nothing but exacerbate how trashy she really was. And just like that, I suddenly hated a woman I’d never given half a thought to before.

Oh God, I was so uncomfortable, feeling oddly embarrassed and exposed and wishing I were anywhere but at the club and Ripper would stop stare-glaring at me.

Stupidly, I chanced a glance, and of course he was staring at me. Or glaring. I turned away and tried to concentrate on the conversation happening around me.

“Tegen,” Dorothy said, sliding an arm over her daughter’s shoulders and pulling her close. “Tell everyone your news.”

Dorothy’s daughter was a hot mess. Almost sixteen years old and she still hadn’t grown out of her middle school awkwardness. She’d inherited Dorothy’s flaming red hair but hers had more of an orangey tint to it. Whereas Dorothy’s was thick and long with soft waves, Tegen’s was just plain frizzy and usually sticking out all over the place. Her almond-shaped green eyes were always hidden by a pair of thick black frames, on her teeth were a full set of braces that for some reason she’d decided looked good with bright orange rubber bands. And her clothing . . .

Despite Dorothy’s best efforts, Tegen refused to dress like a girl. Not that the tomboy look couldn’t be sexy, it was. On women like Eva. Tegen looked like an awkward little girl swimming in ugly clothing two sizes too big for her.

“Tegen?”

Tegen didn’t answer, in fact she hadn’t even heard her mother. She was too busy staring across the lawn at . . .

I followed her line of sight. Cage.

I would have laughed if I didn’t feel so sick to my stomach. When she wasn’t sitting in a dark corner listening to Dashboard Confessional, she could be found staring at my brother.