Unbeautifully(4)

“She is such a little monster,” Eva said, smiling fondly at Ivy.

“An adorable monster,” Kami added.

“Ha,” Eva scoffed. “You only think she’s adorable because you don’t h—”

Done with the conversation, I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked off, weaving my way through the groups of bikers, women, and children who were talking, laughing, dancing. It was serene. Picture-perfect.

Well, almost picture-perfect.

“Danny!”

Cringing, I spun around, ready to hurry in the opposite direction but wasn’t fast enough. My longtime friend Anabeth snatched my bicep and yanked me sideways. I stumbled to a stop and faced her. Like me, Anabeth was blonde, blue-eyed, and pretty. We were both in shape but whereas Anabeth was thin, I was more muscular. Ten years of gymnastics and four years of cheerleading will do that to you. I kept my hair long, highlighted, and styled, and Anabeth had hers short, cut into a smooth bob with razor-straight bangs. Currently she was wearing a deep blue mini dress and chunky blue espadrilles. In her ears were giant blue hoops, much like the fifty-plus she had on each of her arms. A few years ago I would have complimented her outfit, would have been wearing something similar myself, most likely pink. But that wasn’t the case anymore. Anabeth and I were worlds apart. Actually, everyone and I were worlds apart . . .

I’d lost something inside of me, something important, something special that had made me who I’d been, and slowly the color had seeped out of my world.

Anabeth gave my dark-washed jeans and black V-neck tee a once-over. Her gaze landed on my feet and she narrowed her eyes. “Are you wearing green . . . Converse sneakers?”

Sighing, I looked down at my feet. I was. Chucks were all Eva wore aside from a few pairs of flip-flops, so in turn, Chucks were all Ivy and I got when Eva went shoe shopping. Combined, I would say the three of us had about a hundred pairs in a wide variety of colors.

“I kinda like them,” I said and shrugged.

“I dig ’em,” Freebird said. Freebird was an old biker who’d left his brain back in nineteen sixty-five. He had his old lady with him today, Apple Dumplin’, who, like him, had long gray hair and more wrinkles then a crinkled-up piece of paper.

“Wat up, Danny girl?” Tap said, holding out his fist. I fist-bumped him and smiled.

Tap was in his late forties, not overly tall but made up for what he lacked in height in muscle. Built like a boxer, his muscles along with his long black hair and goatee were intimidating unless you knew him. He was one of the Horsemen’s most even-tempered boys.

“Hannah says her hellos. She’s hopin’ you’re comin’ to visit Atlanta again soon.”

Hannah was Tap’s daughter. When Tap’s wife, Tara, had left him, she’d taken Hannah and moved to Atlanta. Hannah was older than me, but we were both the daughters of Horsemen and had always known each other.

“I called her last week,” I said, smiling. “She told me the good news.”

He grinned. “Can’t believe my baby’s havin’ a baby.”

“Here ya go, babe,” Ripper said, shoving in between Tap and Apple, offering a bottle of beer to Anabeth.

“Thanks,” Anabeth said, smiling up at him.

Ripper stared down at Anabeth, his lips curving into a grin, his expression smug, knowing.

My stomach lurched and I quickly turned away, wanting to make a hasty exit before he noticed I was standing there. Ripper and I were . . . There just weren’t words for what Ripper and I were.

I was three years old when my father met Erik “Ripper” Jacobs at a bike rally while on a run through San Antonio. Ripper was only seventeen at the time, having just lost both his parents to a drunk driving accident back home in Los Angeles. He had skipped town two days after the funeral on a stolen motorcycle, just three weeks before his high school graduation.

The boys liked him immediately, and when the Hell’s Horsemen returned to Montana, he was with them.

After only three months of doing grunt work around the club, he was unanimously voted and patched in as a brother. A year later, my father promoted him to sergeant at arms and coined him “Ripper” after “Jack the Ripper,” for being as talented with a blade as he was.

Being so young and new to the club and the life, moving up in the ranks so quickly was virtually unheard of. But Ripper was special and everyone knew it. He always had a smile on his face, a joke on the tip of his tongue. He was good with people, could talk nearly anyone into anything just by flashing a grin.

“Hey there, Ripper!” Apple said happily. “Danny was just tellin’ us that she talked to Hannah last week. Tell us what else she said, Danny girl.”